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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. And

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Speaker 1: we are continuing on our look back on the big

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Speaker 1: text stories of twenty nineteen. Now, the last episode was

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Speaker 1: all about bummers. This one is only mostly about bummers.

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Speaker 1: But don't blame me. I didn't make the news. Also,

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Speaker 1: I should point out that, of course I'm just giving

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Speaker 1: kind of a high level overview of stuff that happened

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Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, because to cover everything that happened in

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Speaker 1: tech would be beyond even my impressive capabilities. And I

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Speaker 1: should also add that I've got some updates to stuff

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Speaker 1: what happened in the last episode, because, as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: when I recorded part one and when I'm recording part two,

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Speaker 1: time past and stuff continue to develop. That's how news works,

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Speaker 1: and I resent it. But one story I do need

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Speaker 1: to follow up on broke between that time and that

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Speaker 1: was that Dennis Muhlenberg, the CEO of Boeing, resigned from

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Speaker 1: Boeing as the company was dealing with the consequences of

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Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven max fleet being grounded, among other

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Speaker 1: problems at the company. Generally speaking, analyst said that his

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Speaker 1: stepping down was sort of a necessary part of Boweing

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Speaker 1: regaining confidence among customers and shareholders. Not that all blame

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Speaker 1: should be put on the CEOs shoulders, but that this

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Speaker 1: was one of those steps a company has to take

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Speaker 1: in order to convince people, hey, we are really taking

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Speaker 1: this seriously and we need to make some changes. Now.

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Speaker 1: The next two stories that I want to talk about

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Speaker 1: are related, and they are both extremely dark and upsetting,

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Speaker 1: but I also feel they are important to acknowledge and consider.

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Speaker 1: And for some of you you might feel as though

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Speaker 1: I'm going to get really preachy about this. I am

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Speaker 1: not going to apologize for that in this case. Now,

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Speaker 1: the first dark story is about March fifteen, two thousand nineteen.

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Speaker 1: That was when a gunman carried out attacks on two

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Speaker 1: different mosques in christ Church, New Zealand, killing fifty one

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Speaker 1: people and injuring another forty nine. Now, the reason the

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Speaker 1: story gets included in tech news is that the gunman

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Speaker 1: streamed the attack on the first mosque over on Facebook Live.

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Speaker 1: Other people grabbed the video feed, and then they began

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Speaker 1: to post it elsewhere, which ensured that even as platforms

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Speaker 1: were removing it, others were hosting it. The New Zealand

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Speaker 1: government classified the video as objectionable, which is a legal

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Speaker 1: classification in New Zealand. It meant that distributing, copying, or

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Speaker 1: exhibiting the video would be against the law, but the

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Speaker 1: video was already out on the internet. Now most platforms

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Speaker 1: have created digital fingerprints of the video in order to

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Speaker 1: detect future uploads, thus blocking it automatically and then removing

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Speaker 1: them very quickly. The gunman, identified as Britain Tarrant, had

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Speaker 1: been active in far right organizations and white supremacy groups

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Speaker 1: online and off, and there's been a rise in activity

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Speaker 1: in online communities of such radical groups, raising warnings of

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Speaker 1: extremists using the Internet to recruit others and reinforce some

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Speaker 1: truly awful beliefs. And this brings me to story number two,

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Speaker 1: which is that these groups have made use of some

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Speaker 1: notable online communities to encourage one another and create a

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Speaker 1: space for extremism. One of those online communities, and perhaps

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Speaker 1: the most infamous, is eight kun formerly known as eight chan.

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Speaker 1: The history of eight chan dates back to when Frederick

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Speaker 1: Brennan created it, as an alternative to an earlier online

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Speaker 1: message board community called four chan. Now, Brennan felt four

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Speaker 1: chan was becoming too restrictive, which is a sentence that's

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Speaker 1: hard to even believe if you're at all familiar with

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Speaker 1: four chan. The only rule on a chan was that

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Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to post or link to any content

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Speaker 1: that would be illegal in the United States. Brennan ended

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Speaker 1: his association with the site in two thousand eighteen. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, in the wake of shootings in christ Church,

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, also in Poway, California, and El Paso, Texas,

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Speaker 1: and also links back to eight chan showing how the

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Speaker 1: perpetrators of those three different shootings had used eight chan

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Speaker 1: to publish their own manifestos. Brennan, the founder of the site,

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Speaker 1: was one of the voices calling for the site to

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Speaker 1: get shut down. That actually did happen in August two

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Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, but the site since returned as a con

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Speaker 1: as of November two thousand nineteen. And there is a

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Speaker 1: pretty complicated situation going on here. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: the founders of the Internet and of the Worldwide Web

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Speaker 1: envisioned a platform that would support freedom of speech and

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Speaker 1: the exchange of ideas. On the other hand, many people,

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Speaker 1: particularly those from already vulnerable communities, are put in danger

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Speaker 1: as extremism is on the rise. The safe haven for

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Speaker 1: those who espouse these extremist, radical, racist, and misogynist and

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Speaker 1: violent beliefs as contributing to an increasingly toxic subculture. In addition,

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Speaker 1: several tech companies have enabled this subculture. It hasn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: been a conscious decision, but the principles of running a

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Speaker 1: business in which your goal is to return value to

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Speaker 1: shareholders isn't always in alignment with doing what's actually best

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Speaker 1: for the general population. In fact, those two things can

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Speaker 1: often come into conflict with one another. In some cases,

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Speaker 1: like eight Kun, this is far more apparent, but it's

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Speaker 1: also the case with stuff like more public platforms such

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Speaker 1: as Twitter and Facebook. Those companies struggle with how to

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Speaker 1: deal with a particularly thorny subject to varying degrees of success,

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Speaker 1: most of which satisfy very few people. I wish I

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Speaker 1: had a solution to this very large problem, but I

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Speaker 1: believe such a solution has to go much deeper than

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Speaker 1: taking a website offline or removing an option for people

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Speaker 1: to voice these hateful philosophies. That's part of it, but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't address the deeper underlying problems that feed into

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Speaker 1: that toxicity to begin with. So all I can really

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Speaker 1: do is appeal to you guys to exercise compassion and

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Speaker 1: critical thinking. Those two things are absolutely necessary in my view.

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Speaker 1: All Right, the darkest of the dark stuff in this

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Speaker 1: episode is over, so let's move on. One thing that

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Speaker 1: happened in twenty nineteen might set us on a path

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Speaker 1: for widespread use of drones to deliver packages. In the

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Speaker 1: spring of twenty nineteen, the Federal Aviation Administration or f

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Speaker 1: A a certified Wing that's the drone delivery startup company

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Speaker 1: that's owned by the Google parent company alphabet UH. They

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Speaker 1: certified them to operate as an air carrier. This regulatory

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Speaker 1: step allows Wing to make commercial deliveries in the United States.

