WEBVTT - Tech News: Elon Musk X's Out Twitter 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:10.400 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:12.720 Hey there, and. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:16.000 Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.560 an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech are you. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.239 It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, July twenty fifth, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.560 twenty twenty three. And let's get this out of the 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.159 way first. Elon Musk has rushed into changing Twitter into 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:37.360 his long talked about it does Everything app called X. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.000 Musk actually has a long history with X. He actually 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:44.800 also has a lot of x'es. Back in the late 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.120 nineteen nineties, Musk was part of a group that founded 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.320 a site called x dot com. It was essentially an 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:57.840 online bank. Then they acquired a competing service called Confinity, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.280 and primarily they became own as a service that allowed 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:06.839 users to do money transfers over the internet. X dot 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.199 com was purchased by eBay and became PayPal, and Elon 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:15.200 Musk was subsequently ousted from PayPal when Peter Thiel led 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.880 a coup and his group gave Elon Musk the boot. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.760 Apparently they found him difficult to work with, but of 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.480 course by that time he had already received his massive 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.160 payout of eBay purchasing the company, so he was well 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:36.319 on his way from going from being wealthy to obscenely wealthy. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.840 The domain X dot com remained at PayPal for more 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.440 than a decade. However, in twenty seventeen, Musk purchased the 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:49.040 rights to the name from PayPal for nostalgic reasons. Meanwhile, 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.560 over in China, the company ten Cent had in twenty 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:58.360 eleven released an app called we Chat. As Stefan would say, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:04.920 this app hasing instant messaging, voice messaging, one to many 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:10.680 messaging like Twitter, mobile payments, and other social media functions. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.080 Probably the worst Saturday Night Live sketch I've ever done. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:18.560 When Elon Musk started talking about acquiring Twitter, he also 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.720 said his long term plan was to incorporate Twitter's functionality 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.280 into an everything app similar to we Chat, but for 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.880 the rest of the world, and that he was going 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.760 to call this app X. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.560 Well. This past weekend, Musk. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.160 Started making those changes, So if you visit Twitter dot com, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.919 you'll see that there's now an X logo in place 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.440 of the once familiar bird logo that had been there 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:43.359 for ages. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:44.280 It's gone now. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.560 There's been no shortage of criticisms for this move. A 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.240 lot of folks question the wisdom of ditching more than 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:56.680 a decade of branding and ip. In fact, Twitter and 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.400 tweeting are common words in the text sphere, and a 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.400 lot of people are suggesting that it's just a really 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:07.360 bad move to just unceremoniously ditch all that the police 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.520 also thought it was a bad move temporarily, or at 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.120 least that the physical act of taking the word Twitter 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.760 down outside the company's HQ was a really bad move 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.320 because that involved a crane that blocked two lanes of 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.920 traffic on a busy street, and there was a question 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.600 about whether or not Elon Musk had bothered to get 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.000 a permit to do that. Anyway, the crew only managed 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:36.520 to remove the twitt from the logo before the delays 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.160 set in, so the er was still on there. I 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.560 almost said that the crew managed to remove the twit, 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.320 but Elon's still at the company, so I guess that's 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:50.040 not true. AO, The stompage was just a temporary delay. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.560 The police determined that no crime was being committed, and 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.440 so you know, they didn't actually charge anyone with anything. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:03:58.560 Anyway. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.120 Musk says that the twins name once made sense back 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.360 in the day when you were limited to sending messages 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.119 of one hundred and forty or fewer characters, but these 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.960 days you can post a lot more stuff, including long 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:15.240 form video. So he argues Twitter as a name doesn't 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.240 make any sense personally. I disagree. I don't think that 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:25.040 the increase in services and capability and functionality has negated 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.239 the sense of the name. But then again, I also 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.560 don't have even one billion dollars to my name, so 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.320 what do I know. Musk also said that tweets should 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.960 now be called x's, and maybe that'll catch on. There's 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.720 also the possibility that Musk will just gut this newly 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.040 renamed service of some of its features as he pushes 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.520 for X to be the everything app he wants it 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.240 to be. You know. Rumor has it that he doesn't 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.479 really like the retweet feature and that that might just 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.320 be you know, on on borrowed time. Now, there are 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.240 questions remaining that will he be able to succeed, Will 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.719 he be able to create an X app that has 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.279 some but not all, of Twitter's functionality as well as 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:17.159 other functions and make it a success, or maybe other 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.000 services like Threads or blue Sky or Mastodon will take 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.039 the reins, or maybe people will just come to the 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.120 conclusion that they are fed up with Twitter style social platforms. 