Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: we are continuing on our look back on the big
Speaker 1: text stories of twenty nineteen. Now, the last episode was
Speaker 1: all about bummers. This one is only mostly about bummers.
Speaker 1: But don't blame me. I didn't make the news. Also,
Speaker 1: I should point out that, of course I'm just giving
Speaker 1: kind of a high level overview of stuff that happened
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, because to cover everything that happened in
Speaker 1: tech would be beyond even my impressive capabilities. And I
Speaker 1: should also add that I've got some updates to stuff
Speaker 1: what happened in the last episode, because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: when I recorded part one and when I'm recording part two,
Speaker 1: time past and stuff continue to develop. That's how news works,
Speaker 1: and I resent it. But one story I do need
Speaker 1: to follow up on broke between that time and that
Speaker 1: was that Dennis Muhlenberg, the CEO of Boeing, resigned from
Speaker 1: Boeing as the company was dealing with the consequences of
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven max fleet being grounded, among other
Speaker 1: problems at the company. Generally speaking, analyst said that his
Speaker 1: stepping down was sort of a necessary part of Boweing
Speaker 1: regaining confidence among customers and shareholders. Not that all blame
Speaker 1: should be put on the CEOs shoulders, but that this
Speaker 1: was one of those steps a company has to take
Speaker 1: in order to convince people, hey, we are really taking
Speaker 1: this seriously and we need to make some changes. Now.
Speaker 1: The next two stories that I want to talk about
Speaker 1: are related, and they are both extremely dark and upsetting,
Speaker 1: but I also feel they are important to acknowledge and consider.
Speaker 1: And for some of you you might feel as though
Speaker 1: I'm going to get really preachy about this. I am
Speaker 1: not going to apologize for that in this case. Now,
Speaker 1: the first dark story is about March fifteen, two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: That was when a gunman carried out attacks on two
Speaker 1: different mosques in christ Church, New Zealand, killing fifty one
Speaker 1: people and injuring another forty nine. Now, the reason the
Speaker 1: story gets included in tech news is that the gunman
Speaker 1: streamed the attack on the first mosque over on Facebook Live.
Speaker 1: Other people grabbed the video feed, and then they began
Speaker 1: to post it elsewhere, which ensured that even as platforms
Speaker 1: were removing it, others were hosting it. The New Zealand
Speaker 1: government classified the video as objectionable, which is a legal
Speaker 1: classification in New Zealand. It meant that distributing, copying, or
Speaker 1: exhibiting the video would be against the law, but the
Speaker 1: video was already out on the internet. Now most platforms
Speaker 1: have created digital fingerprints of the video in order to
Speaker 1: detect future uploads, thus blocking it automatically and then removing
Speaker 1: them very quickly. The gunman, identified as Britain Tarrant, had
Speaker 1: been active in far right organizations and white supremacy groups
Speaker 1: online and off, and there's been a rise in activity
Speaker 1: in online communities of such radical groups, raising warnings of
Speaker 1: extremists using the Internet to recruit others and reinforce some
Speaker 1: truly awful beliefs. And this brings me to story number two,
Speaker 1: which is that these groups have made use of some
Speaker 1: notable online communities to encourage one another and create a
Speaker 1: space for extremism. One of those online communities, and perhaps
Speaker 1: the most infamous, is eight kun formerly known as eight chan.
Speaker 1: The history of eight chan dates back to when Frederick
Speaker 1: Brennan created it, as an alternative to an earlier online
Speaker 1: message board community called four chan. Now, Brennan felt four
Speaker 1: chan was becoming too restrictive, which is a sentence that's
Speaker 1: hard to even believe if you're at all familiar with
Speaker 1: four chan. The only rule on a chan was that
Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to post or link to any content
Speaker 1: that would be illegal in the United States. Brennan ended
Speaker 1: his association with the site in two thousand eighteen. In
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, in the wake of shootings in christ Church,
Speaker 1: New Zealand, also in Poway, California, and El Paso, Texas,
Speaker 1: and also links back to eight chan showing how the
Speaker 1: perpetrators of those three different shootings had used eight chan
Speaker 1: to publish their own manifestos. Brennan, the founder of the site,
Speaker 1: was one of the voices calling for the site to
Speaker 1: get shut down. That actually did happen in August two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, but the site since returned as a con
Speaker 1: as of November two thousand nineteen. And there is a
Speaker 1: pretty complicated situation going on here. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: the founders of the Internet and of the Worldwide Web
Speaker 1: envisioned a platform that would support freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: the exchange of ideas. On the other hand, many people,
Speaker 1: particularly those from already vulnerable communities, are put in danger
Speaker 1: as extremism is on the rise. The safe haven for
Speaker 1: those who espouse these extremist, radical, racist, and misogynist and
Speaker 1: violent beliefs as contributing to an increasingly toxic subculture. In addition,
Speaker 1: several tech companies have enabled this subculture. It hasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: been a conscious decision, but the principles of running a
Speaker 1: business in which your goal is to return value to
Speaker 1: shareholders isn't always in alignment with doing what's actually best
Speaker 1: for the general population. In fact, those two things can
Speaker 1: often come into conflict with one another. In some cases,
Speaker 1: like eight Kun, this is far more apparent, but it's
Speaker 1: also the case with stuff like more public platforms such
Speaker 1: as Twitter and Facebook. Those companies struggle with how to
Speaker 1: deal with a particularly thorny subject to varying degrees of success,
Speaker 1: most of which satisfy very few people. I wish I
Speaker 1: had a solution to this very large problem, but I
Speaker 1: believe such a solution has to go much deeper than
Speaker 1: taking a website offline or removing an option for people
Speaker 1: to voice these hateful philosophies. That's part of it, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't address the deeper underlying problems that feed into
Speaker 1: that toxicity to begin with. So all I can really
Speaker 1: do is appeal to you guys to exercise compassion and
Speaker 1: critical thinking. Those two things are absolutely necessary in my view.
Speaker 1: All Right, the darkest of the dark stuff in this
Speaker 1: episode is over, so let's move on. One thing that
Speaker 1: happened in twenty nineteen might set us on a path
Speaker 1: for widespread use of drones to deliver packages. In the
Speaker 1: spring of twenty nineteen, the Federal Aviation Administration or f
Speaker 1: A a certified Wing that's the drone delivery startup company
Speaker 1: that's owned by the Google parent company alphabet UH. They
Speaker 1: certified them to operate as an air carrier. This regulatory
Speaker 1: step allows Wing to make commercial deliveries in the United States.
