Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: You're welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, and I
Speaker 1: love all things tech. And it is time for the
Speaker 1: tech News for Thursday, March fourth one. And before I begin,
Speaker 1: I want to address something from the news episode I
Speaker 1: published earlier this week. I talked about how the social
Speaker 1: network Gab, known for housing a lot of far right users,
Speaker 1: became the target of hackers. But one thing I did
Speaker 1: not mention this was a failing on my part is
Speaker 1: that while I don't agree at all philosophically with the
Speaker 1: average Gab users, I also condemn hacking in an effort
Speaker 1: to gain access to systems and steal, you know, people's data.
Speaker 1: I think intrusion experts are important. They can help companies
Speaker 1: discover and patch security vulnerabilities, and sometimes folks will do
Speaker 1: that all on their own. They'll product systems to see
Speaker 1: if they're really secure, and typically they'll reach out and
Speaker 1: tell a company if they found a vulnerability, unless, of course,
Speaker 1: they're going all black hat with the hacker route. But
Speaker 1: this was a case of someone scraping data off of
Speaker 1: gabs systems and then sharing that data externally. And while
Speaker 1: I might vehemently disagree with the general political viewpoint over
Speaker 1: at GAB, I also don't condone stealing data anyway. No
Speaker 1: one told me to say any of that. In fact,
Speaker 1: no one's even brought it up. Maybe I'm just being
Speaker 1: you know, overreactive or whatever, but it occurred to me
Speaker 1: after that show went live that I really should say
Speaker 1: something about it, as I think it's really the ethical
Speaker 1: thing to do. Okay, let's get onto the news. Our
Speaker 1: first story falls into the category of irony. The US
Speaker 1: of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has found in favor,
Speaker 1: at least partly of a German company called bit Management,
Speaker 1: regarding the company's claim that the U. S. Navy copied
Speaker 1: software from bit Management without permission. So this is a
Speaker 1: copyright case. But another way to say it is that
Speaker 1: the US Navy has been found guilty of piracy, which,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, is the opposite of what navies
Speaker 1: are supposed to do. All goofs aside, this is just
Speaker 1: the latest development and a problem that started a decade ago.
Speaker 1: The U. S. Navy purchased software called BS Contact, which
Speaker 1: is a virtual reality suite from Bit Management Actually they
Speaker 1: went through a third party company and then the Navy
Speaker 1: copied that software onto its internal network. But according to
Speaker 1: Bit Management, the purchase of the software did not include
Speaker 1: a license for the Navy to do that. The Navy
Speaker 1: ended up installing the software more than half a million computers.
Speaker 1: The company filed suit against the Navy in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: on the matter, demanding that the Navy pay for all
Speaker 1: those copies, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: So why did it take so long for the case
Speaker 1: to reach its current status? While a big part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that the Navy was working with a
Speaker 1: third party retailer that acted kind of like a go between,
Speaker 1: and it meant that Navy officials actually believed that they
Speaker 1: did have the permission to copy the software, while Bit
Speaker 1: Management maintains the Navy did not in fact have that permission. Now,
Speaker 1: the initial court case found in favor of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy against Bit Management, but then Bit Management appealed the matter.
Speaker 1: The Court of Appeals partly upheld the earlier ruling in
Speaker 1: favor of the Navy, but it did say that while
Speaker 1: there was an implied license between bit Management and the Navy.