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Speaker 1: The company had already been conducting tests in Australia in

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Speaker 1: anticipation of receiving government approval in the United States. And

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Speaker 1: there's still many questions that need to be answered, and

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Speaker 1: we're likely to see very limited roll out of drone

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Speaker 1: delivery services in specific regions as companies and local governments

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Speaker 1: kind of hash out the best way to move forward now. Personally,

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Speaker 1: I'm curious to see if drone delivery will prove to

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Speaker 1: be a more efficient means of delivering packages on a

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Speaker 1: large enough scale to make sense. I mean, I can

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Speaker 1: see how it could be incredibly useful in scenarios where

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Speaker 1: getting to a location is challenging and the need to

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Speaker 1: deliver something important like medication is really urgent, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not entirely convinced yet that it would make sense from

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Speaker 1: a more general use standpoint. However, I also haven't run

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Speaker 1: the figures, nor do I know how much it costs

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Speaker 1: to operate delivery services as they stand right now, So

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Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that this is a viable alternative to

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Speaker 1: more traditional delivery services. I just don't know enough to

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Speaker 1: comment on it firmly, But it's hard for me to

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Speaker 1: believe that, on the face of it, that it would

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Speaker 1: be more cost effective and efficient unless you just had

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Speaker 1: truly enormous fleets, in which case then you have the

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Speaker 1: technological and administrative difficulties that come with managing that large

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Speaker 1: of a fleet. So I just don't know. Sticking with

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Speaker 1: government approval, because there are a lot of stories that

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Speaker 1: fall into that category this year, the Federal Communications Commission

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Speaker 1: in the United States, or the FCC, approved the merger

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Speaker 1: of telecommunications companies T Mobile and Sprint. Now. According to analysts,

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Speaker 1: the chief purpose of this merger is to enhance T

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Speaker 1: mobiles five G technology rollout to give it a stronger

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Speaker 1: position in the United States as a As you know,

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Speaker 1: five G networks are starting to come online. Just a

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Speaker 1: few years ago, according to reports from a consulting firm

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Speaker 1: called McKenzie, T Mobile was eyeing a merger was Sprint,

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Speaker 1: but for a different reason. It was in an effort

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Speaker 1: to become more competitive against A T and T and Verizon,

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Speaker 1: which are the other two major cellular phone carriers in

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Speaker 1: the United States. While the FCC has given its approval,

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Speaker 1: that's just one regulatory hurdle that telecommunications companies have to

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Speaker 1: overcome before they can merge. Regulatory agencies at both the

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Speaker 1: state and federal levels are still considering this plan, and

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Speaker 1: they may place restrictions or limitations on any merger, or

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Speaker 1: they might deny it outright. T Mobile has reportedly been

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Speaker 1: renegotiating the deal in the meantime, and the old reports

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Speaker 1: from two thousand and fifteen, the ones that stated tea

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Speaker 1: Mobile was first looking at Sprint for a possible merger,

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Speaker 1: said that t Mobile also entertain the notion of allowing Comcast,

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Speaker 1: the mega cable corporation, to acquire Team Bowl. There may

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Speaker 1: well be some serious offers for acquisitions like that in

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Speaker 1: the near future of either te Mobile or Sprint, or

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Speaker 1: emerged version of the two from such a cable company,

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Speaker 1: whether it's Comcast or a different one. Speaking of corporate maneuvers,

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Speaker 1: one drama that finally finished playing out in nineteen really

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Speaker 1: kind of fizzled out and sputtered a bit was the

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Speaker 1: tale of Amazon's HQ two in New York City. So

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Speaker 1: let's backtrack a bit. The company initially announced it was

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Speaker 1: looking into expanding its corporate headquarters, which are based out

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Speaker 1: of Seattle, Washington, into a different city. In two thousand eighteen.

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Speaker 1: They famously held a Request for Proposals in asking for

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Speaker 1: cities that were eager to host this new headquarters to

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Speaker 1: present their their proposals their deals. That in turn prompted

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Speaker 1: a series of stories about incredibly generous tax breaks and

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Speaker 1: other incentives, as well as some fairly absurd publicity stunts

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Speaker 1: that stretched throughout most of until in November of that year,

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Speaker 1: Amazon announced it had settled on two locations that would

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Speaker 1: share the duty of being HQ two. One is in Arlington, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: and the other was in New York City, New York. Now,

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Speaker 1: there was some pretty hefty criticism early on from various

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Speaker 1: sources that alleged Amazon had chosen these two locations from

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Speaker 1: the beginning, that had these in mind when they even

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Speaker 1: asked for the proposals in the first place. One of

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Speaker 1: the pieces of supposed evidence that they used to support

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Speaker 1: this claim is that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apparently had

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Speaker 1: homes near those two proposed locations, and that the whole

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Speaker 1: selection process was therefore nothing more than an effort to

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Speaker 1: create a competitive environment so that both New York and

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Speaker 1: Arlington would continuously improve their deals so Amazon we get

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Speaker 1: the sweetest tax break, but that presumably the plan all

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Speaker 1: along was to move into those two locations. Whether that's

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Speaker 1: true or not, we get to two thousand nineteen, and

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Speaker 1: early in twenty nineteen, New York City residents voiced some

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Speaker 1: rather critical opinions about their new proposed neighbor. Journalists reported

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Speaker 1: that the proposed HQ two site in New York City

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Speaker 1: would take up land that had previously been intended for

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Speaker 1: the use of six thousand homes, including a significant number

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Speaker 1: of low income homes. Alexandria Accacio Cortez, a US representative

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Speaker 1: from New York, voiced concern that the incentives offered to

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Speaker 1: Amazon would hurt the city both in the near and

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Speaker 1: the long term, that it would undermine efforts to fund

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Speaker 1: government improvements to critical infrastructure in the city because of

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Speaker 1: these enormous tax breaks. You know, if Amazon is not

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Speaker 1: paying taxes, that revenue is not coming from them, the

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Speaker 1: financial burden falls on everyone else in New York and

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Speaker 1: frequently that means that programs have to get reduced or

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Speaker 1: cut so that you can, you know, make your money

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Speaker 1: stretch out further. In February two thou nineteen, Amazon announced

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Speaker 1: it was canceling its plan to build out its location

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Speaker 1: in New York City. Amazon does lease out some office space,

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Speaker 1: a significant amount of office space in New York, but

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Speaker 1: it no longer plans to have a second corporate headquarters there.

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Speaker 1: And since we're talking about Amazon, let's move on to

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Speaker 1: one of the properties that Amazon owns, and that would

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Speaker 1: be the Ring Company. That's the company that produces surveillance

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Speaker 1: cameras and and surveillance doorbells, you know doorbells that have

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Speaker 1: the cameras and communication systems. Well, in twenty nineteen, there

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Speaker 1: were a few stories of hackers who had gained access

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Speaker 1: to users Ring equipment, whether it was the surveillance cameras

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Speaker 1: or the Ring doorbells. Some hackers did this in an

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Speaker 1: effort to expose vulnerability, so they were doing it to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: we need to fix this because it's a problem. But

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Speaker 1: others did it specifically to her asks or exploit people,

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Speaker 1: and those stories were alarming and continue to be alarming.

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Speaker 1: Some of them involve kids, and it's incredibly disturbing, and

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Speaker 1: they've led to at least one class action lawsuit against Amazon.