Speaker 1: The company had already been conducting tests in Australia in
Speaker 1: anticipation of receiving government approval in the United States. And
Speaker 1: there's still many questions that need to be answered, and
Speaker 1: we're likely to see very limited roll out of drone
Speaker 1: delivery services in specific regions as companies and local governments
Speaker 1: kind of hash out the best way to move forward now. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see if drone delivery will prove to
Speaker 1: be a more efficient means of delivering packages on a
Speaker 1: large enough scale to make sense. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: see how it could be incredibly useful in scenarios where
Speaker 1: getting to a location is challenging and the need to
Speaker 1: deliver something important like medication is really urgent, but I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely convinced yet that it would make sense from
Speaker 1: a more general use standpoint. However, I also haven't run
Speaker 1: the figures, nor do I know how much it costs
Speaker 1: to operate delivery services as they stand right now, So
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that this is a viable alternative to
Speaker 1: more traditional delivery services. I just don't know enough to
Speaker 1: comment on it firmly, But it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: believe that, on the face of it, that it would
Speaker 1: be more cost effective and efficient unless you just had
Speaker 1: truly enormous fleets, in which case then you have the
Speaker 1: technological and administrative difficulties that come with managing that large
Speaker 1: of a fleet. So I just don't know. Sticking with
Speaker 1: government approval, because there are a lot of stories that
Speaker 1: fall into that category this year, the Federal Communications Commission
Speaker 1: in the United States, or the FCC, approved the merger
Speaker 1: of telecommunications companies T Mobile and Sprint. Now. According to analysts,
Speaker 1: the chief purpose of this merger is to enhance T
Speaker 1: mobiles five G technology rollout to give it a stronger
Speaker 1: position in the United States as a As you know,
Speaker 1: five G networks are starting to come online. Just a
Speaker 1: few years ago, according to reports from a consulting firm
Speaker 1: called McKenzie, T Mobile was eyeing a merger was Sprint,
Speaker 1: but for a different reason. It was in an effort
Speaker 1: to become more competitive against A T and T and Verizon,
Speaker 1: which are the other two major cellular phone carriers in
Speaker 1: the United States. While the FCC has given its approval,
Speaker 1: that's just one regulatory hurdle that telecommunications companies have to
Speaker 1: overcome before they can merge. Regulatory agencies at both the
Speaker 1: state and federal levels are still considering this plan, and
Speaker 1: they may place restrictions or limitations on any merger, or
Speaker 1: they might deny it outright. T Mobile has reportedly been
Speaker 1: renegotiating the deal in the meantime, and the old reports
Speaker 1: from two thousand and fifteen, the ones that stated tea
Speaker 1: Mobile was first looking at Sprint for a possible merger,
Speaker 1: said that t Mobile also entertain the notion of allowing Comcast,
Speaker 1: the mega cable corporation, to acquire Team Bowl. There may
Speaker 1: well be some serious offers for acquisitions like that in
Speaker 1: the near future of either te Mobile or Sprint, or
Speaker 1: emerged version of the two from such a cable company,
Speaker 1: whether it's Comcast or a different one. Speaking of corporate maneuvers,
Speaker 1: one drama that finally finished playing out in nineteen really
Speaker 1: kind of fizzled out and sputtered a bit was the
Speaker 1: tale of Amazon's HQ two in New York City. So
Speaker 1: let's backtrack a bit. The company initially announced it was
Speaker 1: looking into expanding its corporate headquarters, which are based out
Speaker 1: of Seattle, Washington, into a different city. In two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: They famously held a Request for Proposals in asking for
Speaker 1: cities that were eager to host this new headquarters to
Speaker 1: present their their proposals their deals. That in turn prompted
Speaker 1: a series of stories about incredibly generous tax breaks and
Speaker 1: other incentives, as well as some fairly absurd publicity stunts
Speaker 1: that stretched throughout most of until in November of that year,
Speaker 1: Amazon announced it had settled on two locations that would
Speaker 1: share the duty of being HQ two. One is in Arlington, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and the other was in New York City, New York. Now,
Speaker 1: there was some pretty hefty criticism early on from various
Speaker 1: sources that alleged Amazon had chosen these two locations from
Speaker 1: the beginning, that had these in mind when they even
Speaker 1: asked for the proposals in the first place. One of
Speaker 1: the pieces of supposed evidence that they used to support
Speaker 1: this claim is that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apparently had
Speaker 1: homes near those two proposed locations, and that the whole
Speaker 1: selection process was therefore nothing more than an effort to
Speaker 1: create a competitive environment so that both New York and
Speaker 1: Arlington would continuously improve their deals so Amazon we get
Speaker 1: the sweetest tax break, but that presumably the plan all
Speaker 1: along was to move into those two locations. Whether that's
Speaker 1: true or not, we get to two thousand nineteen, and
Speaker 1: early in twenty nineteen, New York City residents voiced some
Speaker 1: rather critical opinions about their new proposed neighbor. Journalists reported
Speaker 1: that the proposed HQ two site in New York City
Speaker 1: would take up land that had previously been intended for
Speaker 1: the use of six thousand homes, including a significant number
Speaker 1: of low income homes. Alexandria Accacio Cortez, a US representative
Speaker 1: from New York, voiced concern that the incentives offered to
Speaker 1: Amazon would hurt the city both in the near and
Speaker 1: the long term, that it would undermine efforts to fund
Speaker 1: government improvements to critical infrastructure in the city because of
Speaker 1: these enormous tax breaks. You know, if Amazon is not
Speaker 1: paying taxes, that revenue is not coming from them, the
Speaker 1: financial burden falls on everyone else in New York and
Speaker 1: frequently that means that programs have to get reduced or
Speaker 1: cut so that you can, you know, make your money
Speaker 1: stretch out further. In February two thou nineteen, Amazon announced
Speaker 1: it was canceling its plan to build out its location
Speaker 1: in New York City. Amazon does lease out some office space,
Speaker 1: a significant amount of office space in New York, but
Speaker 1: it no longer plans to have a second corporate headquarters there.
Speaker 1: And since we're talking about Amazon, let's move on to
Speaker 1: one of the properties that Amazon owns, and that would
Speaker 1: be the Ring Company. That's the company that produces surveillance
Speaker 1: cameras and and surveillance doorbells, you know doorbells that have
Speaker 1: the cameras and communication systems. Well, in twenty nineteen, there
Speaker 1: were a few stories of hackers who had gained access
Speaker 1: to users Ring equipment, whether it was the surveillance cameras
Speaker 1: or the Ring doorbells. Some hackers did this in an
Speaker 1: effort to expose vulnerability, so they were doing it to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we need to fix this because it's a problem. But
Speaker 1: others did it specifically to her asks or exploit people,
Speaker 1: and those stories were alarming and continue to be alarming.
Speaker 1: Some of them involve kids, and it's incredibly disturbing, and
Speaker 1: they've led to at least one class action lawsuit against Amazon.
Speaker 1: The allegation is that Ring isn't doing enough to ensure
Speaker 1: customers privacy and security are maintained, which is particularly a
Speaker 1: problem for a company that markets equipment that's meant to
Speaker 1: enhance security, not exploit vulnerabilities. Now I haven't seen all
Speaker 1: the details about how the Ring systems were actually hacked.
Speaker 1: There are different ways to gain access to connected systems
Speaker 1: on a network. Sometimes you can find a vulnerability in
Speaker 1: an endpoint, such as an actual device connected to the network.
Speaker 1: So in those cases you would say, all right, the
Speaker 1: hacker managed to hack into the network via this RING device.