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.080 I know I'm one of those. I technically have a 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.920 Thread's account and a blue Sky account and a mastadon account, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:40.080 and I very rarely check them because I just find 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.760 them exhausting. Now, I did mention masddon just a moment ago, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.080 which is a federated approach to social platforms. That means 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.200 that rather than having a centralized corporate structure where you 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.800 have a single entity that dictates the rules and policies 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:02.280 for the platform, Mastedon consists of multiple in instances called servers, 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:07.120 and each server can have its own rules and policies 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.039 and vibe and culture. So some servers cater more to 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:16.520 a specific community than others do, like this community is 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.400 for queer creators, for example, that might be one masted 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.800 On server. Not that you know it's exclusively that, but 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.520 that's who was in mind when they created the server. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.719 So this kind of system facilitates communication across servers. So 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.560 even if you join server A and your friend joins 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.120 server B, you can still communicate with each other through 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.919 this system. Discovery is a little trickier if you're on 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.720 different servers, but still possible. It's just not as intuitive. 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.800 But Mastodon is in the news for a really grim reason. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.559 Some researchers at Stanford discovered that after examining three hundred 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.880 and twenty five thousand posts, they found one hundred and 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.480 twelve instances of known child sexual abuse material, also known 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.200 as seesam c SAM. Their search covered the twenty five 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.480 most popular servers on Mastodon, and in addition to the 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.720 messages actually containing known seesam, they found more than a 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.080 thousand instances of messages pointing to off site seesam you 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.560 know resources, whether it was a trading site or grooming sites. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.600 Terrible awful things, and it points to a really big 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.119 challenge with the federated approach to these social networks because 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.960 big centralized companies can have entire departments that are filled 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.320 with content moderators, or actually, more likely they'll outsource that 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.840 to a third party company that is employing people in 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.880 developing countries. We've seen that over and over and how 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:51.200 that has affected people who are working in those jobs. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.840 The point is they have a lot of people who 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.360 are working on the problem in these big centralized companies, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.720 but in the THETA verse. You're talking about instances that 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.600 have only a single moderator running them, and chances are 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.560 being the server's one moderator is not actually that person's 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.440 real job. They've got another job, and they just do 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.000 this on the side, like in their spare time, which 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.120 means that when problems arise, you know, when people are 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.280 violating terms of service or when they are posting outright 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:24.080 illegal content, it takes time for the moderator to be 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.600 able to address it. And if it's happening a lot 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.080 and you've only got the one moderator, then those problems 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.840 really start to pile up. For these federated services to survive, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.160 I suspect they're going to have to develop and incorporate 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.520 a lot more automated tools to supplement the work that's 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.760 being done by human moderators. Here's a case where you 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.480 can make a real strong argument for the need for AI. 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.920 You would need AI powered tools that are very good 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:56.880 at identifying instances that have illegal material or CESAM related 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.000 material on them so that you can respond much more 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.800 quickly and decisively and have a safe community. Otherwise, these 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.040 services will not really be able to take the place 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.800 of these centralized services. That currently dominate the web because 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.920 they won't be able to scale without encountering massive problems 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.720 like being saturated with illegal and harmful content. So it 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.640 is the dark side of the fediverse. Okay, one more 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.480 story before we go to break, and that is you know, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.600 I talked about PayPal a little bit earlier. I mean 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.520 I was talking about Musk's history with the letter X. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.720 Let's talk about the US Federal Reserve because it has 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.160 a new system being rolled out called fed now. So 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:48.120 this service coordinates payment between different financial institutions like banks 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.439 and credit unions. So at launch, thirty five banks and 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.000 credit unions are included in this system. But that's just 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.400 the very beginning of this initiative. The goal is to 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.440 create a network work that connects more than nine thousand 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.640 financial institutions together for what purpose well, essentially to make 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.280 it easy for people, at least people who have a 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.640 bank account to transfer money to each other, So forget 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.360 checks or debit cards or even apps like Venmo or PayPal. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.200 By the way, PayPal owns Venmo in case you weren't aware, 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.240 I remember hearing some millennials talk about, you know, dissing 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.520 PayPal because they want to use Venmo, and I was 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.240 just like you do know PayPal owns Venmo, You're still 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.920 using PayPal right or any of those other cash transfer apps. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.240 So this would allow you to make direct transfers from 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.400 one bank account to another, as long as the two 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.560 banks or community credit unions or whatever it may be 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.920 are connected within this network, the FED and visions FED 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.280 now to also allow people to access funds much faster 0:10:57.600 --> 0:10:58.800 with fewer roadblocks. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:00.760 So imagine, let's say that. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:05.040 You run a small business and you invoice another company 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:06.840 because they've hired you to do some work and you 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.720 did the work, so you send them an invoice and 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.480 they can pay you through FED now. Well, the money 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.040 can go through much more quickly and then you can 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.640 access it right away. And obviously that can be really 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.880 helpful for people who have cash flow issues right where 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.240 you know, it's not that they don't have money coming 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.800 to them, it's just it's not in their account right now. 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:30.640 This can help cut down on those kinds of situations 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:35.160 and streamline those financial transactions. So it could be person 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.280 to person, it could be company to person or person 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.800 to company. It's meant to just kind of facilitate all 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.280 of that and to remove the need for these third 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.320 party applications. There's still a long way to go to 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.880 get to that point, obviously. Whether just thirty five initial 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.599 systems that are in place, that's not enough obviously to 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.760 really make a huge difference. Also, the participating institutions are 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.760 not required to fully implement all the services, so some 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.000 are taking it a little more slowly than others, and 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.600 they're only allowing certain services to be used within their systems. 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.280 So fed now has the potential to disrupt stuff like 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.120 PayPal and Venmo and cash apps and things like that, 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.480 but it's not going to happen overnight, and for the 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.600 people who are unbanked or underbanked, this might not prove 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.400 to be a relevant technology. We still have to find 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:33.439 ways to facilitate them being part of these financial transactions 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.520 because just having a bank account can be a barrier 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.560 to entry for a lot of people. So it still 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.560 needs to address that issue too, And I don't know 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.320 that the system ultimately will. That may not even be 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.320 in the mission statement at all for fed now, but 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.319 it is interesting that it could have a massive impact 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.400 on money transfers using the internet. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.240 Okay, now we're going to take a quick break when 0:12:59.280 --> 0:12:59.640 we come back. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:10.679 We've got a lot more news to cover, all right, 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:11.240 We're back. 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.240 More than one thousand. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.000 App developers in the UK I think around fifteen hundred 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.319 actually have joined in on a class action lawsuit against Apple. 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.720 They argue that Apple is using its monopoly as a 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.599 storefront for iOS apps to charge high fees to developers. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:29.439 So this is a. 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.160 Complaint we have heard numerous times in the past and 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.560 has been addressed in various court cases around the world. So, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.160 as you likely know, Apple collects between fifteen to thirty 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:45.079 percent on in app transactions for most types of transactions. 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.240 There are some that get an exception, but for most 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.120 Apple gets a fifteen to thirty percent cut. So if 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.559 you spend a dollar in an app from a really 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.080 big developer, that developer might only get seventy cents of 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.680 that dollar and the other thirty cents goes to Apple. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:01.719 And you know, that doesn't sound like that much, But 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.880 then you start thinking about all the apps and the 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.480 millions of people, the hundreds of millions of people who 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.520 are using iOS apps to do these different transactions. It 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:14.760 really adds up, and it means Apple breaks in the 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.640 big bucks through this practice. The app developers argue this 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.600 is unfair to them because there's nowhere else they can 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.480 go if they want to get their app in front 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.920 of iOS users. There's no alternative to the Apple App Store, 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.720 so there's no competition in the space, and that means 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.760 Apple holds a monopoly for that market and can dictate terms. 