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Speaker 1: The allegation is that Ring isn't doing enough to ensure

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Speaker 1: customers privacy and security are maintained, which is particularly a

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Speaker 1: problem for a company that markets equipment that's meant to

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Speaker 1: enhance security, not exploit vulnerabilities. Now I haven't seen all

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Speaker 1: the details about how the Ring systems were actually hacked.

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Speaker 1: There are different ways to gain access to connected systems

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Speaker 1: on a network. Sometimes you can find a vulnerability in

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Speaker 1: an endpoint, such as an actual device connected to the network.

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Speaker 1: So in those cases you would say, all right, the

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Speaker 1: hacker managed to hack into the network via this RING device.

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Speaker 1: That very well maybe the case maybe they were able

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Speaker 1: to brute force a password through that and the got

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Speaker 1: access that way. But other times hackers might find a

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Speaker 1: way to compromise the network itself and then they can

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Speaker 1: access the various components connected to that network as if

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Speaker 1: they were, in fact the legitimate administrator of the network.

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Speaker 1: In the case of Ring, it sounds to me as

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Speaker 1: though they found it through password vulnerabilities. The lawsuit states

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Speaker 1: that Ring should have required users to create more robust

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Speaker 1: passwords and to require two factor authentication to prevent abuse.

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Speaker 1: And just in case you're not familiar with the concept,

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Speaker 1: two factor authentication is a subset of what is called

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Speaker 1: multi factor authentication, which just means that you're using two

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Speaker 1: or more factors, which really just means two to three

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Speaker 1: factors to authenticate your identity. And those factors are categories

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Speaker 1: of stuff, right. Those categories are what you know. This

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Speaker 1: would be something like a password or a pin, so

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Speaker 1: it would be something that you have knowledge of and

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Speaker 1: you provide when you're accessing a system. The second factor

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Speaker 1: is what you have, like what you physically have on

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Speaker 1: you that could be a mobile device, So it could

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Speaker 1: be that you provide your password or pen and then

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Speaker 1: it sends a code to your mobile device, which you

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Speaker 1: also have to enter, or you might have a token

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Speaker 1: that you have to use in some way to access

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Speaker 1: the system. And then the third factor is what you are,

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Speaker 1: and this would refer to things like biometric data. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's a retinal scan or fingerprint scan or voice scan.

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Speaker 1: Multi factor authentication requires you present at least two of

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Speaker 1: those three factors, possibly one of all three. It all

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Speaker 1: depends on the implementation. So you might enter a password,

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Speaker 1: then you receive your code, you enter the code, and

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Speaker 1: then you get access. But that proves you both know

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Speaker 1: the password and you also have possession of an authorized

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Speaker 1: mobile device, which limits the possibility that an unauthorized person

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Speaker 1: is going to gain access to that system. Now, this

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Speaker 1: touches on an issue that I think is really important

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Speaker 1: and is growing more important as the Internet of Things

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Speaker 1: gets bigger. And I'm sure you've heard the saying that

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Speaker 1: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

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Speaker 1: In network security, there are many potential weak links. You

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Speaker 1: could have a badly designed piece of hardware or software

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Speaker 1: that has vulnerabilities in it, and that offers an in

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Speaker 1: road for an intrusion into a network. You can also

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Speaker 1: have users who practice really poor security habits, like they

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Speaker 1: choose common passwords like a common dictionary word as a password.

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Speaker 1: That's a terrible, terrible habit and no one should do it.

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Speaker 1: Or they're using the same password for multiple services, also

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Speaker 1: a terrible idea. But this raises a question who should

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Speaker 1: be accountable for data security? After all, users should be

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Speaker 1: employing strong, unique passwords as a matter of habit. And

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Speaker 1: if you heard about someone's house being robbed because they

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Speaker 1: forgot to lock the door, I don't think your first

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Speaker 1: instinct would be to sue the lock company for letting

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Speaker 1: it happen. I think end users are at least partly

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Speaker 1: accountable for good data security. However, that being said, I

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Speaker 1: also think that companies have a responsibility. They need to

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Speaker 1: create rules that require strong passwords and multi factor authentication

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Speaker 1: by default. They need to essentially force users to be

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Speaker 1: more careful. They enable users to practice good security, and

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Speaker 1: by enable users, I really mean limit the options that

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Speaker 1: users have that that result in poor security. I think

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Speaker 1: it's the user's responsibility to be more secure and the

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Speaker 1: company's responsibility to enable it. But that's just me. Now,

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Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll look at some more stories

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Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen. Here's a story that started making the

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Speaker 1: news just before twenty nineteen wrapped up. I mean I

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Speaker 1: learned about it shortly before coming into the studio. So

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Speaker 1: Devin Wilson, or at Atomic Thumbs on Twitter, criticize the

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Speaker 1: company so Nos for what he saw as a particularly

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Speaker 1: egregious example of trying to control the aftermarket on electronics now.

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Speaker 1: Sons is primarily known for making speaker systems, particularly smart speakers,

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Speaker 1: and like a lot of tech companies, it depends heavily

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Speaker 1: on creating incentives for established Sons customers to upgrade and

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Speaker 1: update their equipment. You know, if everyone just went out

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Speaker 1: and bought the latest Sons speaker and they thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: this works great and had no reason to upgrade, the

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Speaker 1: company would have a very rough year. So they have

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Speaker 1: to create incentives for people to keep buying their stuff.

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Speaker 1: In that way. Sonas is strategy is really similar to

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Speaker 1: that of things like smartphone handset manufacturers. It's the Apple

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Speaker 1: iPhone model. In other words, each subsequent generation of devices

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Speaker 1: incorporates features that older devices cannot support, whether that lack

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Speaker 1: of support comes from technical limitations of the hardware or

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Speaker 1: managerial decisions. Is a moot point as a pose, I

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Speaker 1: mean it could come down to executives say, just don't

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Speaker 1: let this run on older stuff, not that the older

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Speaker 1: stuff is inherently incapable of running. It doesn't matter. The

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Speaker 1: end result is the same. So NOS has a trade

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Speaker 1: up program that gives existing so nos users a thirty

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Speaker 1: credit toward a new so nos device if those users

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Speaker 1: activate what is called recycle mode on their older so

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Speaker 1: nos device. Now, recycle mode starts a countdown clock. It's

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Speaker 1: a twenty one day countdown, and at the end of

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Speaker 1: that SONS puts the device on a blacklist so that

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Speaker 1: it is bricked, meaning you can't use it at all.

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Speaker 1: It will not work, it is ineffective, and it also

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Speaker 1: means that you can't give it away or sell it,

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Speaker 1: or at least you can't do so ethically because you'd

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Speaker 1: just be handing over what amounts to being a giant

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Speaker 1: paperweight with a lot of circuit boards and wires in it.

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Speaker 1: So really the only options are to try and hack

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Speaker 1: the speakers, which isn't really an option most people would

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Speaker 1: feel comfortable trying to tackle and would probably have limited

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Speaker 1: use anyway, or you could send the speaker to an

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Speaker 1: e waste recycling facility, or you just throw the darn

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Speaker 1: thing away. That's not a great option. It adds e waste.