Speaker 1: That very well maybe the case maybe they were able
Speaker 1: to brute force a password through that and the got
Speaker 1: access that way. But other times hackers might find a
Speaker 1: way to compromise the network itself and then they can
Speaker 1: access the various components connected to that network as if
Speaker 1: they were, in fact the legitimate administrator of the network.
Speaker 1: In the case of Ring, it sounds to me as
Speaker 1: though they found it through password vulnerabilities. The lawsuit states
Speaker 1: that Ring should have required users to create more robust
Speaker 1: passwords and to require two factor authentication to prevent abuse.
Speaker 1: And just in case you're not familiar with the concept,
Speaker 1: two factor authentication is a subset of what is called
Speaker 1: multi factor authentication, which just means that you're using two
Speaker 1: or more factors, which really just means two to three
Speaker 1: factors to authenticate your identity. And those factors are categories
Speaker 1: of stuff, right. Those categories are what you know. This
Speaker 1: would be something like a password or a pin, so
Speaker 1: it would be something that you have knowledge of and
Speaker 1: you provide when you're accessing a system. The second factor
Speaker 1: is what you have, like what you physically have on
Speaker 1: you that could be a mobile device, So it could
Speaker 1: be that you provide your password or pen and then
Speaker 1: it sends a code to your mobile device, which you
Speaker 1: also have to enter, or you might have a token
Speaker 1: that you have to use in some way to access
Speaker 1: the system. And then the third factor is what you are,
Speaker 1: and this would refer to things like biometric data. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a retinal scan or fingerprint scan or voice scan.
Speaker 1: Multi factor authentication requires you present at least two of
Speaker 1: those three factors, possibly one of all three. It all
Speaker 1: depends on the implementation. So you might enter a password,
Speaker 1: then you receive your code, you enter the code, and
Speaker 1: then you get access. But that proves you both know
Speaker 1: the password and you also have possession of an authorized
Speaker 1: mobile device, which limits the possibility that an unauthorized person
Speaker 1: is going to gain access to that system. Now, this
Speaker 1: touches on an issue that I think is really important
Speaker 1: and is growing more important as the Internet of Things
Speaker 1: gets bigger. And I'm sure you've heard the saying that
Speaker 1: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Speaker 1: In network security, there are many potential weak links. You
Speaker 1: could have a badly designed piece of hardware or software
Speaker 1: that has vulnerabilities in it, and that offers an in
Speaker 1: road for an intrusion into a network. You can also
Speaker 1: have users who practice really poor security habits, like they
Speaker 1: choose common passwords like a common dictionary word as a password.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible, terrible habit and no one should do it.
Speaker 1: Or they're using the same password for multiple services, also
Speaker 1: a terrible idea. But this raises a question who should
Speaker 1: be accountable for data security? After all, users should be
Speaker 1: employing strong, unique passwords as a matter of habit. And
Speaker 1: if you heard about someone's house being robbed because they
Speaker 1: forgot to lock the door, I don't think your first
Speaker 1: instinct would be to sue the lock company for letting
Speaker 1: it happen. I think end users are at least partly
Speaker 1: accountable for good data security. However, that being said, I
Speaker 1: also think that companies have a responsibility. They need to
Speaker 1: create rules that require strong passwords and multi factor authentication
Speaker 1: by default. They need to essentially force users to be
Speaker 1: more careful. They enable users to practice good security, and
Speaker 1: by enable users, I really mean limit the options that
Speaker 1: users have that that result in poor security. I think
Speaker 1: it's the user's responsibility to be more secure and the
Speaker 1: company's responsibility to enable it. But that's just me. Now,
Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll look at some more stories
Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen. Here's a story that started making the
Speaker 1: news just before twenty nineteen wrapped up. I mean I
Speaker 1: learned about it shortly before coming into the studio. So
Speaker 1: Devin Wilson, or at Atomic Thumbs on Twitter, criticize the
Speaker 1: company so Nos for what he saw as a particularly
Speaker 1: egregious example of trying to control the aftermarket on electronics now.
Speaker 1: Sons is primarily known for making speaker systems, particularly smart speakers,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of tech companies, it depends heavily
Speaker 1: on creating incentives for established Sons customers to upgrade and
Speaker 1: update their equipment. You know, if everyone just went out
Speaker 1: and bought the latest Sons speaker and they thought, oh,
Speaker 1: this works great and had no reason to upgrade, the
Speaker 1: company would have a very rough year. So they have
Speaker 1: to create incentives for people to keep buying their stuff.
Speaker 1: In that way. Sonas is strategy is really similar to
Speaker 1: that of things like smartphone handset manufacturers. It's the Apple
Speaker 1: iPhone model. In other words, each subsequent generation of devices
Speaker 1: incorporates features that older devices cannot support, whether that lack
Speaker 1: of support comes from technical limitations of the hardware or
Speaker 1: managerial decisions. Is a moot point as a pose, I
Speaker 1: mean it could come down to executives say, just don't
Speaker 1: let this run on older stuff, not that the older
Speaker 1: stuff is inherently incapable of running. It doesn't matter. The
Speaker 1: end result is the same. So NOS has a trade
Speaker 1: up program that gives existing so nos users a thirty
Speaker 1: credit toward a new so nos device if those users
Speaker 1: activate what is called recycle mode on their older so
Speaker 1: nos device. Now, recycle mode starts a countdown clock. It's
Speaker 1: a twenty one day countdown, and at the end of
Speaker 1: that SONS puts the device on a blacklist so that
Speaker 1: it is bricked, meaning you can't use it at all.
Speaker 1: It will not work, it is ineffective, and it also
Speaker 1: means that you can't give it away or sell it,
Speaker 1: or at least you can't do so ethically because you'd
Speaker 1: just be handing over what amounts to being a giant
Speaker 1: paperweight with a lot of circuit boards and wires in it.
Speaker 1: So really the only options are to try and hack
Speaker 1: the speakers, which isn't really an option most people would
Speaker 1: feel comfortable trying to tackle and would probably have limited
Speaker 1: use anyway, or you could send the speaker to an
Speaker 1: e waste recycling facility, or you just throw the darn
Speaker 1: thing away. That's not a great option. It adds e waste.
Speaker 1: E waste is bad stuff, and recycling, while better than
Speaker 1: throwing stuff out, isn't as environmentally friendly as reusing stuff.
Speaker 1: If you've ever heard reduce, reuse, recycle, well it's in
Speaker 1: that order of preference. You want to reduce the amount
Speaker 1: of waste you generate. You want to reuse stuff as
Speaker 1: much as you can. The stuff you can't reuse, you recycle.
Speaker 1: The stuff you can't reuse or recycle, then you can
Speaker 1: throw away. But even that is, you know, not great.