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:41.200 The lawsuit is seeking a billion dollars from Apple. Is 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.720 a billion dollar class action lawsuit. Recently, Apple has made 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.880 some steps to move away from its kind of iron 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.480 grip approach that it had been known for for years, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.960 and those steps include things like allowing developers to use 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:00.200 different financial services to complete transactions instead of Apple's own 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.240 in house financial system, all the way to potentially opening 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.400 up so that competing app storefronts can offer apps on 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.880 iOS devices. One word about the different third party financial 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.840 services thing, Apple, at least in some markets, was kind 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.640 of sneaky about this, Like, yes, they allowed it, you 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:27.960 could use a different financial services company to complete your transactions, 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.320 but Apple would put essentially like an Apple tax on 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.200 top of it, which means you would actually collect even 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.760 less money per transaction. And obviously a lot of people 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:44.120 are challenging that, saying Apple is doing this unfairly that 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:51.280 you unwilling to relinquish control. Apple creates disincentives to use 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.080 any alternatives. So yes, technically there are alternatives, but they 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.640 are less attractive than Apple's own approach because Apple has 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.000 artificially made them more expensive. That's been an argument in 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.120 some regions as well, so we'll have to see how 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.080 this one plays out. Google recently published its Environmental Impact 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.560 Report for twenty twenty two, and the company revealed that 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.680 it is using a truly enormous amount of water every year. 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:23.600 Last year, the company used five point six billion gallons 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.280 of water, most of it potable water, meaning drinkable water, 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.840 water that's safe to drink. Many of Google's data centers 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.360 depend upon water cooled systems to keep machines in operation 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.600 twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. The 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.880 general expectation is that twenty twenty three is going to 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.360 see another big jump in water consumption because Google, like 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.760 a lot of other companies, has pushed forward really hard 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.480 in the AI space, and AI requires a lot of 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.720 compute power, so to meet those requirements, it shouldn't be 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.160 a surprise that Google is going to need to consume 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.120 more resources in order to keep machines running. Below critical temperatures. 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.479 According to Google reps, the company is also relying on 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.320 air cooled systems to help reduce the need for water, 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.119 particularly in places that are impacted by a water crisis, 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.440 and Google says it is committed to replenish quote one 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.119 hundred and twenty percent of the freshwater it consumes end 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:25.760 quote by twenty thirty. That's according to Business Insider. However, 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:31.920 in that same article, the writer reveals that currently Google 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.800 replenishes just six percent of the freshwater it consumes, So 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:38.560 obviously the company is going to have to make some 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.280 substantial changes to meet that one hundred and twenty percent 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.960 goal within seven years. Considering that large parts of the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.600 US are either currently in a water crisis or they 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.399 very well may be in a water crisis within a 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.600 year or two, this is a real problem that needs 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.159 a serious solution. Now stop me if you've heard this one. 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:07.840 Tech companies see a potentially massive market. There's a tiny catch, however, 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.680 this market is in a region that's run by an oppressive, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.159 authoritarian government, and that government is going to have some 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:20.080 tight restrictions on any company that works within that region, 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:24.080 up to and including requiring the companies to share data 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.359 with the government itself. Plus the government has been connected 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.919 with atrocious acts in the past. Yes, we saw this 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.560 actually happen in China. And while a lot of tech 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.680 companies were initially very eager to get across and get 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.520 access to the enormous population of potential users in China, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.639 a lot of those same companies later abandoned China after 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.760 discovering that sure enough, doing business there came with too 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.320 many downsides. Well, I guess we can say those companies 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.280 learned from their mistakes, because they're ready to repeat them 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.960 almost exactly by the way, I lifted that joke from 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.720 Peter Cook in a Beyond the Fringe sketch. Anyway, Saudi 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:10.200 Arabian officials are courting tech companies to set up operations 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:16.000 within Saudi Arabia, partly to create a new technological wonder 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.199 city that some people are really worried is going to 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.960 become like the perfect surveillance city to keep track on 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.960 the movements of everyone who's within it. It's pretty dystopian stuff. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.640 So the effort is to make Saudi Arabia a global 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.600 center for tech as part of a plan called the 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:40.919 Vision twenty thirty plan. Companies that have signed on include Google, 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.000 which signed on last year, and Microsoft, which signed on 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.160 this year, both of which are now building cloud centers 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.760 within Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, human rights experts warned that Saudi 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:56.360 Arabia has some rather vague but powerful laws regarding national 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:01.159 security which give the government really kind of limitless power 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.640 to make demands of companies that operate within their borders, 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.159 and that those demands could include telling Google and Microsoft 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.920 and other tech companies that they have to share information 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.120 so that the government can do things like track down dissidents. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.119 And in Saudi Arabia, a dissident can be someone like 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:23.080 a journalist reporting on the dealings of the Saudi Arabian royalty. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:25.520 And as we have seen, the government is not above 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.240 assassinating people like that. It has happened, It happened not 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.920 long ago. You speak out against authoritarian power in Saudi Arabia, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:38.480 you face massive consequences. A woman in Saudi Arabia criticized 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:43.520 this futuristic technological city on Twitter. She is now serving 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.240 a thirty year jail sentence for speaking out about it. 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.800 So there's this huge concern that Google and Microsoft, in 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.520 an eagerness to tap into the undeniably huge amount of 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.200 money that's in Saudi Arabia are also turning a blind 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.040 eye to the consequences of that deal, and that they 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:07.880 are becoming accomplices to an authoritarian government that commits terrible 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.640 acts upon its own people. Company representatives for both Microsoft 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.679 and Google have essentially said they're committed to protecting human rights, 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.680 but critics say that doesn't exactly align with them agreeing 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.240 to do business in a country that has an undeniable 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:28.080 history of violating human rights. So yeah, it's it's hard 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:33.159 to take these companies at their word when it's undeniable 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.679 that the government has abused its power multiple times in 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:43.280 order to strike down any who would question that government's, 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:51.760 you know, authority or its practices. So yeah, pretty ugly stuff. Okay, 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.760 I've got a couple more stories to talk about before 0:21:55.800 --> 0:22:07.919 we get to that. Let's take another quick break. So, 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:13.360 the Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB would very much 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:15.639 like to scan your face before you launch into that 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:19.359 play session of Doom. So, according to PC Gamer, the 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.560 ESRB and some partners it's working with are planning to 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:27.280 launch a tool that they're calling the Privacy Protective Facial 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.280 Age Estimation. So the purpose of this would be to 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.359 determine if the person who's trying to buy a game 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.760 or to go through an in app purchase or activate 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.160 some other feature in the game that's meant for adults 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.920 is actually of age that they're old enough to do 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:51.600 that and not be violating some policy somewhere. And the 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.359 FTC is considering the measure and has opened up the 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.920 matter to public feedback and will continue to accept public 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:01.280 feedback until August two. First, so, if you're in the 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:05.280 United States and you have some thoughts about this, you 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.119 should probably go to the FTC's website and find the 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.960 page that is actually about this measure and leave your thoughts, 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.240 whether it's in support or against. I'm not telling you 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.080 how to feel personally, I'm against it, but you know, 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.359 I can also see why there is a call for this, 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:28.159 because otherwise you're requiring adults to take a very active 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.240 role in overseeing the types of stuff their children are 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:34.439 getting involved in. And while I think that's necessary, I 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:38.720 also think it's not always realistic, right, Like, even the 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:43.280 most loving parents are going to have issues following through 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:45.320 with that because they have their own stuff they got 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:47.879 to deal with. I assume I don't have kids, so 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.160 I don't have this issue. My dog isn't a gamer, 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:53.560 so I don't ever have to worry about this anyway. 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:55.199 We have talked a. 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.000 Lot in this show about how facial recognition technology in 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.800 general has some really big problem and it makes me 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:05.480 wonder how accurate the system really is? Right can it 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:10.200 tell the difference between say, a mature fifteen year old 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:13.480 and a young looking eighteen year old, Because the eighteen 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.240 year old will be old enough to play games that 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.240 get like a mature rating, the fifteen year old would 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:21.240 not be. How is this system going to be able 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.720 to tell the difference reliably? Like sure, after a certain 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:28.640 age it might not have an issue, But for younger players, 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.320 like people who are of age but they look young, 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:35.800 that's going to be an issue. And it gets really invasive, 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:39.000 and there's a lot of privacy concerns obviously about this. 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:41.679 It's kind of weird. It reminds me a lot of 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:47.440 how in Japan there were companies that were making cigarette 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.680 vending machines and they were incorporating cameras and facial recognition 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.560 technology to try and prevent kids from being able to 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:57.240 buy cigarettes out of these machines. The kids just figured 0:24:57.280 --> 0:24:59.439 they could hold up the face of an older person, 0:24:59.560 --> 0:25:01.240 like a picture of a face of an older person, 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.400 not the actual face that would have been really disturbing, 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:07.040 but a picture of a face, and that would be 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:10.400 enough to fool the system. Supposedly, this this system they're 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:13.440 talking about, would not be fooled by holding up a picture. 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:15.800 You would have to actually have a three dimensional face there. 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:22.440