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 Yet, it's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news or Thursday, October twenty two and surprisingly we
Speaker 1: got a lot to go through. So last week, Netflix
Speaker 1: unveiled the long anticipated plan to offer an AD subsidized
Speaker 1: subscription tier, which rolls out here in the United States
Speaker 1: and early November. Subscribers at that tier will get access
Speaker 1: to most, but not all, of netflix is streaming content.
Speaker 1: They will be able to view it at a maximum
Speaker 1: resolution of seven, which is at the base level of
Speaker 1: high definition. Subscribers will get ADS obviously, and in return,
Speaker 1: their subscription will cost just x dollars nine nine cents
Speaker 1: per month. Also, they will only be allowed to watch
Speaker 1: Netflix on one supported device at a time, so there's
Speaker 1: no simultaneous viewing option there. If someone else in the
Speaker 1: house wants to watch Netflix, tough luck, they have to
Speaker 1: get their own account. The other tiers of service will
Speaker 1: include Basic that has no ADS, so there's Basic with
Speaker 1: ads and Basic without ads. Basic without ads has the
Speaker 1: same sort of limitations as Basic. When it comes to resolution, however,
Speaker 1: it should have access to the full Netflix catalog, so
Speaker 1: you won't have the same limitation there. It will cost
Speaker 1: nine dollars nine cents per month. Then you've got Standard tier,
Speaker 1: this is at fifteen dollars for nine cents per month.
Speaker 1: At that one you actually get a resolution of up
Speaker 1: to ten eighty So full HD also allows up to
Speaker 1: two devices to access the service at the same time.
Speaker 1: Then you've got Premium that's nineteen nine per month and
Speaker 1: that allows for streaming an ultra h D and it
Speaker 1: can support up to four devices with simultaneous viewing. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, this week, Netflix announced that in early
Speaker 1: it will roll out a program to address password sharing. Now,
Speaker 1: the company has been piloting this already in various Latin
Speaker 1: America countries for several months. The ideas that Netflix will
Speaker 1: identify households that have shared user names and passwords with
Speaker 1: other people outside that household, and then they will give
Speaker 1: those people and a chance to add sub accounts to
Speaker 1: their subscription. So each sub account will require an additional
Speaker 1: monthly fee, which is likely to be somewhere between three
Speaker 1: dollars fifty cents and four dollars per month. Netflix has
Speaker 1: not actually shared that yet. Folks who have been using
Speaker 1: someone else's password uh and who have established a profile
Speaker 1: will still have that profile maintained. Their watch history will
Speaker 1: still be there under this plan. So if you are
Speaker 1: someone who's been piggybacking on someone else's account and you've
Speaker 1: created your own viewing profile in their account, that will
Speaker 1: still be preserved, assuming that the primary account holder agrees
Speaker 1: to pay this extra amount. Otherwise it's gonna get shut down.
Speaker 1: So Netflix is kind of giving people an option to
Speaker 1: subscribe in a much lower amount if they're piggybacking onto
Speaker 1: someone else's account. This is all part of the company's
Speaker 1: strategy to address problems that it encountered earlier this year,
Speaker 1: when the company revealed in an earnings call that had
Speaker 1: lost more subscribers than it had added for the first
Speaker 1: time in Netflix's history. The stock price for Netflix plummeted
Speaker 1: after that announcement, and we've seen ripples go throughout the
Speaker 1: entire streaming ecosystem, not just Netflix, but well beyond, and
Speaker 1: I think part of that stems from Netflix's own kind
Speaker 1: of a stumble earlier this year. So Netflix is now
Speaker 1: pushing back. It's recently announced it added more subscribe brs
Speaker 1: and the stock price jumped again. And now has these
Speaker 1: additional revenue sources ready to launch, and I suspect Netflix
Speaker 1: will adjust its production strategy moving forward as well. The
Speaker 1: company had already dissolved several production departments. I would not
Speaker 1: be surprised to see Netflix take a more conservative approach
Speaker 1: to producing exclusive content in the future. We've already seen
Speaker 1: David zaslav Over at Warner Brothers Discovery make announcements that
Speaker 1: indicate that company is definitely taking a more conservative approach
Speaker 1: and reserving higher production value stuff for venues like movie theaters.