Speaker 1: So Wilson's point was that so NOSES program actually incentivizes
Speaker 1: creating e waste. It encourages people to break their old
Speaker 1: device in order to get this thirty percent credit towards
Speaker 1: their next purchase, and it makes those old devices useless
Speaker 1: to anyone. And sure, they these people might go and
Speaker 1: recycle their old Sons speakers, but it's not as good
Speaker 1: an option as to keep the equipment in working order
Speaker 1: so that someone else can actually make use of it,
Speaker 1: rather than for it to just go to waste. Critics
Speaker 1: have said, this really isn't about reducing waste, it's about
Speaker 1: so Nos limiting the viability of a secondary market. Because
Speaker 1: Sonas doesn't make money off of someone selling off an
Speaker 1: old pair of speakers or anything like that. The company
Speaker 1: has a financial incentive to discourage aftermarket resales and to
Speaker 1: create pathways for people to buy directly from Sons or
Speaker 1: or from retailers who are carrying so Nos speakers. So
Speaker 1: the criticism states that this is a devious way for
Speaker 1: Sons to play the environmentally conscious card, you know, to
Speaker 1: make it look like they're being eco friendly, while actually
Speaker 1: they're taking aim at a market that can undercut their
Speaker 1: own and revenues, that being the resale market. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen this with other properties as well, other types
Speaker 1: of gadgets and electronics as well as video games. This
Speaker 1: idea of getting rid of that resale market in order
Speaker 1: to create the incentive for people to go out and
Speaker 1: buy new copies as opposed to used copies or used
Speaker 1: devices in this case. All right, well, how about we
Speaker 1: do some Apple news. A big piece of news regarding
Speaker 1: Apple broke in late June two thousand nineteen, when Jonathan I've,
Speaker 1: better known as Sir Johnny I've announced he was leaving
Speaker 1: the company. He had been with Apple for nearly three decades,
Speaker 1: working primarily in design. He joined the company back in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine six when it wasn't a bit of a pickle.
Speaker 1: That was a year before the ousted Steve Jobs would
Speaker 1: return to the company. He was one of the influential
Speaker 1: designers who defined Apple's iPhone approach, setting the stage for
Speaker 1: the company's meteoric rise in success. He announced he would
Speaker 1: be heading up a new design company called Love From
Speaker 1: and that he would still work with Apple on projects,
Speaker 1: just from an independent business owner standpoint as opposed to
Speaker 1: an Apple executive. I've played an intrinsic role in designing
Speaker 1: some of Apple's defining products over the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: so it will be interesting to see how the company
Speaker 1: moves forward. I've and Jobs together were often cited as
Speaker 1: the visionaries who kind of set Apple on its course,
Speaker 1: and people have been asking what Apple's up to ever
Speaker 1: since Jobs passed away. So with Ive's departure, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how that's going to affect the company as well. Apple
Speaker 1: wasn't just dealing with the departure of one of its
Speaker 1: more famous employees. However, the company also had some other
Speaker 1: snags in twenty nineteen due to product issues. At the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year, Benjamin Mayo of the Apple news
Speaker 1: and rumors site nine to five Mac broke a big
Speaker 1: story about a vulnerability in the company's FaceTime app. So,
Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar, FaceTime is a video chat app.
Speaker 1: It's so you can video calls on iOS devices. Uh
Speaker 1: though I should add that at least one Apple user
Speaker 1: had tried to warn the company more than a week
Speaker 1: before the story broke. They had found this independently, so
Speaker 1: it was a known issue, arguably not just to the
Speaker 1: Apple community but to Apple itself before the story broke
Speaker 1: in nine to five Mac. Anyway, Mayo found that if
Speaker 1: you used FaceTime to make a call between any devices
Speaker 1: running iOS version twelve point one or later, and then
Speaker 1: you added your own number into the call, as if
Speaker 1: you were conferencing in yourself the person making the call,
Speaker 1: you would be able to hear the audio from the
Speaker 1: receiver's phone before the receiver had chosen to accept the
Speaker 1: call in the first place. So all you would have
Speaker 1: to do is put in someone's number, have it start
Speaker 1: to dial a FaceTime call conference in yourself, and you
Speaker 1: could listen in on the other phones microphone. You could
Speaker 1: even use some options to act debate the camera on
Speaker 1: the phone. And it wasn't just phones, it was also
Speaker 1: you know, other mobile devices, but also max because the
Speaker 1: mac os supported FaceTime as well, so if you did this,
Speaker 1: you could presumably use someone's Mac computer to spy on
Speaker 1: their home. Uh And because this would only work as
Speaker 1: long as the other device was ringing, and FaceTime times
Speaker 1: out after a certain amount of ringing, that ringing actually
Speaker 1: lasts a lot longer on mac Os. A call can
Speaker 1: end up going much longer in the in the calling
Speaker 1: phase for mac Os because the thought is not everyone
Speaker 1: is at their computer all the time, so you might
Speaker 1: be across the house when the call comes in, you
Speaker 1: might not hear it at first, so they have a
Speaker 1: longer calling session that will last until there's an automatic
Speaker 1: cut off, which means you could presumably spy longer until
Speaker 1: someone noticed that there was a FaceTime call coming in.
Speaker 1: So this was a huge law on the software and
Speaker 1: the vulnerability would be patched. But initially Apple's response was
Speaker 1: just to suspend the group FaceTime feature so that you
Speaker 1: couldn't conference anyone in at all. You could only do
Speaker 1: person to person calls, you couldn't do conference calls. And
Speaker 1: then in February twenty nineteen, the company pushed out the
Speaker 1: patch that sealed up those vulnerabilities and re enabled group
Speaker 1: FaceTime features. Another problem Apple faced was the release of
Speaker 1: iOS version thirteen and the release of Mac OS ten
Speaker 1: point one five a k A. Catalina. Critics found problems
Speaker 1: with both, identifying numerous bugs that prompted some tech reporters
Speaker 1: to advise people, especially for people looking at buying a
Speaker 1: new iPhone, to wait for patches before updating to the
Speaker 1: latest OS version or buying a new phone. Even Apple
Speaker 1: announced iOS thirteen point one a patch to thirteen point
Speaker 1: oh before thirteen point oh had even shut, which indicated
Speaker 1: that the initial rule east wasn't really ready for implementation.