Speaker 1: The Navy failed to track usage of the software across
Speaker 1: its network, which would have been part of the terms
Speaker 1: of this implied license. As such, the Navy is liable
Speaker 1: for copyright infringement. Now the case will go back to
Speaker 1: Federal Claims Court to decide what damages should be paid
Speaker 1: to bit Management, and first part bit Management says those
Speaker 1: damages should be somewhere in the neighborhood of half a
Speaker 1: billion dollars yikes. At Microsoft's virtual event Ignite, the company
Speaker 1: unveiled a cloud based platform for software developers interested in
Speaker 1: making applications that incorporate mixed reality. And just in case
Speaker 1: that phrase doesn't mean anything to you, mixed reality is
Speaker 1: sort of a spectrum of experiences that includes stuff like
Speaker 1: virtual reality, where the majority of what a user experiences
Speaker 1: through their senses comes courtesy of a computer, so the
Speaker 1: stuff you see and hear are all computer generated, to
Speaker 1: augmented reality, which involves enhancing our perception of the world
Speaker 1: around us by incorporating digital experience adians is on top of,
Speaker 1: or integrated with that world around us. So while MESH
Speaker 1: sounds promising and it could lead to some really interesting
Speaker 1: implementations of mixed reality, software, engineer and technical fellow. That's,
Speaker 1: by the way, a title, not a description. Alex Kitman
Speaker 1: said that the hollow lens that's the mixed reality headset
Speaker 1: from Microsoft, won't be hitting consumer shelves any time in
Speaker 1: the immediate future. Kitman said that the hollow lens has
Speaker 1: a way to go before it is in a form
Speaker 1: factor that consumers will really appreciate and enjoy. I think
Speaker 1: that's actually a really refreshing thing to hear. I've never
Speaker 1: used a hollow lens myself, I understand the experience is
Speaker 1: really compelling. It's really interesting. However, the headsets right now
Speaker 1: are a little bulky. They can become uncomfortable after you
Speaker 1: wear them for a bit. And Kipman's point is that
Speaker 1: a consumer product really needs to be quote comfortable enough
Speaker 1: and immersive enough and socially acceptable enough end quote, and
Speaker 1: that the hollow lens just isn't there yet. For that reason,
Speaker 1: the hollow lens market is still aimed at businesses rather
Speaker 1: than you know, the general consumer. The company Brave, which
Speaker 1: makes a web browser that focuses on user privacy, has
Speaker 1: announced that it has acquired a search engine. That search
Speaker 1: engine is called tail Cat, which in itself is the
Speaker 1: product of a similarly privacy focused company called Clicks, but
Speaker 1: Clicks actually called it quits in April of last year
Speaker 1: in the wake of the pandemic, citing fundraising problems as
Speaker 1: being one of the big reasons the company had to
Speaker 1: shut down. Tail Cat will transform into Brave Search, and
Speaker 1: it will be the default search engine for the Brave browser. Now,
Speaker 1: I have to admit I had not heard of Brave
Speaker 1: before reading up on the news this week, but there
Speaker 1: are around twenty five million active Brave users according to
Speaker 1: the Register. Brave blocks website trackers and ads, but it
Speaker 1: also has its own an ad network, which has prompted
Speaker 1: some critics to question the ethics behind the company's revenue model.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to look into this in a more
Speaker 1: thorough manner and do maybe a full episode about Brave,
Speaker 1: because I find it interesting and their approach does seem
Speaker 1: to be a bit complicated. Now, it wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: news episode in one if we didn't spend a little
Speaker 1: time talking about social networking platforms and their contribution to
Speaker 1: misinformation and radicalization. So first up is YouTube, which has
Speaker 1: once again suspended lawyer and former politician Rudy Giuliani's account.
Speaker 1: This makes it suspension number two and as many months.
Speaker 1: The band will last for two weeks, during which time
Speaker 1: Giuliani will not be allowed to upload new videos to
Speaker 1: his channel. And you might ask what was the reasoning
Speaker 1: behind this band, Well, it was technically twofold. According to
Speaker 1: a YouTube spokesperson, quote, we removed content from Rudy W.
Speaker 1: Giuliani che and All for violating our Sale of Regulated
Speaker 1: Goods policy, which prohibits content facilitating the use of nicotine,
Speaker 1: and our presidential election integrity policy. End quote. Now, if
Speaker 1: Giuliani gets a third strike within ninety days of this
Speaker 1: band being lifted, his channel will get a permanent ban.