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Speaker 1: E waste is bad stuff, and recycling, while better than

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Speaker 1: throwing stuff out, isn't as environmentally friendly as reusing stuff.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever heard reduce, reuse, recycle, well it's in

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Speaker 1: that order of preference. You want to reduce the amount

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Speaker 1: of waste you generate. You want to reuse stuff as

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Speaker 1: much as you can. The stuff you can't reuse, you recycle.

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Speaker 1: The stuff you can't reuse or recycle, then you can

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Speaker 1: throw away. But even that is, you know, not great.

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Speaker 1: So Wilson's point was that so NOSES program actually incentivizes

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Speaker 1: creating e waste. It encourages people to break their old

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Speaker 1: device in order to get this thirty percent credit towards

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Speaker 1: their next purchase, and it makes those old devices useless

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Speaker 1: to anyone. And sure, they these people might go and

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Speaker 1: recycle their old Sons speakers, but it's not as good

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Speaker 1: an option as to keep the equipment in working order

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Speaker 1: so that someone else can actually make use of it,

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Speaker 1: rather than for it to just go to waste. Critics

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Speaker 1: have said, this really isn't about reducing waste, it's about

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Speaker 1: so Nos limiting the viability of a secondary market. Because

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Speaker 1: Sonas doesn't make money off of someone selling off an

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Speaker 1: old pair of speakers or anything like that. The company

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Speaker 1: has a financial incentive to discourage aftermarket resales and to

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Speaker 1: create pathways for people to buy directly from Sons or

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Speaker 1: or from retailers who are carrying so Nos speakers. So

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Speaker 1: the criticism states that this is a devious way for

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Speaker 1: Sons to play the environmentally conscious card, you know, to

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Speaker 1: make it look like they're being eco friendly, while actually

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Speaker 1: they're taking aim at a market that can undercut their

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Speaker 1: own and revenues, that being the resale market. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've seen this with other properties as well, other types

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Speaker 1: of gadgets and electronics as well as video games. This

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Speaker 1: idea of getting rid of that resale market in order

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Speaker 1: to create the incentive for people to go out and

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Speaker 1: buy new copies as opposed to used copies or used

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Speaker 1: devices in this case. All right, well, how about we

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Speaker 1: do some Apple news. A big piece of news regarding

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Speaker 1: Apple broke in late June two thousand nineteen, when Jonathan I've,

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Speaker 1: better known as Sir Johnny I've announced he was leaving

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Speaker 1: the company. He had been with Apple for nearly three decades,

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Speaker 1: working primarily in design. He joined the company back in

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Speaker 1: nineteen nine six when it wasn't a bit of a pickle.

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Speaker 1: That was a year before the ousted Steve Jobs would

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Speaker 1: return to the company. He was one of the influential

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Speaker 1: designers who defined Apple's iPhone approach, setting the stage for

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Speaker 1: the company's meteoric rise in success. He announced he would

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Speaker 1: be heading up a new design company called Love From

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Speaker 1: and that he would still work with Apple on projects,

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Speaker 1: just from an independent business owner standpoint as opposed to

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Speaker 1: an Apple executive. I've played an intrinsic role in designing

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Speaker 1: some of Apple's defining products over the last twenty years,

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Speaker 1: so it will be interesting to see how the company

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Speaker 1: moves forward. I've and Jobs together were often cited as

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Speaker 1: the visionaries who kind of set Apple on its course,

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Speaker 1: and people have been asking what Apple's up to ever

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Speaker 1: since Jobs passed away. So with Ive's departure, I'm wondering

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Speaker 1: how that's going to affect the company as well. Apple

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Speaker 1: wasn't just dealing with the departure of one of its

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Speaker 1: more famous employees. However, the company also had some other

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Speaker 1: snags in twenty nineteen due to product issues. At the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the year, Benjamin Mayo of the Apple news

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Speaker 1: and rumors site nine to five Mac broke a big

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Speaker 1: story about a vulnerability in the company's FaceTime app. So,

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Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar, FaceTime is a video chat app.

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Speaker 1: It's so you can video calls on iOS devices. Uh

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Speaker 1: though I should add that at least one Apple user

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Speaker 1: had tried to warn the company more than a week

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Speaker 1: before the story broke. They had found this independently, so

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Speaker 1: it was a known issue, arguably not just to the

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Speaker 1: Apple community but to Apple itself before the story broke

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Speaker 1: in nine to five Mac. Anyway, Mayo found that if

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Speaker 1: you used FaceTime to make a call between any devices

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Speaker 1: running iOS version twelve point one or later, and then

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Speaker 1: you added your own number into the call, as if

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Speaker 1: you were conferencing in yourself the person making the call,

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Speaker 1: you would be able to hear the audio from the

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Speaker 1: receiver's phone before the receiver had chosen to accept the

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Speaker 1: call in the first place. So all you would have

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Speaker 1: to do is put in someone's number, have it start

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Speaker 1: to dial a FaceTime call conference in yourself, and you

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Speaker 1: could listen in on the other phones microphone. You could

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Speaker 1: even use some options to act debate the camera on

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Speaker 1: the phone. And it wasn't just phones, it was also

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Speaker 1: you know, other mobile devices, but also max because the

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Speaker 1: mac os supported FaceTime as well, so if you did this,

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Speaker 1: you could presumably use someone's Mac computer to spy on

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Speaker 1: their home. Uh And because this would only work as

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Speaker 1: long as the other device was ringing, and FaceTime times

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Speaker 1: out after a certain amount of ringing, that ringing actually

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Speaker 1: lasts a lot longer on mac Os. A call can

434
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: end up going much longer in the in the calling

435
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: phase for mac Os because the thought is not everyone

436
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: is at their computer all the time, so you might

437
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: be across the house when the call comes in, you

438
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: might not hear it at first, so they have a

439
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 1: longer calling session that will last until there's an automatic

440
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: cut off, which means you could presumably spy longer until

441
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: someone noticed that there was a FaceTime call coming in.

442
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: So this was a huge law on the software and

443
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: the vulnerability would be patched. But initially Apple's response was

444
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: just to suspend the group FaceTime feature so that you

445
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: couldn't conference anyone in at all. You could only do

446
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: person to person calls, you couldn't do conference calls. And

447
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: then in February twenty nineteen, the company pushed out the

448
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: patch that sealed up those vulnerabilities and re enabled group

449
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: FaceTime features. Another problem Apple faced was the release of

450
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: iOS version thirteen and the release of Mac OS ten

451
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: point one five a k A. Catalina. Critics found problems

452
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: with both, identifying numerous bugs that prompted some tech reporters

453
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: to advise people, especially for people looking at buying a

454
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: new iPhone, to wait for patches before updating to the

455
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: latest OS version or buying a new phone. Even Apple

456
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: announced iOS thirteen point one a patch to thirteen point

457
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: oh before thirteen point oh had even shut, which indicated

458
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: that the initial rule east wasn't really ready for implementation.