Speaker 1: So this might be part of the transition into the
Speaker 1: new era of streaming services where Netflix no longer can
Speaker 1: command the entire landscape and has too many competitors, and
Speaker 1: once you grow to a certain amount, you can't really
Speaker 1: grow much more like you hit you hit uh saturation
Speaker 1: at that point. Uber has announced that the company has
Speaker 1: formed an advertising department and that before too long, Uber
Speaker 1: users will have the pleasure of encountering ads at pretty
Speaker 1: much every stage of using Uber, as well as Uber
Speaker 1: eats yea. So here's the skinny Uber plans. What are
Speaker 1: called journey ads for passengers, and these ads will take
Speaker 1: into account at least some of the personal data of
Speaker 1: users who are making use of Uber in order to
Speaker 1: target them with advertising, because we all know targeted advertising
Speaker 1: is way more valuable than just blanket ads. So presumably
Speaker 1: this is going to include geolocation data so that you
Speaker 1: get geo relevant ads beamed at you when you're using Uber,
Speaker 1: and that can get into some really tricky territory that
Speaker 1: I'll talk about in a second. But the idea is
Speaker 1: that let's say you hail a ride and you are
Speaker 1: going to I don't know, an entertainment destination, and you
Speaker 1: will get ads through that whole process of using Uber.
Speaker 1: You'll get them while you wait for your ride, You'll
Speaker 1: get them as you ride to your destination. We have
Speaker 1: seen Lift start to outfit cars with tablets. It's very
Speaker 1: likely the Uber is doing the same thing, so that
Speaker 1: you will have screens around you, and it means you
Speaker 1: don't really have the option to, you know, not watch
Speaker 1: the ad, because of course, if you have it on
Speaker 1: your phone, you can just make your phone go dark
Speaker 1: and not pay attention to the ad that way, though,
Speaker 1: I mean I always monitor my ride because I don't
Speaker 1: know there's a little bit of paranoia in me to
Speaker 1: make sure that the driver is not, you know, taking
Speaker 1: me out to the back country to off me or something.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it looks like you're gonna be seeing ads
Speaker 1: no matter what you do, and the ads are going
Speaker 1: to come from a single source per transaction, which I
Speaker 1: think is actually interesting. You're not gonna get, you know,
Speaker 1: like an ad for toilet paper one second and then
Speaker 1: car insurance the next. Rather the ad should in theory
Speaker 1: be targeted at you and presumably will take into account
Speaker 1: either your destination or your starting point or both. So
Speaker 1: if you're using Uber to say, go to the theater district,
Speaker 1: maybe you start to get ads for a local restaurant
Speaker 1: or something like that. Similarly, Uber eats will be able
Speaker 1: to display ads pretty much through the whole process of
Speaker 1: using that app as well, including promoting certain restaurants above others. Uh.
Speaker 1: I always look for that when I use a delivery service,
Speaker 1: because I would rather get the highest rated options like
Speaker 1: customer ratings, rather than an option that paid to be
Speaker 1: promoted over everybody else. Anyway, I mentioned the geolocation data
Speaker 1: earlier being an issue, and here's a very real and
Speaker 1: scary example that could happen. Women who want to use
Speaker 1: a ride haling app to go to a reproductive healthcare
Speaker 1: clinic are likely going to desire and expect a level
Speaker 1: of privacy, and specifically in the wake of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court striking down the protections of Row versus Wade, keeping
Speaker 1: the information private is important to women's health and security,
Speaker 1: and we've got states that have threatened to prosecute women
Speaker 1: even if they go outside the state in order to say,
Speaker 1: seek an abortion. So having a service that is using
Speaker 1: geolocation data in such a way as to target people
Speaker 1: potentially could have other consequences down the line. Now, for
Speaker 1: its part, Uber claims that it aggregates information that doesn't
Speaker 1: get as granular as specific individuals, but there's still a
Speaker 1: massive concern about this kind of process and what it
Speaker 1: means to privacy and security. Uber reps have said that
Speaker 1: as the program rolls out, it could make the cost
Speaker 1: of Uber less expensive because it will now be subsidized
Speaker 1: by ads, but so far, no one has actually mentioned
Speaker 1: any sort of ballpark estimate about you know, how much
Speaker 1: of a discount folks should expect. So, yeah, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of negative reaction to this announcement, which I
Speaker 1: totally understand and I don't disagree with I also feel
Speaker 1: a key about this, but we'll have to see what
Speaker 1: what what it's like once it actually manifests. This next
Speaker 1: story should go into our Spooky Episodes series. The f
Speaker 1: a A as the Federal Aviation Administration here in the
Speaker 1: United States, is looking into a case of GPS interference
Speaker 1: that affected the Dallas Fort Worth Airport earlier this week.