Speaker 1: So why was iOS thirteen so buggy? Or maybe I
Speaker 1: should say why is it because not all those bugs
Speaker 1: have been fixed? Well? Some people have suggested that Apple
Speaker 1: was being overly aggressive when adding in new features to
Speaker 1: the operating system, and that feature creep might have been
Speaker 1: an issue. David Shaer, and Apple software engineer theorized that
Speaker 1: perhaps teams working on certain features, were reluctant to admit
Speaker 1: when they were falling behind on deadlines, and that rather
Speaker 1: than cutting back on features, rather than saying let's not
Speaker 1: do this because it's taking too much time and we
Speaker 1: need to ship, things were kept in the mix far
Speaker 1: longer than they needed to be, and Share also listed
Speaker 1: several other possible contributing factors. It's all in the post
Speaker 1: on tidbits dot Com. I recommend checking that out if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more. The piece is titled six
Speaker 1: reasons why iOS thirteen and Catalina are so Buggy, and
Speaker 1: he goes into much greater detail there now. In late December,
Speaker 1: Apple pushed out an update for its mobile operating system,
Speaker 1: and this one's called iOS thirteen point three, which might
Speaker 1: make you think it's the third update to iOS to
Speaker 1: this version, but it's not the third update. It's actually
Speaker 1: the eighth update since iOS thirteen was first announced. Many
Speaker 1: of the updates were in the iOS thirteen point one
Speaker 1: and iOS thirteen point two designations. Oh and by the
Speaker 1: time you hear this, iOS thirteen point three point one
Speaker 1: might be available. It's currently in beta. As a record
Speaker 1: this episode. Gordon Kelly of Forbes suggests that if you
Speaker 1: have a device running an earlier version of iOS thirteen,
Speaker 1: you should absolutely update to thirteen point three, but if
Speaker 1: you're still running iOS twelve, you might actually still want
Speaker 1: to wait a little bit longer before you upgrade. He
Speaker 1: does say that things are starting to look promising, that
Speaker 1: the initial months following the release of iOS thirteen were
Speaker 1: pretty bad. He would give a categorical skip this update
Speaker 1: until it's fixed recommendation. That recommendation is slowly starting to
Speaker 1: soften as these numerous patches are addressing some of the
Speaker 1: more serious bugs and vulnerabilities that people have found in
Speaker 1: iOS thirteen. But this has not been an illustrious launch
Speaker 1: for Apple. Bugs and operating system updates are really nothing new.
Speaker 1: I mean, it happens all the time. No one's perfect,
Speaker 1: and operating systems are large and complicated pieces of software.
Speaker 1: But it does create a bit of an image problem,
Speaker 1: particularly if you're a company like Apple that has built
Speaker 1: itself on a reputation that its devices just work, and
Speaker 1: it also complicates a discussion that relates back to data security.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, it's a good idea to keep as up
Speaker 1: to date with operating system and security patches as you
Speaker 1: possibly can. So if there's an update, generally speaking, it's
Speaker 1: good to install right away. Now, eventually you might find
Speaker 1: that your particular device can't support whatever the latest and
Speaker 1: greatest version of the operating system is. That does happen
Speaker 1: where the hardware itself cannot physically support the software, but
Speaker 1: keeping up to date reduces the opportunities that hackers can
Speaker 1: take to exploit vulnerabilities. However, when the operating system itself
Speaker 1: is a buggy mess and the updates aren't much better,
Speaker 1: it's not as clear cut a case that updating is
Speaker 1: your best option. It may be that, yeah, you can update,
Speaker 1: and that will technically patch some things, but could open
Speaker 1: up either brand new vulnerabilities or might just make stuff
Speaker 1: not work anymore. That's not great either. All right, let's
Speaker 1: pop on over to Microsoft, Apple's old rival and sometimes savior.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to old episodes of tech Stuff, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm referring to. Now. I don't have a
Speaker 1: whole lot to say about Microsoft in twenty nineteen. The
Speaker 1: company has moved much of its operations into cloud based services,
Speaker 1: but it did launch a product in late twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: has folks like me a little excited. It's the hollow
Speaker 1: lens too. Now, the hollow lens is an augmented reality platform,
Speaker 1: and augmented reality involves overlaying digital information on top of
Speaker 1: the real world around us in some way. Now, you
Speaker 1: typically can achieve this through one of several approaches. You
Speaker 1: could have special glasses that act as a projection screen
Speaker 1: to display information in front of you as you look around,
Speaker 1: so that you have digital information that you're looking at,
Speaker 1: but you can also look through that and see the
Speaker 1: real world beyond it. You could even have headphones that
Speaker 1: feeds you information by audio that enhance your experience of
Speaker 1: moving through a physical environment. That's the type of augmented reality.
Speaker 1: It's maybe not as flashy as the first type, but
Speaker 1: it's still very legitimate. You could have an app on
Speaker 1: a smartphone that can recognize certain images and display data
Speaker 1: on top of a video view of the world. So
Speaker 1: in this case, you're looking at the world through your
Speaker 1: smartphone screen, which then can overlay digital information on top
Speaker 1: of that video view. But it's as if you're looking
Speaker 1: at the real world around you if you just kind
Speaker 1: of ignore the fact that you're really looking at a monitor. Alright,
Speaker 1: So the hullo lens and its sequel hollow Lens to
Speaker 1: the augment in ing or if you prefer hollow lens
Speaker 1: to electric boogaloo. It's a head mounted display and the
Speaker 1: first generation of the hollow lens received a very limited
Speaker 1: release because it wasn't intended as a consumer electronics product.
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant to go to the average person. It
Speaker 1: was more of a first step into a new market
Speaker 1: for Microsoft. The company launched the Hollow Lens two in
Speaker 1: November two thou nineteen with a price tag of three thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. So it's still far from being priced
Speaker 1: as a basic component of home computing. Right. No one,
Speaker 1: h not, not your average person is going to go
Speaker 1: out and adopt the hollow lens too. At I will
Speaker 1: not be buying a hollow lens too. I just can't
Speaker 1: justify that expense for something you know that would interesting
Speaker 1: but have limited utility in my life. However, you could
Speaker 1: say that this is slowly moving this technology into the
Speaker 1: consumer space. Now, the new version of the hollow lens
Speaker 1: has an improved field of view, so users will have
Speaker 1: a less restricted view of the world around them. To me,
Speaker 1: the headset looks kind of like imagine you've got a
Speaker 1: pair of safety goggles. And then above the safety goggles
Speaker 1: that you look through, so those are clear, you're looking
Speaker 1: at the world around you. Above that, you've got a
Speaker 1: device that has a camera system mounted inside of it,
Speaker 1: and that part is actually attached to like a headband,
Speaker 1: so you're wearing that on your forehead. And then below
Speaker 1: that is where the safety goggles are. That's kind of
Speaker 1: what it looks like. I'm doing a poor job describing it,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to do in an audio format. But
Speaker 1: the cameras that face out from this device capture the
Speaker 1: scene around you, right. It takes in that information and
Speaker 1: interprets it through the computational system inside the device, which
Speaker 1: the determines what data to display on your your lenses
Speaker 1: when you're looking at something in particular. So as an example,
Speaker 1: let's say you're looking at an electrical panel, then the
Speaker 1: data that pops up might tell you what each element
Speaker 1: on that electrical panel relates back to, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a labeling system in that case. That's just
Speaker 1: one use case for this kind of technology. The company
Speaker 1: also tweaked the gesture control interface that the hollow lens uses. UH.
Speaker 1: This was to improve on responsiveness and to cut down
Speaker 1: on false positives. So gestures obviously would be an important
Speaker 1: way to control this kind of technology. You might use
Speaker 1: voice control as well. Google Glass did that, but it
Speaker 1: seems weird because that sounds like you're talking to yourself.
Speaker 1: I can see that from personal experience, because I got
Speaker 1: to play with Google Glass for a while. But the
Speaker 1: gesture controls, they did something that I thought was pretty clever.
Speaker 1: So for example, they built in a system where you
Speaker 1: would hold out your hand and you would look down
Speaker 1: at your hand and you and by moving your head
Speaker 1: a little bit, you could position an icon so that
Speaker 1: it appears to be projected onto the palm of your hand.