459
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: So why was iOS thirteen so buggy? Or maybe I

460
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: should say why is it because not all those bugs

461
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: have been fixed? Well? Some people have suggested that Apple

462
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: was being overly aggressive when adding in new features to

463
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: the operating system, and that feature creep might have been

464
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: an issue. David Shaer, and Apple software engineer theorized that

465
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: perhaps teams working on certain features, were reluctant to admit

466
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: when they were falling behind on deadlines, and that rather

467
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: than cutting back on features, rather than saying let's not

468
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: do this because it's taking too much time and we

469
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: need to ship, things were kept in the mix far

470
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: longer than they needed to be, and Share also listed

471
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: several other possible contributing factors. It's all in the post

472
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: on tidbits dot Com. I recommend checking that out if

473
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: you want to learn more. The piece is titled six

474
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: reasons why iOS thirteen and Catalina are so Buggy, and

475
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: he goes into much greater detail there now. In late December,

476
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,959
Speaker 1: Apple pushed out an update for its mobile operating system,

477
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: and this one's called iOS thirteen point three, which might

478
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: make you think it's the third update to iOS to

479
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: this version, but it's not the third update. It's actually

480
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: the eighth update since iOS thirteen was first announced. Many

481
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: of the updates were in the iOS thirteen point one

482
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: and iOS thirteen point two designations. Oh and by the

483
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: time you hear this, iOS thirteen point three point one

484
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: might be available. It's currently in beta. As a record

485
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: this episode. Gordon Kelly of Forbes suggests that if you

486
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: have a device running an earlier version of iOS thirteen,

487
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,719
Speaker 1: you should absolutely update to thirteen point three, but if

488
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:51,959
Speaker 1: you're still running iOS twelve, you might actually still want

489
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: to wait a little bit longer before you upgrade. He

490
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: does say that things are starting to look promising, that

491
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: the initial months following the release of iOS thirteen were

492
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: pretty bad. He would give a categorical skip this update

493
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: until it's fixed recommendation. That recommendation is slowly starting to

494
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: soften as these numerous patches are addressing some of the

495
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: more serious bugs and vulnerabilities that people have found in

496
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: iOS thirteen. But this has not been an illustrious launch

497
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: for Apple. Bugs and operating system updates are really nothing new.

498
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it happens all the time. No one's perfect,

499
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: and operating systems are large and complicated pieces of software.

500
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: But it does create a bit of an image problem,

501
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: particularly if you're a company like Apple that has built

502
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: itself on a reputation that its devices just work, and

503
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: it also complicates a discussion that relates back to data security.

504
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, it's a good idea to keep as up

505
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: to date with operating system and security patches as you

506
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: possibly can. So if there's an update, generally speaking, it's

507
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: good to install right away. Now, eventually you might find

508
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: that your particular device can't support whatever the latest and

509
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: greatest version of the operating system is. That does happen

510
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: where the hardware itself cannot physically support the software, but

511
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: keeping up to date reduces the opportunities that hackers can

512
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: take to exploit vulnerabilities. However, when the operating system itself

513
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: is a buggy mess and the updates aren't much better,

514
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: it's not as clear cut a case that updating is

515
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: your best option. It may be that, yeah, you can update,

516
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: and that will technically patch some things, but could open

517
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: up either brand new vulnerabilities or might just make stuff

518
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: not work anymore. That's not great either. All right, let's

519
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: pop on over to Microsoft, Apple's old rival and sometimes savior.

520
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: If you've listened to old episodes of tech Stuff, you

521
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: know what I'm referring to. Now. I don't have a

522
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: whole lot to say about Microsoft in twenty nineteen. The

523
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: company has moved much of its operations into cloud based services,

524
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: but it did launch a product in late twenty nineteen

525
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: has folks like me a little excited. It's the hollow

526
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: lens too. Now, the hollow lens is an augmented reality platform,

527
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: and augmented reality involves overlaying digital information on top of

528
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: the real world around us in some way. Now, you

529
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: typically can achieve this through one of several approaches. You

530
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: could have special glasses that act as a projection screen

531
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: to display information in front of you as you look around,

532
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: so that you have digital information that you're looking at,

533
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: but you can also look through that and see the

534
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: real world beyond it. You could even have headphones that

535
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: feeds you information by audio that enhance your experience of

536
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: moving through a physical environment. That's the type of augmented reality.

537
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: It's maybe not as flashy as the first type, but

538
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: it's still very legitimate. You could have an app on

539
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: a smartphone that can recognize certain images and display data

540
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: on top of a video view of the world. So

541
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: in this case, you're looking at the world through your

542
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: smartphone screen, which then can overlay digital information on top

543
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: of that video view. But it's as if you're looking

544
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:03,479
Speaker 1: at the real world around you if you just kind

545
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: of ignore the fact that you're really looking at a monitor. Alright,

546
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: So the hullo lens and its sequel hollow Lens to

547
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: the augment in ing or if you prefer hollow lens

548
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: to electric boogaloo. It's a head mounted display and the

549
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: first generation of the hollow lens received a very limited

550
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: release because it wasn't intended as a consumer electronics product.

551
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant to go to the average person. It

552
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: was more of a first step into a new market

553
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: for Microsoft. The company launched the Hollow Lens two in

554
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: November two thou nineteen with a price tag of three thousand,

555
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. So it's still far from being priced

556
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: as a basic component of home computing. Right. No one,

557
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: h not, not your average person is going to go

558
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: out and adopt the hollow lens too. At I will

559
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: not be buying a hollow lens too. I just can't

560
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: justify that expense for something you know that would interesting

561
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: but have limited utility in my life. However, you could

562
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: say that this is slowly moving this technology into the

563
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,839
Speaker 1: consumer space. Now, the new version of the hollow lens

564
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,400
Speaker 1: has an improved field of view, so users will have

565
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 1: a less restricted view of the world around them. To me,

566
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: the headset looks kind of like imagine you've got a

567
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: pair of safety goggles. And then above the safety goggles

568
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: that you look through, so those are clear, you're looking

569
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: at the world around you. Above that, you've got a

570
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: device that has a camera system mounted inside of it,

571
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: and that part is actually attached to like a headband,

572
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: so you're wearing that on your forehead. And then below

573
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: that is where the safety goggles are. That's kind of

574
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 1: what it looks like. I'm doing a poor job describing it,

575
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: but it's hard to do in an audio format. But

576
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 1: the cameras that face out from this device capture the

577
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: scene around you, right. It takes in that information and

578
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: interprets it through the computational system inside the device, which

579
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: the determines what data to display on your your lenses

580
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: when you're looking at something in particular. So as an example,

581
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 1: let's say you're looking at an electrical panel, then the

582
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: data that pops up might tell you what each element

583
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: on that electrical panel relates back to, So it's kind

584
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: of like a labeling system in that case. That's just

585
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: one use case for this kind of technology. The company

586
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 1: also tweaked the gesture control interface that the hollow lens uses. UH.

587
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: This was to improve on responsiveness and to cut down

588
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: on false positives. So gestures obviously would be an important

589
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: way to control this kind of technology. You might use

590
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: voice control as well. Google Glass did that, but it

591
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: seems weird because that sounds like you're talking to yourself.