Speaker 1: The interference affected about forty miles of airspace that we're
Speaker 1: close to d f W. That's Dallas Fort worths Airport.
Speaker 1: While GPS navigation isn't critical for air travel, it is
Speaker 1: a tool that pilots rely on pretty regularly. Without GPS,
Speaker 1: pilots have to use older methods and navigation, and these
Speaker 1: older methods still work and everything. They're just us convenient.
Speaker 1: So as a result, GPS interference can lead to delays
Speaker 1: and flight cancelations and that kind of thing. So this
Speaker 1: is a fairly big deal. It can impact air travel.
Speaker 1: It's just it's not it's not like a life endangerment
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Moreover, as of this recording, no one's
Speaker 1: really sure what actually caused this GPS interference in the
Speaker 1: first place. Now, sometimes military exercises can affect GPS, but
Speaker 1: these usually last a fairly short while, and no one's
Speaker 1: really come forward to say that's what happened in this case.
Speaker 1: And this case lasted from Monday afternoon from around one
Speaker 1: pm local time to Tuesday night around eleven pm local time,
Speaker 1: so more than a full day. Now, it's possible the
Speaker 1: interference was accidental, but it's also possible that this was
Speaker 1: a purposeful act. GPS jamming is a real thing, but
Speaker 1: with a distinct lack of evidence, there's no sense in
Speaker 1: jumping to any conclusions. Yet, a similar situation happened in
Speaker 1: Denver at the beginning of two and I wouldn't call
Speaker 1: this like an alarming trend of jamming attacks or anything
Speaker 1: like that, or just mysterious interference. I wouldn't call it
Speaker 1: a trend at all, but it does indicate that more
Speaker 1: investigations are needed to determine what is causing these events,
Speaker 1: Is there a common cause, are they very different incidents,
Speaker 1: and how might we prevent future ones from happening, particularly
Speaker 1: since we are so you know, at least used to
Speaker 1: having GPS as an option, if not dependent upon it.
Speaker 1: Once again, just to reiterate, worst case scenario. Aircraft really
Speaker 1: just switched to a different navigation method. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to give anyone anxiety if they've got an upcoming,
Speaker 1: you know, air trip. It's not like it's not that
Speaker 1: big a deal, and most it would cause an inconvenience.
Speaker 1: All right, we've got more news to cover, but first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Before the break, we were
Speaker 1: talking about air travel. We get a little bit more
Speaker 1: to talk about here, at least if you are in
Speaker 1: a very exclusive tax bracket. Starlink, the satellite internet provider
Speaker 1: arm of SpaceX, has announced Starlink Aviation this week. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a service that Starlink is going to offer
Speaker 1: to private aircraft, So we're talking about stuff like private
Speaker 1: jets owned by disgustingly rich people and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Starlink is promising speeds of up to three fifty megabits
Speaker 1: per second. That's really impressive for air travel. Business Insider,
Speaker 1: by the way, erroneously reported this as three hundred fifty
Speaker 1: megabytes per second. That's not the same thing. The literal
Speaker 1: jet setters out there are gonna have to cough up
Speaker 1: some serious dough in order to use this technology. Starlink
Speaker 1: announced it will cost a hundred fifty thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: install the Starlink receiver and aircraft. It's not, you know,
Speaker 1: a satellite dish the way a terrestrial consumer would have.
Speaker 1: It's going to have a different form factor. And on
Speaker 1: top of that hundred fifty dollar installation cost, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a monthly service fee that will range between
Speaker 1: twelve thousand, five hundred to twenty five thousand dollars. That's
Speaker 1: per month, So potentially three months of service could set
Speaker 1: someone back seventy five dollars, which is way more than
Speaker 1: what a lot of my friends make in a year.
Speaker 1: What a country anyway. Starlink says the service will launch
Speaker 1: in mid twenty twenty three, and that those with private
Speaker 1: jets who are interested in reserving a system will need
Speaker 1: to PLoP down a five thousand dollar deposit in order
Speaker 1: to get a reservation. I will not be one of those.