Speaker 1: Then you could touch that icon with the fingers of
Speaker 1: your other hand to activate it and launch whatever the
Speaker 1: app is. And that's kind of neat. It adds a
Speaker 1: sort of tactle response to the gesture control that otherwise
Speaker 1: was lacking. Now I haven't been able to try a
Speaker 1: hollow lens of either generation yet, but I hope I
Speaker 1: can at some point. I love the potential of augmented reality,
Speaker 1: and I think really clever implementations have enormous possibilities in
Speaker 1: the future. But I think it was probably gonna be
Speaker 1: several more years before we see this as a common
Speaker 1: technology for the everyday person. However, for certain industries I
Speaker 1: suspect it will play a much larger role moving forward.
Speaker 1: We've already seen it being used in the medical field,
Speaker 1: and engineering will probably see it move beyond that slowly,
Speaker 1: and then gradually we'll see it possibly enter into the
Speaker 1: mainstream market if there's a compelling enough use case. If
Speaker 1: it's more of a curiosity, I would argue Google Glass
Speaker 1: kind of fell into that category, then it probably won't
Speaker 1: receive much traction, kind of like how virtual reality has
Speaker 1: been struggling again. All right, when we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about some more stories, including touching on what a
Speaker 1: little company that rhymes with Schmoogle has been up to. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk Google. So, like Facebook, Google came under intense
Speaker 1: scrutiny throughout two thousand nineteen, whether it was about user
Speaker 1: privacy or allegations that the company was covering up really
Speaker 1: terrible behavior and turning a blind eye despite employee protests,
Speaker 1: or allegations that the company's search results were purposefully promoting
Speaker 1: certain material, specifically sites that were in alignment with Google's
Speaker 1: own perceived agenda perceived by the public guy should say
Speaker 1: at the expense of other materials. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: that Google was promoting things that fell in line with
Speaker 1: what Google wanted and suppressing anything that Google didn't like.
Speaker 1: That was the charge. The company had to weather a
Speaker 1: lot of strife in twenty nineteen, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: at least some of that strife was brought on by
Speaker 1: the company itself. One big change for the company actually
Speaker 1: requires us to take a step back and look up
Speaker 1: a level higher than Google itself. At Google's parent company,
Speaker 1: which I mentioned earlier, is Alphabet Now. In early December nineteen,
Speaker 1: Larry Page, a co founder of Google, announced that he
Speaker 1: was stepping down as the CEO of Alphabet. Sunday, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Google itself, would become the new CEO of Alphabet,
Speaker 1: while simultaneously remaining CEO of Google. Sarah A. Brenn, another
Speaker 1: co founder, had stepped down as Alphabet's president, but both
Speaker 1: Page and Brand said they were going to remain on
Speaker 1: the board of directors for or the company. Paige and
Speaker 1: Brand said that their decisions reflected a need for Google's
Speaker 1: management structure to streamline, but it also came into time
Speaker 1: when the company was dealing with big problems from within
Speaker 1: and without. There was the scrutiny that I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: in which government agencies and advocacy groups were criticizing Google's
Speaker 1: policies and talking about its power in the marketplace, and
Speaker 1: there were also allegations that the company had engaged in
Speaker 1: some retaliation against a few employees. Now to understand that
Speaker 1: last bit, we have to look back a little further
Speaker 1: than the beginning of twenty nineteen. So in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: internal issues within Google became big news as thousands of
Speaker 1: employees protested issues ranging from sexual harassment problems in the
Speaker 1: workplace to quote, unethical business decisions that create a workplace
Speaker 1: that is harmful to us and our colleagues end quote. Now,
Speaker 1: that last quote actually comes from four former Google employees
Speaker 1: who posted a piece on Medium after they were fired.
Speaker 1: This was around Thanksgiving twenty nineteen. The four employees had
Speaker 1: been leading efforts to unionize at Google to organize employees,
Speaker 1: and it was a move that did not look good
Speaker 1: on Google's part, and it certainly appears at a casual
Speaker 1: glance at least, that Google executives were trying to squash
Speaker 1: employees from being able to organize in a union or
Speaker 1: other organizational structure. The company's official response to inquiries about
Speaker 1: the firing was that the employees had allegedly violated Google's
Speaker 1: security policies, an allegation that the four former employees deny.
Speaker 1: The story is still playing out as I record this episode,
Speaker 1: and it does tap into another upsetting trend in business
Speaker 1: in general and the text fear in particular. It has
Speaker 1: become pretty common practice for a lot of companies to
Speaker 1: require employees to sign an agreement that limits the rights
Speaker 1: an employee has when they want to address problems in
Speaker 1: the workplace. Companies enact these policies so that they can
Speaker 1: limit their own liability and limit the impact those types
Speaker 1: of problems can have on business. The agreements typically force
Speaker 1: employees to try and work through issues through internal systems
Speaker 1: at the company, like going through human resources, and it
Speaker 1: really places restrictions on other options, such as pursuing a
Speaker 1: legal case against the company, like you could get severely
Speaker 1: punished for going outside the company and seeking outside help. Now,
Speaker 1: assuming the HR department is on the side of the employees,
Speaker 1: you could maybe argue that this policy isn't too restrictive.
Speaker 1: It might be you might not feel great about it.
Speaker 1: But if you think, oh, well, HR is gonna be
Speaker 1: on the employees side, maybe you're going to say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to endure it. But at least in some cases,
Speaker 1: particularly with Google, it's appeared that the HR department was
Speaker 1: really more on the side of the corporation on the employees.
Speaker 1: That they had a tendency to shut down complaints or
Speaker 1: to try to mitigate the fallout of complaints by kind
Speaker 1: of shifting people around without removing or punishing anyone who
Speaker 1: was the focal point of an allegation, and so they
Speaker 1: weren't really addressing the underlying issues, which left the affected
Speaker 1: employees with very few options. And it's pretty ugly stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the things that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of employees around the world really, but particularly in
Speaker 1: the tech space, have started to kind of act out against.