592
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: I can see that from personal experience, because I got

593
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: to play with Google Glass for a while. But the

594
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: gesture controls, they did something that I thought was pretty clever.

595
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: So for example, they built in a system where you

596
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: would hold out your hand and you would look down

597
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: at your hand and you and by moving your head

598
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 1: a little bit, you could position an icon so that

599
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: it appears to be projected onto the palm of your hand.

600
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: Then you could touch that icon with the fingers of

601
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: your other hand to activate it and launch whatever the

602
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: app is. And that's kind of neat. It adds a

603
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: sort of tactle response to the gesture control that otherwise

604
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 1: was lacking. Now I haven't been able to try a

605
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: hollow lens of either generation yet, but I hope I

606
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:30,280
Speaker 1: can at some point. I love the potential of augmented reality,

607
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: and I think really clever implementations have enormous possibilities in

608
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: the future. But I think it was probably gonna be

609
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: several more years before we see this as a common

610
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: technology for the everyday person. However, for certain industries I

611
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: suspect it will play a much larger role moving forward.

612
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,720
Speaker 1: We've already seen it being used in the medical field,

613
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: and engineering will probably see it move beyond that slowly,

614
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 1: and then gradually we'll see it possibly enter into the

615
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: mainstream market if there's a compelling enough use case. If

616
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 1: it's more of a curiosity, I would argue Google Glass

617
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: kind of fell into that category, then it probably won't

618
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: receive much traction, kind of like how virtual reality has

619
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 1: been struggling again. All right, when we come back, we'll

620
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: talk about some more stories, including touching on what a

621
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: little company that rhymes with Schmoogle has been up to. Okay,

622
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: let's talk Google. So, like Facebook, Google came under intense

623
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: scrutiny throughout two thousand nineteen, whether it was about user

624
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 1: privacy or allegations that the company was covering up really

625
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:47,360
Speaker 1: terrible behavior and turning a blind eye despite employee protests,

626
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: or allegations that the company's search results were purposefully promoting

627
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: certain material, specifically sites that were in alignment with Google's

628
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: own perceived agenda perceived by the public guy should say

629
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: at the expense of other materials. So, in other words,

630
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: that Google was promoting things that fell in line with

631
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: what Google wanted and suppressing anything that Google didn't like.

632
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: That was the charge. The company had to weather a

633
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: lot of strife in twenty nineteen, and to be clear,

634
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: at least some of that strife was brought on by

635
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,280
Speaker 1: the company itself. One big change for the company actually

636
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: requires us to take a step back and look up

637
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,720
Speaker 1: a level higher than Google itself. At Google's parent company,

638
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: which I mentioned earlier, is Alphabet Now. In early December nineteen,

639
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: Larry Page, a co founder of Google, announced that he

640
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: was stepping down as the CEO of Alphabet. Sunday, the

641
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,320
Speaker 1: CEO of Google itself, would become the new CEO of Alphabet,

642
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: while simultaneously remaining CEO of Google. Sarah A. Brenn, another

643
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,959
Speaker 1: co founder, had stepped down as Alphabet's president, but both

644
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: Page and Brand said they were going to remain on

645
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: the board of directors for or the company. Paige and

646
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,760
Speaker 1: Brand said that their decisions reflected a need for Google's

647
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 1: management structure to streamline, but it also came into time

648
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: when the company was dealing with big problems from within

649
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: and without. There was the scrutiny that I mentioned earlier,

650
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: in which government agencies and advocacy groups were criticizing Google's

651
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: policies and talking about its power in the marketplace, and

652
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: there were also allegations that the company had engaged in

653
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: some retaliation against a few employees. Now to understand that

654
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: last bit, we have to look back a little further

655
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: than the beginning of twenty nineteen. So in twenty eighteen,

656
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: internal issues within Google became big news as thousands of

657
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: employees protested issues ranging from sexual harassment problems in the

658
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: workplace to quote, unethical business decisions that create a workplace

659
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: that is harmful to us and our colleagues end quote. Now,

660
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: that last quote actually comes from four former Google employees

661
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: who posted a piece on Medium after they were fired.

662
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: This was around Thanksgiving twenty nineteen. The four employees had

663
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: been leading efforts to unionize at Google to organize employees,

664
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: and it was a move that did not look good

665
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 1: on Google's part, and it certainly appears at a casual

666
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: glance at least, that Google executives were trying to squash

667
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: employees from being able to organize in a union or

668
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 1: other organizational structure. The company's official response to inquiries about

669
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: the firing was that the employees had allegedly violated Google's

670
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,400
Speaker 1: security policies, an allegation that the four former employees deny.

671
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: The story is still playing out as I record this episode,

672
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: and it does tap into another upsetting trend in business

673
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: in general and the text fear in particular. It has

674
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: become pretty common practice for a lot of companies to

675
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: require employees to sign an agreement that limits the rights

676
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: an employee has when they want to address problems in

677
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: the workplace. Companies enact these policies so that they can

678
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: limit their own liability and limit the impact those types

679
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: of problems can have on business. The agreements typically force

680
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: employees to try and work through issues through internal systems

681
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: at the company, like going through human resources, and it

682
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 1: really places restrictions on other options, such as pursuing a

683
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: legal case against the company, like you could get severely

684
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: punished for going outside the company and seeking outside help. Now,

685
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: assuming the HR department is on the side of the employees,

686
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: you could maybe argue that this policy isn't too restrictive.

687
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: It might be you might not feel great about it.

688
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: But if you think, oh, well, HR is gonna be

689
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: on the employees side, maybe you're going to say, well,

690
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: I'm willing to endure it. But at least in some cases,

691
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: particularly with Google, it's appeared that the HR department was

692
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: really more on the side of the corporation on the employees.

693
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: That they had a tendency to shut down complaints or

694
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: to try to mitigate the fallout of complaints by kind

695
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: of shifting people around without removing or punishing anyone who

696
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: was the focal point of an allegation, and so they

697
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: weren't really addressing the underlying issues, which left the affected

698
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: employees with very few options. And it's pretty ugly stuff.

699
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 1: So that's one of the things that I think a

700
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: lot of employees around the world really, but particularly in

701
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:28,280
Speaker 1: the tech space, have started to kind of act out against.