Speaker 1: I don't have a private jet. I'm not in that
Speaker 1: tax bracket. The state of Illinois here in the US
Speaker 1: has hit telecommunications and media conglomerate A T and T
Speaker 1: with a twenty three million dollar fine. Why because an
Speaker 1: investigation uncovered that a lobbyist working on behalf of A
Speaker 1: T and T had bribed the ally of a state
Speaker 1: lawmaker to try and sway a policy vote in A
Speaker 1: T and T s favor. A T and T is
Speaker 1: no stranger to political lobbying. In fact, much of the
Speaker 1: internet landscape and telecommunication landscape from a legal perspective is
Speaker 1: the way it is because of companies like A T
Speaker 1: and T using their lobbying pressure to guide policy. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the reasons why net neutrality is
Speaker 1: in the state that it's in. A T and T
Speaker 1: is also no stranger to getting fined, having previously been
Speaker 1: hit with punishments for doing stuff like creating a rather
Speaker 1: dubious definition of unlimited data like calling it unlimited when
Speaker 1: it was in fact limited, or launching programs that reportedly
Speaker 1: took advantage of the hearing impaired. That's awesome. Tech Dirt
Speaker 1: has a partial rundown on the various offenses A T
Speaker 1: and T has committed, as well as more details about
Speaker 1: this recent fine from Illinois. It's in an article titled
Speaker 1: A T and T hit with twenty three million dollar
Speaker 1: fine for bribing Illinois lawmaker, and as Carl Bode of
Speaker 1: tech Dirt pointed out, we've seen a gradual shift in
Speaker 1: the United States when it comes to how the government
Speaker 1: and regulators are dealing with big tech companies, particularly telecommunications companies.
Speaker 1: There's there's been a response long long overdue in my mind,
Speaker 1: two anti competitive practices within the various industries. So we're
Speaker 1: starting to see a shift, uh and more attention and
Speaker 1: pressure put to these companies as they had been used
Speaker 1: to kind of running rampant for for a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: This next news item is disturbing. So I want to
Speaker 1: give a quick trigger warning to folks out there who
Speaker 1: are sensitive to stories about police misconduct, blackmail, and exploitation.
Speaker 1: This one has all of those. You might want to
Speaker 1: skip this news item, all right, So here goes. A
Speaker 1: former police officer named Brian Wilson in Louisville recently pled
Speaker 1: guilty to charges that he had misused a tool called Accurant,
Speaker 1: which is from Lexus Nexus Risk Solutions. So Accurran is
Speaker 1: meant for investigative purposes and it can help draw connections
Speaker 1: between people that otherwise you might not be able to determine.
Speaker 1: So let's use an example, like a hypothetical example. Let's
Speaker 1: say that the police had identified a suspect that they
Speaker 1: believed to be involved in a crime organization, but they
Speaker 1: don't know who this person's contacts are. They don't know
Speaker 1: the identities of anyone else. They just have this suspicion.
Speaker 1: So they might use a tool like Accurant to find
Speaker 1: out who the suspect is regularly in contact with on
Speaker 1: the Internet in order to help the investigation. Like, one
Speaker 1: of the things we have learned recently is that you
Speaker 1: don't even need access to the content of messaging between
Speaker 1: people to start drawing conclusions. Just knowing that two specific
Speaker 1: people are in contact with each other might be enough
Speaker 1: for you to start looking into a person's behaviors. So
Speaker 1: that's a quote unquote legitimate use of this technology. Now,
Speaker 1: x cop Wilson used the same technology to identify and
Speaker 1: target women who were sharing explicit content online with other people.
Speaker 1: Wilson then engaged the services of a hacker and gave
Speaker 1: that hacker some of this information in order to get
Speaker 1: access to that kind of content. Wilson then would reach
Speaker 1: out to these targeted women and threatened to share the
Speaker 1: pirated content with the targets family and friends and employers
Speaker 1: unless the target iterrated more explicit material for Wilson so
Speaker 1: a real scumbag. It was horrifying and disgusting. And yes,
Speaker 1: I know I'm editorializing, but I feel pretty confident in
Speaker 1: saying that. Anyway, Wilson did send explicit materials to people, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe to show that he was following through
Speaker 1: in his threats, maybe to gloat. And he was caught,
Speaker 1: and he was charged, and as I said, he pled
Speaker 1: guilty to those charges. Yesterday, a court sentenced him to
Speaker 1: thirty months in prison, followed by three years of supervision
Speaker 1: and one hours of community service. Interestingly, the prosecution had
Speaker 1: argued that because he had agreed to plead guilty, he
Speaker 1: should receive the shortest sentence possible because he could have
Speaker 1: been facing as much as fifteen years in prison. But
Speaker 1: instead he gets thirty months for targeting women, coercing them
Speaker 1: to share explicit material or otherwise have their lives completely
Speaker 1: upended because he would share the stuff they had been
Speaker 1: sending in private with no intent to release it publicly
Speaker 1: with their loved ones. Great. Oh, Also, he participated in
Speaker 1: something called slushy Gate, which is incredibly entertaining. So that
Speaker 1: was this fun activity in which cops would hurl cups
Speaker 1: of beverages like slushies at people as they drove by,
Speaker 1: you know, real serve and protect kind of stuff. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this news makes me furious. It gets me so mad.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the tech angle, because this
Speaker 1: is tech stuff. I know you didn't tune in to
Speaker 1: hear Jonathan go nuts about law enforcement behaving so reprehensively.