Speaker 1: And we're not done with Google yet. The company launched
Speaker 1: its gaming service, Google Stadia in two thousand nineteen. That
Speaker 1: service allows users to access games via streaming, so you're
Speaker 1: actually running the game on one of Google's servers and
Speaker 1: you're playing it via your local connection. According to Google,
Speaker 1: you can stream games up to four K resolution and
Speaker 1: sixty frames per second, assuming that your Internet connection and
Speaker 1: your hardware can support that. The service launched with some
Speaker 1: stupality problems and with a pretty limited library of games,
Speaker 1: and so far it hasn't really taken off, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that it removes the need for buying a high
Speaker 1: end gaming rig or even a gaming console to access
Speaker 1: current generation games. Now. To be fair, Google is not
Speaker 1: the only company that has tried this model with only
Speaker 1: limited success. There are lots of companies that have tried
Speaker 1: a similar approach and also have had some issues getting
Speaker 1: anywhere with it. Meanwhile, over at YouTube, which again is
Speaker 1: part of Google, it's part of that alphabet company, other
Speaker 1: problems were plaguing Googlers. So in September of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: YouTube changed its policy for verified creators. Verified creators are
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. So these are creators who had earned
Speaker 1: a verified check mark and that indicated that essentially up
Speaker 1: until recently, that they had attracted at least one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers. I happen to be one of these verified
Speaker 1: uh creators, but more on that in the minute, because
Speaker 1: it's an interesting case. So in the past, YouTube had
Speaker 1: issued verified check marks two accounts that had reached that
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand subscriber mark or more. That's all you
Speaker 1: really had to do in order to get the verified
Speaker 1: check Now they decided to change that so that not
Speaker 1: only would you need the one hundred thousand subscribers, you
Speaker 1: also need to have your account be active, meaning you
Speaker 1: have to be uploading content on a semi regular basis,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't need to be you know, had had
Speaker 1: been quiet without an upload for ages. Also, the accounts
Speaker 1: needed to be authentic. In other words, the account need
Speaker 1: to be linked back to a real creator, brand, or
Speaker 1: entity that YouTube could verify was in charge of creating
Speaker 1: that content. This meant that a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who had the little check mark didn't necessarily meet those requirements.
Speaker 1: So then YouTube revoked the verified badge for thousands of creators,
Speaker 1: and that created an uproar. I happened to be one
Speaker 1: of the creators who lost my badge I lost. I
Speaker 1: got an email it said you're verified badges going away. Now.
Speaker 1: In my case, I wasn't fussed about it. I'll explain
Speaker 1: that again in just a minute. So YouTube's motivation was
Speaker 1: to clarify what a verification check mark actually meant, because
Speaker 1: one confusion was that people thought that a check mark
Speaker 1: meant that YouTube was endorsing the content of that creator,
Speaker 1: that somehow YouTube was saying, yes, we approve of this.
Speaker 1: This is what that check mark means. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: meant to be that. It was meant to be an
Speaker 1: indicator that the associated account was authentic and not some
Speaker 1: sort of impersonation account. And this is a legit issue
Speaker 1: over on YouTube because a lot of creators, really popular creators,
Speaker 1: see their work get lifted and reposted under other accounts.
Speaker 1: So you might create a really awesome video and maybe
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit of notice, so somebody else
Speaker 1: captures that video, they use a program to download it,
Speaker 1: then they re upload it under their own account, and
Speaker 1: they try to get that one to take off. It's
Speaker 1: even possible for a copy to outperform the original, and
Speaker 1: that means that the person who originally put in the
Speaker 1: work to making that thing be what it is doesn't
Speaker 1: get the benefit of it. They aren't able to monetize
Speaker 1: the appearance on the other channel. You can put down
Speaker 1: takedown strikes and stuff like that, but it means having
Speaker 1: to constantly, you know, search the internet, search YouTube for
Speaker 1: copies of your work. So YouTube wanted to create a
Speaker 1: system that would make a more straightforward approach to verification,
Speaker 1: in the sense that if you saw the check mark,
Speaker 1: you knew this person was a legit, that the content
Speaker 1: coming from that person's channel was in fact coming from
Speaker 1: that creator. And uh so they put that change and
Speaker 1: they revoked all those check marks. People went nuts, and
Speaker 1: so YouTube walked it back a week later, and a
Speaker 1: week later it gave everybody their verified check marks back,
Speaker 1: including me, which again in my case, I don't think
Speaker 1: it was necessary. So let me explain about my check mark.
Speaker 1: So a few years ago, I was hosting a video
Speaker 1: series called forward Thinking This is for Work, and the
Speaker 1: channel for forward Thinking was linked to my personal YouTube
Speaker 1: channel for reasons I don't remember at this point. I
Speaker 1: think it was so that I could go in and
Speaker 1: make changes if I needed to, even though typically we
Speaker 1: would have other people handle all of that. For some reason,
Speaker 1: they trusted me and they linked the channel to my
Speaker 1: personal YouTube account. The result was I got a check
Speaker 1: mark because the Forward Thinking series had a pretty good
Speaker 1: subscriber base, like two fifty thousand subscribers, so it met
Speaker 1: the criteria and it got the check mark. King to me, now,
Speaker 1: this is despite the fact that on my channel, I
Speaker 1: very rarely post anything. I've only got a few videos
Speaker 1: up on my personal channel, and when I do put
Speaker 1: a video up, I get only a few views. You know,
Speaker 1: it's typically like, hey, my mom watches my stuff, which
Speaker 1: is totally fine. I'm I was doing it for fun.
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to do it as a YouTuber, right,
Speaker 1: So in my case, when my check mark went away,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, that's totally fair. I'm an outlier
Speaker 1: and I don't meet this requirement. I definitely don't deserve
Speaker 1: the check mark. It's okay that it's gone, But there
Speaker 1: are lots of creators out there who did deserve the
Speaker 1: check mark and they saw it go away. So for them,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that it came back, because that thing can
Speaker 1: really help you. That check mark means that you have
Speaker 1: a little bit more clout when it comes to stuff
Speaker 1: like looking for sponsorships, maybe getting advertisers to support your channel,
Speaker 1: monetizing your work so that you can get compensated for it.
Speaker 1: That's important. Now my case, again, I was doing it
Speaker 1: for fun. I never expected it to be anything beyond
Speaker 1: that for my own personal channel, so I didn't worry
Speaker 1: about it. Forward thinking was a different story, but that
Speaker 1: was also a project that had a company backing it,
Speaker 1: so that was a totally different case. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that it got fixed and moving forward, YouTube is
Speaker 1: being much more picky about who gets a verification check mark,
Speaker 1: but they're not wholesale eliminating all the previously awarded check marks.
Speaker 1: But another controversy that's also playing out on YouTube is
Speaker 1: one that's going to roll into and beyond, and it
Speaker 1: all has to do with a law from the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties intended to protect children, and that law is a
Speaker 1: US law. It's called Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or
Speaker 1: Kappa CEO p p A. It was again first established
Speaker 1: as law, and in twenty nineteen, the Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 1: also known as the FTC, brought a suit again YouTube
Speaker 1: and alleged that YouTube had been illegally collecting the personal
Speaker 1: information of children without their parents consent, that kids were
Speaker 1: watching videos on YouTube, that what they were watching was
Speaker 1: being tracked by YouTube, and that this was creating a
Speaker 1: digital fingerprint that advertisers were using to target advertising towards
Speaker 1: those children, and the children being too young to consent
Speaker 1: to this meant that this whole practice under Kappa was illegal,
Speaker 1: and specifically that the company was using this quote in
Speaker 1: the form of persistent identifiers that are used to track
Speaker 1: users across the Internet end quote. So in other words,
Speaker 1: this would be the sort of thing where if you
Speaker 1: were watching a bunch of videos about elephants and then
Speaker 1: you happened to navigate over to say Amazon, you might
Speaker 1: see a bunch of suggestions that relate in some way
Speaker 1: to elephants. And the concern was that this was going
Speaker 1: to be targeting kids, and there was no way for
Speaker 1: kids to give legal consent to allow that to happen,
Speaker 1: and that data has value in it, and children's privacy
Speaker 1: and security also has value to them, so that was
Speaker 1: the problem. Well, YouTube would settle this lawsuit out of court.