702
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 1: And we're not done with Google yet. The company launched

703
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: its gaming service, Google Stadia in two thousand nineteen. That

704
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: service allows users to access games via streaming, so you're

705
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: actually running the game on one of Google's servers and

706
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: you're playing it via your local connection. According to Google,

707
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 1: you can stream games up to four K resolution and

708
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: sixty frames per second, assuming that your Internet connection and

709
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: your hardware can support that. The service launched with some

710
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: stupality problems and with a pretty limited library of games,

711
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: and so far it hasn't really taken off, despite the

712
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: fact that it removes the need for buying a high

713
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: end gaming rig or even a gaming console to access

714
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: current generation games. Now. To be fair, Google is not

715
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 1: the only company that has tried this model with only

716
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: limited success. There are lots of companies that have tried

717
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,720
Speaker 1: a similar approach and also have had some issues getting

718
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: anywhere with it. Meanwhile, over at YouTube, which again is

719
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 1: part of Google, it's part of that alphabet company, other

720
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: problems were plaguing Googlers. So in September of twenty nineteen,

721
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: YouTube changed its policy for verified creators. Verified creators are

722
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. So these are creators who had earned

723
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: a verified check mark and that indicated that essentially up

724
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: until recently, that they had attracted at least one hundred

725
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers. I happen to be one of these verified

726
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: uh creators, but more on that in the minute, because

727
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 1: it's an interesting case. So in the past, YouTube had

728
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: issued verified check marks two accounts that had reached that

729
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand subscriber mark or more. That's all you

730
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: really had to do in order to get the verified

731
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: check Now they decided to change that so that not

732
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: only would you need the one hundred thousand subscribers, you

733
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: also need to have your account be active, meaning you

734
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: have to be uploading content on a semi regular basis,

735
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: and it doesn't need to be you know, had had

736
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: been quiet without an upload for ages. Also, the accounts

737
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: needed to be authentic. In other words, the account need

738
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: to be linked back to a real creator, brand, or

739
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,720
Speaker 1: entity that YouTube could verify was in charge of creating

740
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 1: that content. This meant that a lot of the people

741
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,719
Speaker 1: who had the little check mark didn't necessarily meet those requirements.

742
00:44:55,880 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: So then YouTube revoked the verified badge for thousands of creators,

743
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: and that created an uproar. I happened to be one

744
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 1: of the creators who lost my badge I lost. I

745
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 1: got an email it said you're verified badges going away. Now.

746
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: In my case, I wasn't fussed about it. I'll explain

747
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: that again in just a minute. So YouTube's motivation was

748
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: to clarify what a verification check mark actually meant, because

749
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: one confusion was that people thought that a check mark

750
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: meant that YouTube was endorsing the content of that creator,

751
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: that somehow YouTube was saying, yes, we approve of this.

752
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: This is what that check mark means. But it wasn't

753
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: meant to be that. It was meant to be an

754
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: indicator that the associated account was authentic and not some

755
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: sort of impersonation account. And this is a legit issue

756
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: over on YouTube because a lot of creators, really popular creators,

757
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 1: see their work get lifted and reposted under other accounts.

758
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: So you might create a really awesome video and maybe

759
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,959
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit of notice, so somebody else

760
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: captures that video, they use a program to download it,

761
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: then they re upload it under their own account, and

762
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: they try to get that one to take off. It's

763
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: even possible for a copy to outperform the original, and

764
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: that means that the person who originally put in the

765
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: work to making that thing be what it is doesn't

766
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: get the benefit of it. They aren't able to monetize

767
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: the appearance on the other channel. You can put down

768
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:29,839
Speaker 1: takedown strikes and stuff like that, but it means having

769
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: to constantly, you know, search the internet, search YouTube for

770
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: copies of your work. So YouTube wanted to create a

771
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: system that would make a more straightforward approach to verification,

772
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 1: in the sense that if you saw the check mark,

773
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: you knew this person was a legit, that the content

774
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: coming from that person's channel was in fact coming from

775
00:46:54,719 --> 00:47:00,040
Speaker 1: that creator. And uh so they put that change and

776
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: they revoked all those check marks. People went nuts, and

777
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: so YouTube walked it back a week later, and a

778
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,399
Speaker 1: week later it gave everybody their verified check marks back,

779
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 1: including me, which again in my case, I don't think

780
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: it was necessary. So let me explain about my check mark.

781
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: So a few years ago, I was hosting a video

782
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: series called forward Thinking This is for Work, and the

783
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: channel for forward Thinking was linked to my personal YouTube

784
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: channel for reasons I don't remember at this point. I

785
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: think it was so that I could go in and

786
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: make changes if I needed to, even though typically we

787
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,399
Speaker 1: would have other people handle all of that. For some reason,

788
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: they trusted me and they linked the channel to my

789
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: personal YouTube account. The result was I got a check

790
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:52,799
Speaker 1: mark because the Forward Thinking series had a pretty good

791
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: subscriber base, like two fifty thousand subscribers, so it met

792
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 1: the criteria and it got the check mark. King to me, now,

793
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: this is despite the fact that on my channel, I

794
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: very rarely post anything. I've only got a few videos

795
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: up on my personal channel, and when I do put

796
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 1: a video up, I get only a few views. You know,

797
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: it's typically like, hey, my mom watches my stuff, which

798
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 1: is totally fine. I'm I was doing it for fun.

799
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to do it as a YouTuber, right,

800
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: So in my case, when my check mark went away,

801
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, that's totally fair. I'm an outlier

802
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:32,240
Speaker 1: and I don't meet this requirement. I definitely don't deserve

803
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: the check mark. It's okay that it's gone, But there

804
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 1: are lots of creators out there who did deserve the

805
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: check mark and they saw it go away. So for them,

806
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: I'm glad that it came back, because that thing can

807
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: really help you. That check mark means that you have

808
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 1: a little bit more clout when it comes to stuff

809
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: like looking for sponsorships, maybe getting advertisers to support your channel,

810
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: monetizing your work so that you can get compensated for it.

811
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: That's important. Now my case, again, I was doing it

812
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: for fun. I never expected it to be anything beyond

813
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: that for my own personal channel, so I didn't worry

814
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: about it. Forward thinking was a different story, but that

815
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: was also a project that had a company backing it,

816
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: so that was a totally different case. So yeah, I'm

817
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: glad that it got fixed and moving forward, YouTube is

818
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,959
Speaker 1: being much more picky about who gets a verification check mark,

819
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:30,280
Speaker 1: but they're not wholesale eliminating all the previously awarded check marks.

820
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: But another controversy that's also playing out on YouTube is

821
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: one that's going to roll into and beyond, and it

822
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: all has to do with a law from the nineteen

823
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: nineties intended to protect children, and that law is a

824
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: US law. It's called Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or

825
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: Kappa CEO p p A. It was again first established

826
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: as law, and in twenty nineteen, the Federal Trade Commission,

827
00:49:56,600 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: also known as the FTC, brought a suit again YouTube

828
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 1: and alleged that YouTube had been illegally collecting the personal

829
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: information of children without their parents consent, that kids were

830
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: watching videos on YouTube, that what they were watching was

831
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: being tracked by YouTube, and that this was creating a

832
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: digital fingerprint that advertisers were using to target advertising towards

833
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,240
Speaker 1: those children, and the children being too young to consent

834
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: to this meant that this whole practice under Kappa was illegal,

835
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: and specifically that the company was using this quote in

836
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: the form of persistent identifiers that are used to track

837
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 1: users across the Internet end quote. So in other words,

838
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: this would be the sort of thing where if you

839
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: were watching a bunch of videos about elephants and then

840
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: you happened to navigate over to say Amazon, you might

841
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: see a bunch of suggestions that relate in some way

842
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 1: to elephants. And the concern was that this was going

843
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: to be targeting kids, and there was no way for

844
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: kids to give legal consent to allow that to happen,

845
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: and that data has value in it, and children's privacy

846
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: and security also has value to them, so that was

847
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: the problem. Well, YouTube would settle this lawsuit out of court.