Speaker 1: The reason I am covering this story is because it
Speaker 1: is another example of a long list of examples of
Speaker 1: how authority figures have misused technology that was intended for
Speaker 1: official investigations. This is by far not the first time
Speaker 1: this has happened. There have been numerous incidents. Let me
Speaker 1: talk about two that were discovered in so in the
Speaker 1: state of Minnesota ran an audit on their systems. They
Speaker 1: found out that more than half, more than half of
Speaker 1: the eleven thousand law enforcement officials at the state level
Speaker 1: had misused their data reserves from driver information. They were
Speaker 1: using it to look up stuff like former romantic partners
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. We also saw the same
Speaker 1: thing in two thousand thirteen with the n s A
Speaker 1: because an internal watchdog within the n s A, the
Speaker 1: National Security Agency, revealed that several agents had used the
Speaker 1: n s as extensive surveillance systems to spy on ex
Speaker 1: spouses and that kind of thing. Now, in my mind,
Speaker 1: this is a really good argument against allowing these kinds
Speaker 1: of systems to be used by authorities in the first place,
Speaker 1: or the very least. It's a great argument for instituting
Speaker 1: stricter controls that limit the use and hope of these
Speaker 1: tools and hold people who abuse them accountable and have
Speaker 1: like actionable punishments that directly relate to that and go
Speaker 1: beyond just cyber stalking accusations, which is what Wilson was
Speaker 1: initially was ultimately charged and pled guilty to with cyber stalking.
Speaker 1: So that's why I wanted to cover it in tech stuff,
Speaker 1: because it is a gross overreach of authority to use
Speaker 1: these kind of tools in this way. Okay, let's move
Speaker 1: on to something else. This is actually not upsetting at all.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting. A couple of legislators in New
Speaker 1: Jersey are introducing a proposal to ban car companies from
Speaker 1: offering certain subscription services. This relates to other stories that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this show this year involving car
Speaker 1: companies that lock certain features like heated seats behind a subscription.
Speaker 1: So this proposed bill would ban any service that quote
Speaker 1: utilizes components and hardware already installed on the motor vehicle
Speaker 1: at the time of purchase end quote. So in other words,
Speaker 1: if the car is capable of doing the thing, you
Speaker 1: cannot lock the thing behind a subscription. Now, there is
Speaker 1: an important exception to this. The bill makes an allowance
Speaker 1: for features that have an ongoing cost associated with the features.
Speaker 1: So if the car manufacturer has to pay to maintain
Speaker 1: this feature, like let's say it's a navigation tool, and
Speaker 1: the company behind it obviously has to spend money to
Speaker 1: keep that navigation tool up to date to deal with
Speaker 1: things like when there are changes in roads and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Well, those sort of features can be
Speaker 1: locked behind a subscription because there's this ongoing cost for
Speaker 1: the company. Now you might think, ha, well, that probably
Speaker 1: means that if this bill does become a law, car
Speaker 1: companies will argue that any subscription feature they offer has
Speaker 1: an ongoing cost associated with it, even if it's something
Speaker 1: like heated seats, And technically a lot of them probably
Speaker 1: do have at least a minimal ongoing cost for stuff
Speaker 1: like firmware updates, right, So wouldn't they just use that
Speaker 1: to try and bypass the law and ignore it. And
Speaker 1: you know what, I think you're probably around the money there.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that that is something that will happen
Speaker 1: if this bill does become law. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a proposal right now. Maybe the language will actually change,
Speaker 1: and maybe if it's adopted, it will have more specificity
Speaker 1: built in to prevent edge cases where car companies try
Speaker 1: to argue that a tiny occasional cost amounts to them
Speaker 1: getting the exception to this law. At the very least,
Speaker 1: it sounds like legislators are listening and looking out for
Speaker 1: the consumers. So I find that to be, uh, you
Speaker 1: know good. I'm glad to see that. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: see lawmakers look out for consumers as opposed to the
Speaker 1: companies that that cater to consumers. But you know, again,
Speaker 1: it's just a proposal. We'll have to see if this
Speaker 1: comes a lot. And again it's only for New Jersey.