Speaker 1: Giuliani has spent a lot of time undermining the results
Speaker 1: of the twenty u S election, saying repeatedly that there
Speaker 1: was widespread fraud without you know, providing any actual evidence
Speaker 1: that such fraud happened. In fact, he's been reprimanded for
Speaker 1: that very thing multiple times in multiple courts. And in
Speaker 1: semi related news, Wired ran a story titled TikTok played
Speaker 1: a key role in MAGA radicalization, MAGA being make America
Speaker 1: great Again, and they pointed out that while a lot
Speaker 1: of the public's focus on the subject of radicalization and
Speaker 1: extremism has been on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Parlor
Speaker 1: or la if you prefer, TikTok has mostly been overlooked,
Speaker 1: and Cameron Hickey, the author of the piece, makes the
Speaker 1: point that TikTok has way more active users than Parlor
Speaker 1: ever did, and that radicalizing content on TikTok often falls
Speaker 1: into a categorization that makes it tricky for TikTok to
Speaker 1: actually moderate the content simply because TikTok hasn't really formulated
Speaker 1: policies that really cover that type of messaging, and the
Speaker 1: meme generating culture at TikTok also means that these types
Speaker 1: of messages get augmented as more and more people interact
Speaker 1: with them and add to them and share them. It's
Speaker 1: also a reminder that in a world where people are
Speaker 1: more isolated than they usually are, technological radicalization is playing
Speaker 1: a much larger role than it previously did. And since
Speaker 1: I mentioned Parlor last month, the company filed an antitrust
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Amazon after Amazon Web Services or a WS,
Speaker 1: gave Parlor the boot kicked him off the servers. This
Speaker 1: made the website homeless for a short time until it
Speaker 1: found new hosting services. The court ruled that Parlor needed
Speaker 1: to file an amended complaint by February sixteenth, which Parlor
Speaker 1: failed to do. It got a deadline extension, which ended
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, March second, and they still didn't have an
Speaker 1: amended complaint. Instead, they withdrew the lawsuit, though they did
Speaker 1: file a different lawsuit against Amazon in the state of Washington,
Speaker 1: claiming defamation and breach of contract. Whether this suit will
Speaker 1: fare better remains to be seen. In the meantime, Parlor
Speaker 1: is still banned from both the iOS and Android app stores,
Speaker 1: so there's no Parlor app for those platforms, though users
Speaker 1: can still visit the web based version of the site.
Speaker 1: The iOS app version of Netflix now has a feature
Speaker 1: called Fast Laughs, and as the name suggests, this feature
Speaker 1: delivers short videos of comedic content to the viewer, with
Speaker 1: some lasting as little as fifteen seconds, so you get in,
Speaker 1: you get your joke, and you get out, as they say,
Speaker 1: clips come from movies, television series, and comedy specials, and
Speaker 1: it includes a way for users to share their favorites
Speaker 1: with their friends, assuming their friends are also Netflix subscribers,
Speaker 1: and the company plans to deliver around one hundred clips
Speaker 1: each day for people to kind of sift through. The
Speaker 1: feature also offers a way for users to navigate straight
Speaker 1: to the source of where the clip came from if
Speaker 1: they want to watch the whole thing, which is really
Speaker 1: the whole reason for this feature to exist in the
Speaker 1: first place. I don't have an iPhone, so I have
Speaker 1: not had a chance to test this out myself, which
Speaker 1: is really too bad, as I could use a good laugh.
Speaker 1: And our final story, and one that I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about because I'm a nerd, is that researchers, including some
Speaker 1: at M I. T. Libraries, have created a pretty nifty
Speaker 1: way to read unopened letters from hundreds of years ago.
Speaker 1: All right, first, let's present what the problem actually is.