Speaker 1: They paid a hundred seventy million dollars in fines, which
Speaker 1: really sounds like a lot, but for YouTube, it's nothing.
Speaker 1: And if that's where it all ended, we would just
Speaker 1: wrap up the story and beyond with it. But in
Speaker 1: addition to the fine, the company had to agree to
Speaker 1: create a system that is compliant with Kappa. So this
Speaker 1: would mean that any creator who was making child directed content,
Speaker 1: meaning content meant to be viewed by children would be
Speaker 1: affected by this. They would have to be Kappa compliant.
Speaker 1: They would have to make sure that they were running
Speaker 1: a channel that was not gathering information about the uh
Speaker 1: the children watching it, that they were not building in
Speaker 1: targeted advertising, that they had to self identify as being
Speaker 1: a creator it was creating child directed content. You had
Speaker 1: to actually go into your little profile and click and
Speaker 1: say whether or not your channel was meant for kids
Speaker 1: or not. But this raises questions like what exactly is
Speaker 1: child directed? And it has a lot of creators nervous
Speaker 1: right now because there are creators who do, for example,
Speaker 1: unboxing videos, and some of them are clearly meant for kids.
Speaker 1: Some of them are hosted by kids and clearly meant
Speaker 1: for kids, but there are others where it may not
Speaker 1: be for kids. It maybe for people who really are
Speaker 1: into collecting toys that are from their favorite you know, franchises,
Speaker 1: for example, so toy unboxing would likely be in the spotlight.
Speaker 1: Creators who use video games are likewise concerned. There are
Speaker 1: people who are using video games to tell stories that
Speaker 1: are people use let's plays or play throughs, but they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily meant for kids. There's also people who are
Speaker 1: working in animation, and that animation may not be meant
Speaker 1: for kids, but the general perception is that cartoons are
Speaker 1: children and they're concerned that they will be interpreted as
Speaker 1: being child directed when they don't intend to be, and
Speaker 1: that they will be affected by this. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of fear that this is going to have an effect
Speaker 1: on monetization, so that people might not be able to
Speaker 1: get paid for what they're making, which means they'll probably
Speaker 1: stop making it. I mean, you've got to make your living. Uh.
Speaker 1: They may move on to a different platform than YouTube,
Speaker 1: or they may just stop entirely. Every single violation of
Speaker 1: Kappa can be fined up to a maximum of forty
Speaker 1: two dollars. Now, keep in mind some of these channels
Speaker 1: have hundreds or thousands of videos up online, so if
Speaker 1: they were identified as being child directed and that their
Speaker 1: material wasn't Kappa compliant, they could get that maximum fine
Speaker 1: for every single video that seemed to be that was
Speaker 1: on their channel. So the cost could be staggering. So
Speaker 1: it's possible we'll see entire channels go dark with PAS
Speaker 1: videos hidden away or deleted, all out of fear that
Speaker 1: a mislite labeling situation could result in massive fines, and
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of uncertainty around this issue, and
Speaker 1: we're not entirely sure how it's all going to play
Speaker 1: out now. As for me, well, I'm in favor of
Speaker 1: rules that protect kids from having their data harvested without consent.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like that idea at all about
Speaker 1: kids getting tracked and targeted and advertising that's you know,
Speaker 1: before they're able to even work with the idea of
Speaker 1: what that means. They're particularly uh, you know, vulnerable to it.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to be an adult and to understand,
Speaker 1: at least on a basic level, what is going on
Speaker 1: when we use the internet. It's another matter entirely for children. However,
Speaker 1: the application of those rules can be pretty chaotic and disruptive,
Speaker 1: particularly to people who are well intentioned. They are not
Speaker 1: trying to create child directed content, but they're worried about
Speaker 1: their material being misrepresented or misunderstood as child directed, and
Speaker 1: therefore every thing is put in danger. That's not great either,
Speaker 1: and channels that are clearly not meant for kids could
Speaker 1: get caught up in the crosshairs through no fault of
Speaker 1: their own. So this is a situation worthy of attention.
Speaker 1: Because it stands to affect hundreds of creators on YouTube
Speaker 1: who are not trying to make stuff for kids. Then
Speaker 1: you've got people who like their main audience are kids,
Speaker 1: and they're not making stuff for kids. Just so happens
Speaker 1: that their audience is mostly kids. That's an issue all
Speaker 1: on its own, and one that I don't have any
Speaker 1: solutions for. If you're making stuff that you know you
Speaker 1: didn't intend to appeal to children, but children think it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: where does that put you because you weren't targeting them,
Speaker 1: but that's your audience. That's tough. Now. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of other stories I didn't get to like, for example,
Speaker 1: the Testlas Cybertruck debut and how awkward it was when
Speaker 1: they had the debut and they hit it with a
Speaker 1: sledgehammer and then they threw some stuff at the windows
Speaker 1: and the windows started cracking. That was pretty a pretty
Speaker 1: rough showing. And the cybertruck itself is is really funky.
Speaker 1: It's a very odd design, kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: a Lamborghini Kuntash or an old DeLorean in a way.
Speaker 1: Or I didn't talk about how the Samsung Galaxy folds
Speaker 1: mobile device, the foldable smartphone how that launch didn't go
Speaker 1: so well. You could say that the fold cracked under pressure.
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about the launch of Star Wars Galaxy's
Speaker 1: Edge at Disneyland and Disney World. That was a big deal,
Speaker 1: not just in tech obviously, but in theme parks. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were the seemingly endless supply of movie and television
Speaker 1: streaming services that either launched in twenty nineteen or were
Speaker 1: announced in twenty nineteen, stuff like Disney Plus and the
Speaker 1: upcoming HBO streaming service, Apple Plus launched just tons of them.
Speaker 1: Now there was Baby Yoda. But I think it's a
Speaker 1: good time to wrap up this episode. Let's set our
Speaker 1: sights on twenty Yeah, you know what, Let's all get
Speaker 1: twenty twenty vision in the year with a pun. I
Speaker 1: guess technically I'm starting the year with a pun because
Speaker 1: I think this episode goes live on January one. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that was twenty nineteen in a nutshell. I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of plans for I'm looking forward to sharing with
Speaker 1: you more wonderful stories about technology, interesting stuff about how
Speaker 1: tech works, how it affects us, how we affect it,
Speaker 1: how things change over time, and how that change can
Speaker 1: be messy. But sometimes once you get through the messy parts,
Speaker 1: you can get something really incredible. So we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at those stories as well as well as the times
Speaker 1: where things just didn't go right. We'll be covering more
Speaker 1: of those as well. If you guys have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics I should cover in technology, let me know.
Speaker 1: The Facebook and Twitter handle are both tech stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: It's best to reach out to me there and I
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again really soon. Hext Stuff is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.