Speaker 1: This isn't for the full United States, but it could
Speaker 1: set a precedent that we see other states follow in
Speaker 1: the future. We'll just have to keep our eyes on it,
Speaker 1: all right. We've got a few more stories to cover
Speaker 1: before we do that. Let's go and take another break.
Speaker 1: We're back. As I mentioned on Tuesday, YEA, formally, Kanye
Speaker 1: West is purchasing Parlor, the right wing conservative messaging service.
Speaker 1: Technically it's a free speech messaging service, but it was
Speaker 1: largely adopted by right wing conservatives already. That acquisition process
Speaker 1: has had a bit of a rocky aren't. Because Parlor's
Speaker 1: PR team was super happy about this purchase, and so
Speaker 1: they decided to send out an email to a shortlist
Speaker 1: of v I P account holders announcing years purchase of
Speaker 1: the platform. But there was a little problem because they
Speaker 1: had accidentally, I assume, put everyone's email in the C
Speaker 1: C field, not the B C C field, so not
Speaker 1: the blind copy field. But that meant everyone on that
Speaker 1: list who received the email could see the email addresses
Speaker 1: of everyone else who got that email, So effectively, these folks,
Speaker 1: who again represent the most prominent of Parlor's account holders,
Speaker 1: were dockxed by Parlor. Now, granted, in most cases we're
Speaker 1: talking about movers and shakers on the conservative side, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them likely already had at least some
Speaker 1: of those contacts, so it's not like it was the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst, but that v i P list
Speaker 1: also includes you know, some news outlets. There were some
Speaker 1: celebrities on there too. I imagine those celebrities were not
Speaker 1: thrilled to see their personal email addresses unveiled to a
Speaker 1: larger group without their consent. Now, to be clear, this
Speaker 1: is definitely nothing close to being a terrible data breach,
Speaker 1: but it is another embarrassing incident in Parlor's journey, and
Speaker 1: the company has already been the target of hackers. Hackers
Speaker 1: had famously scraped everything from Parlor prior to it getting
Speaker 1: temporarily shut down last year, so so Parlor is no
Speaker 1: stranger to this kind of thing. Back in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the company Live Nation, known for putting on concert events,
Speaker 1: acquired Ticketmaster, the famous ticket broker. At the time, critics
Speaker 1: were worried that this merger could potentially lead to a
Speaker 1: monopolistic and anti competitive approach where this new entity, known
Speaker 1: as Live Nation Entertainment could potentially use its influence to
Speaker 1: muscle out other ticket brokers and also force venues to
Speaker 1: only work with Ticketmaster in return for having access to
Speaker 1: talent that were signed exclusively to Live Nation. And what
Speaker 1: you know it, that's what's happened repeatedly Since the merger,
Speaker 1: there have been a few different calls to break apart
Speaker 1: these two entities to unwind the merger. The most recent
Speaker 1: comes from the American Economic Liberties Project, which today called
Speaker 1: upon the Department of Justice to do that to unwind
Speaker 1: the merger. The organization argues that Live Nation has engaged
Speaker 1: in price gouging as well as forcing venues to accept
Speaker 1: unfavorable conditions or else be deprived of sought after live talent.
Speaker 1: And again, this is not a new accusation. Just google
Speaker 1: Live Nation, ticket Master anti trust and you're gonna see
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of articles coming from different years showing
Speaker 1: the same argument again and again, including some that were
Speaker 1: spearheaded by lawmakers. Now, the difference now is that we're
Speaker 1: starting to see the US government take a stronger stance
Speaker 1: against anti competitive practices, so it's possible this will see
Speaker 1: more results than previous efforts did. Also, just in the
Speaker 1: interest of full disclosure, I should point out I work
Speaker 1: for I heart Media. Obviously, I heart Media is also
Speaker 1: in the live events business. Live Nation is a competitor.