Speaker 1: So back before there were envelopes, before you could get
Speaker 1: an envelope, put a letter in it, and seal it,
Speaker 1: there were just a couple of different ways that you
Speaker 1: could send a written message to someone that included some
Speaker 1: sort of protection against tampering. So one of those ways
Speaker 1: was that you could seal the message with a wax seal.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen TV shows or movies where this happens,
Speaker 1: where you put a blob of wax down to seal
Speaker 1: a letter. Shut and then you use like a signet
Speaker 1: ring or something to stamp it so that you know
Speaker 1: that the message you get is legitimate and that no
Speaker 1: one has opened it. If the seal is broken when
Speaker 1: the message arrives, you know that somebody somewhere has opened
Speaker 1: the darn thing, and that could mean not just that
Speaker 1: the message had been compromised and potentially read, but it
Speaker 1: also opens up the possibility that someone altered the message.
Speaker 1: But another way to send a letter and try to
Speaker 1: keep it being snooped on was a practice called letter locking,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a pretty simple idea. So you write
Speaker 1: your letter on paper, you know, one side of each
Speaker 1: piece of paper, put your stacks of paper together, and
Speaker 1: then you would fold your paper in such a way
Speaker 1: that to unfold it you would have to tear the
Speaker 1: paper a little bit in the process. There'd be no
Speaker 1: way to unfold the letter without tearing the paper a
Speaker 1: little bit. Not tear it enough to rip the letter
Speaker 1: in half or anything, but there would be a tear
Speaker 1: in the paper. So if you got a letter and
Speaker 1: you saw that there was already a tear in the
Speaker 1: paper before you could even unfold it, you would know
Speaker 1: someone else had opened it. Before you got it and
Speaker 1: then intrigue. Now flash forward a few hundred years. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of unopened letters from ages ago. And
Speaker 1: while we could open these letters in the intended way,
Speaker 1: it would actually cause damage to the documents. And arguably
Speaker 1: the actual folding method itself is part of the information
Speaker 1: we to preserve. So how else are we supposed to
Speaker 1: get our beady little eyes on the contents of these letters. Well,
Speaker 1: these researchers used some really cool technology to read the
Speaker 1: letters without opening them. First, they used an X ray
Speaker 1: scanner to thoroughly scan an unopened letter, and the scanner,
Speaker 1: which was designed to be used in dentistry, would create
Speaker 1: a three dimensional X ray scan of the letter, which
Speaker 1: included where ink was on the surface of the paper
Speaker 1: and where the folds were. Then, using a custom built algorithm,
Speaker 1: the team had a computer virtually unfold this three dimensional
Speaker 1: model into a two dimensional reconstruction of the original letter.
Speaker 1: They were virtually unfolding the scan of the letter, at
Speaker 1: which point they could actually read it. And that whole
Speaker 1: process is so amazingly cool to me. It's a really
Speaker 1: nifty way to engineer around a tricky problem. Now beyond that,
Speaker 1: I could see this general sort of appro being used
Speaker 1: to develop strategies for other types of machine learning and
Speaker 1: automated systems. Creating sets of rules so that machines like
Speaker 1: computers and robots can achieve a task is a big
Speaker 1: part of artificial intelligence, and while this application might have
Speaker 1: limited uses in its current form, you could see how
Speaker 1: a similar approach might be used to create a rule
Speaker 1: set for a robot when, say, it encounters a door.
Speaker 1: We humans typically know how to open doors, though I
Speaker 1: have to admit I'm pretty good at pushing on poll
Speaker 1: doors and vice versa, but robots find it all much
Speaker 1: more tricky, particularly because we have a lot of different
Speaker 1: kinds of doors with different ways to open them. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought the story was particularly interesting, and besides, I'm
Speaker 1: a medievalist at heart, so it had to go in.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the news for Thursday, March fourth,
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one. If you have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover on tech Stuff, please let me know.
Speaker 1: Reach out on Twitter to handle It's text stuff hsw
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again release soon. Y Text
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