848
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: They paid a hundred seventy million dollars in fines, which

849
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: really sounds like a lot, but for YouTube, it's nothing.

850
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: And if that's where it all ended, we would just

851
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: wrap up the story and beyond with it. But in

852
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 1: addition to the fine, the company had to agree to

853
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 1: create a system that is compliant with Kappa. So this

854
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: would mean that any creator who was making child directed content,

855
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: meaning content meant to be viewed by children would be

856
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: affected by this. They would have to be Kappa compliant.

857
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: They would have to make sure that they were running

858
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:51,839
Speaker 1: a channel that was not gathering information about the uh

859
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: the children watching it, that they were not building in

860
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: targeted advertising, that they had to self identify as being

861
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 1: a creator it was creating child directed content. You had

862
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: to actually go into your little profile and click and

863
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 1: say whether or not your channel was meant for kids

864
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: or not. But this raises questions like what exactly is

865
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 1: child directed? And it has a lot of creators nervous

866
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 1: right now because there are creators who do, for example,

867
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: unboxing videos, and some of them are clearly meant for kids.

868
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: Some of them are hosted by kids and clearly meant

869
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 1: for kids, but there are others where it may not

870
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 1: be for kids. It maybe for people who really are

871
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: into collecting toys that are from their favorite you know, franchises,

872
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: for example, so toy unboxing would likely be in the spotlight.

873
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 1: Creators who use video games are likewise concerned. There are

874
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: people who are using video games to tell stories that

875
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: are people use let's plays or play throughs, but they're

876
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: not necessarily meant for kids. There's also people who are

877
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: working in animation, and that animation may not be meant

878
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:59,840
Speaker 1: for kids, but the general perception is that cartoons are

879
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: children and they're concerned that they will be interpreted as

880
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: being child directed when they don't intend to be, and

881
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:09,839
Speaker 1: that they will be affected by this. There's a lot

882
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:11,760
Speaker 1: of fear that this is going to have an effect

883
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: on monetization, so that people might not be able to

884
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: get paid for what they're making, which means they'll probably

885
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: stop making it. I mean, you've got to make your living. Uh.

886
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:23,720
Speaker 1: They may move on to a different platform than YouTube,

887
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,800
Speaker 1: or they may just stop entirely. Every single violation of

888
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,280
Speaker 1: Kappa can be fined up to a maximum of forty

889
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 1: two dollars. Now, keep in mind some of these channels

890
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: have hundreds or thousands of videos up online, so if

891
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: they were identified as being child directed and that their

892
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: material wasn't Kappa compliant, they could get that maximum fine

893
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: for every single video that seemed to be that was

894
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: on their channel. So the cost could be staggering. So

895
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: it's possible we'll see entire channels go dark with PAS

896
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 1: videos hidden away or deleted, all out of fear that

897
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: a mislite labeling situation could result in massive fines, and

898
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of uncertainty around this issue, and

899
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: we're not entirely sure how it's all going to play

900
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: out now. As for me, well, I'm in favor of

901
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 1: rules that protect kids from having their data harvested without consent.

902
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like that idea at all about

903
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 1: kids getting tracked and targeted and advertising that's you know,

904
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 1: before they're able to even work with the idea of

905
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: what that means. They're particularly uh, you know, vulnerable to it.

906
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: It's one thing to be an adult and to understand,

907
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 1: at least on a basic level, what is going on

908
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: when we use the internet. It's another matter entirely for children. However,

909
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: the application of those rules can be pretty chaotic and disruptive,

910
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: particularly to people who are well intentioned. They are not

911
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: trying to create child directed content, but they're worried about

912
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: their material being misrepresented or misunderstood as child directed, and

913
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: therefore every thing is put in danger. That's not great either,

914
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: and channels that are clearly not meant for kids could

915
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 1: get caught up in the crosshairs through no fault of

916
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 1: their own. So this is a situation worthy of attention.

917
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: Because it stands to affect hundreds of creators on YouTube

918
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 1: who are not trying to make stuff for kids. Then

919
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: you've got people who like their main audience are kids,

920
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: and they're not making stuff for kids. Just so happens

921
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: that their audience is mostly kids. That's an issue all

922
00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:35,399
Speaker 1: on its own, and one that I don't have any

923
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: solutions for. If you're making stuff that you know you

924
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: didn't intend to appeal to children, but children think it's fantastic,

925
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,759
Speaker 1: where does that put you because you weren't targeting them,

926
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 1: but that's your audience. That's tough. Now. There are a

927
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:54,880
Speaker 1: lot of other stories I didn't get to like, for example,

928
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: the Testlas Cybertruck debut and how awkward it was when

929
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 1: they had the debut and they hit it with a

930
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: sledgehammer and then they threw some stuff at the windows

931
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: and the windows started cracking. That was pretty a pretty

932
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: rough showing. And the cybertruck itself is is really funky.

933
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 1: It's a very odd design, kind of reminds me of

934
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: a Lamborghini Kuntash or an old DeLorean in a way.

935
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: Or I didn't talk about how the Samsung Galaxy folds

936
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 1: mobile device, the foldable smartphone how that launch didn't go

937
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 1: so well. You could say that the fold cracked under pressure.

938
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about the launch of Star Wars Galaxy's

939
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: Edge at Disneyland and Disney World. That was a big deal,

940
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:39,920
Speaker 1: not just in tech obviously, but in theme parks. Uh.

941
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 1: There were the seemingly endless supply of movie and television

942
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: streaming services that either launched in twenty nineteen or were

943
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 1: announced in twenty nineteen, stuff like Disney Plus and the

944
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: upcoming HBO streaming service, Apple Plus launched just tons of them.

945
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: Now there was Baby Yoda. But I think it's a

946
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:02,960
Speaker 1: good time to wrap up this episode. Let's set our

947
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 1: sights on twenty Yeah, you know what, Let's all get

948
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 1: twenty twenty vision in the year with a pun. I

949
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: guess technically I'm starting the year with a pun because

950
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: I think this episode goes live on January one. Anyway,

951
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 1: that was twenty nineteen in a nutshell. I've got a

952
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: lot of plans for I'm looking forward to sharing with

953
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 1: you more wonderful stories about technology, interesting stuff about how

954
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: tech works, how it affects us, how we affect it,

955
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: how things change over time, and how that change can

956
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 1: be messy. But sometimes once you get through the messy parts,

957
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:42,360
Speaker 1: you can get something really incredible. So we're gonna look

958
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: at those stories as well as well as the times

959
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 1: where things just didn't go right. We'll be covering more

960
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: of those as well. If you guys have suggestions for

961
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: future topics I should cover in technology, let me know.

962
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 1: The Facebook and Twitter handle are both tech stuff hs W.

963
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 1: It's best to reach out to me there and I

964
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again really soon. Hext Stuff is

965
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For

966
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart

967
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,640
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

968
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: favorite shows.