Speaker 1: I am in no way speaking on behalf of I
Speaker 1: heart Media on this. I'm just sharing the news. I
Speaker 1: will say I will never forget when I was looking
Speaker 1: into buying tickets for a show at a local vinee
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and I had to go to Ticketmaster.
Speaker 1: It was the only place where I could buy a ticket,
Speaker 1: and I saw that the convenience fee was ten dollars
Speaker 1: more than the ticket price itself. So like ticket prices
Speaker 1: twenty bucks and the convenience fee was thirty. That was
Speaker 1: enough to convince me not to go. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna pay this exorbitant convenience feat supposed who
Speaker 1: is a convenient for anyway? Anecdotal evidence saying evidence, I'm
Speaker 1: just grouchy. Next up, I want to mention an interesting
Speaker 1: court case in Japan. So the court has awarded five
Speaker 1: fifty thousand yen, which is about three thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 1: dollars to a journalist named Shilro Ito. Uh. The man
Speaker 1: who's paying those damages is Mio Saguita, a lawmaker in Japan.
Speaker 1: So what did Seguita do well? He liked several tweets
Speaker 1: that were criticizing and targeting and abusing Ito. So more
Speaker 1: trigger warning here, we're gonna get into to some me
Speaker 1: too stuff, So you can skip forward if that's going
Speaker 1: to cause you distress. Itto had previously come forward with
Speaker 1: an accusation of rape against a bureau chief of Tokyo
Speaker 1: Broadcasting System Television. So remember Eto herself as a journalist.
Speaker 1: She says, this leader, this, this executive in Tokyo Broadcasting
Speaker 1: System Television had had raped her in and she became
Speaker 1: one of the key figures of the Me too movement
Speaker 1: in Japan. And as as a consequence, she also became
Speaker 1: the target of a lot of online abuse, which we
Speaker 1: have seen before. Right, Women who actually come forward and
Speaker 1: explain what what kind of terrible things they've experienced then
Speaker 1: get targeted for more abuse. Uh, and you wonder why
Speaker 1: more people don't come forward. Anyway, Saquita had liked several
Speaker 1: of the tweets that were abusive towards Itto, so he
Speaker 1: had gone through and clicked like on several of these,
Speaker 1: and Itto's team successfully positioned that as contributing to her distress. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you have this lawmaker, this person in
Speaker 1: a position of authority behaving in this way. And Itto says,
Speaker 1: when I know that someone who's a leader is out
Speaker 1: there actively aiking tweets that are targeting me, that is
Speaker 1: obviously a source of mental distress. Now it's means now
Speaker 1: that in Japan, at least, the act of liking a
Speaker 1: tweet can in itself be an offense if that tweet
Speaker 1: is also in an effort to harm, to fame or
Speaker 1: otherwise attacks someone else. Now, to be clear, my sympathies
Speaker 1: are with Eto' I'm with her on this side as
Speaker 1: far as you know, thinking that she is. She deserves dignity, respect,
Speaker 1: She does not deserve to be targeted. But I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about this court decision because liking a tweet does
Speaker 1: not always mean you actually, you know, like the tweet.
Speaker 1: It might be a way to bookmark something. The language
Speaker 1: behind how we flag messages can itself become a problem.
Speaker 1: Liking or hearting something seems to indicate approval, but it's
Speaker 1: not necesscesarily the case. Now for this particular court case,
Speaker 1: it looks like that was accurate, Like this was a
Speaker 1: sign of someone aligned with attacking Eto, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: darn despicable. But it does sound to me like this
Speaker 1: court's decision sets a dangerous precedent there. There needs to
Speaker 1: be a high bar to prove that the act of
Speaker 1: liking a tweet actually indicates aligning with it also, I
Speaker 1: mean it's I just don't see where this goes from here.
Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy. E A has announced it will
Speaker 1: be shutting down the online servers for several titles over
Speaker 1: the coming months. That means any online component for these
Speaker 1: games will become inaccessible. Titles include Dragon Age Origins, a
Speaker 1: couple of Army of Two games, a couple of Command
Speaker 1: and Conquer games, Mercenaries to NBA jam On Fire Edition,
Speaker 1: and Mirror's Edge, among others. The shutdowns will happen throughout
Speaker 1: the rest of this year and into early three, So
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of playing online on any of
Speaker 1: those titles, you should get your kicks in while you can,
Speaker 1: because soon those options will go dark. And considering that
Speaker 1: a few those titles have achievements that are tied with
Speaker 1: online play, that might come as a blow to anyone
Speaker 1: who obsesses over getting in games, because once those servers
Speaker 1: go down, those achievements are gonna be untouchable. Now, as
Speaker 1: we've said before on this show, this is a massive
Speaker 1: downside to modern games this online component, because for some titles,
Speaker 1: online features may only make up a small percentage of
Speaker 1: the overall games value, and if they go away, maybe
Speaker 1: you don't even notice. But for other games, the online
Speaker 1: stuff is where the game really lives, and once the
Speaker 1: company shuts down servers, that part of the game dies.
Speaker 1: Now it'll get worse if and when companies shut down
Speaker 1: servers that are just meant for authentication. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of single player games out there that require a
Speaker 1: persistent Internet connection so that you can verify that the
Speaker 1: copy of the game you own is legitimate. Hopefully, should
Speaker 1: companies decide to sunset those servers, that will first push
Speaker 1: out updates that eliminate that online requirement, or else it's
Speaker 1: possible that those video game titles would become unplayable. So
Speaker 1: you might have a legitimate copy of a game that
Speaker 1: is a single player game, there's no online component to
Speaker 1: it really whatsoever. But because a company shuts down its server,
Speaker 1: you no longer can access that game, which seems patently unfair. Finally,
Speaker 1: a group of quantum engineers and physicists say they've discovered
Speaker 1: a really interesting way to keep quantum computer systems stable. Now,
Speaker 1: I've talked about quantum computers several times in the past.
Speaker 1: You know how these delicate machines have the potential two
Speaker 1: say totally eradicate modern encryption methods, among other things. But
Speaker 1: one thing that holds back quantum computers is that they
Speaker 1: are not very stable by nature. They are extremely unstable,
Speaker 1: so it can be difficult to keep a quantum computer
Speaker 1: working to keep it coherent for more than a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds. It takes very little to interfere with a
Speaker 1: quantum system, and if it does happen, then the system
Speaker 1: decoheres and becomes, you know, essentially useless. So these researchers
Speaker 1: were using a pulse laser to beam light at a
Speaker 1: quantum computer to try and keep the system stable for
Speaker 1: the length of a full experiment. Now, that experiment only
Speaker 1: lasted about five seconds, but considering earlier attempts had only
Speaker 1: kept the system stable for one and a half seconds,
Speaker 1: this was a huge challenge. Now they discovered that a
Speaker 1: pulse pattern actually could make it happen. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: any pulse pattern, it was the Fibonacci sequence. In this sequence,
Speaker 1: each successive number in the sequence is the sum of
Speaker 1: the two preceding numbers. So you would start with a one,
Speaker 1: your next number is also a one because you have
Speaker 1: to add the two preceding numbers, which are one. In zero.
Speaker 1: Your next number is a two because it's one plus one.
Speaker 1: Then it's a three two plus one, then five, then eight,
Speaker 1: then thirteen, and so on. Now, as these numbers get larger,
Speaker 1: the quotient between each hair of numbers, that is the
Speaker 1: amount that you get when you divide the larger of
Speaker 1: the two numbers by the smaller one, is approximately one
Speaker 1: point six one eight. We often refer to that as
Speaker 1: the golden ratio. We see a lot of structures in
Speaker 1: nature that adhere to this ratio, like the spirals of
Speaker 1: seeds in a sunflower have a one point six one
Speaker 1: eight ratio of alder spiral two inner spiral. If you
Speaker 1: take the number of female honey bees and you compare
Speaker 1: the number of male honey honey bees and your typical hive,
Speaker 1: you get one point six one eight. There's one point
Speaker 1: six one eight female honeybees to every male honey bee.
Speaker 1: So this number, this ratio shows up again and again.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like finding a cheap code for the universe.
Speaker 1: And the fact that this Fibonacci sequence seems to stabilize
Speaker 1: quantum computer systems really adds to the mystery of the
Speaker 1: Fibonacci sequence. I mean, maybe we are living in a
Speaker 1: simulation and the Fibonacci sequence is just the result of
Speaker 1: some sloppy coding. Who knows anyway, that's the tech news
Speaker 1: for today, Thursday, October two thousand twenty two. Hope you
Speaker 1: are all well. If you would like to suggest topics
Speaker 1: for future episodes of tech Stuff, you can reach out
Speaker 1: to me by downloading the I Heart Radio app, which
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Speaker 1: The handle we use for the show is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon y.
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