Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan strickland Um, an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the Tech Area. It's time for the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, jan twenty twenty two. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Our first story is that we appear to be drawing
Speaker 1: closer to the conclusion of a very long legal battle
Speaker 1: between Apple and some of its employees, more specifically employees
Speaker 1: who worked at Apple stores in California between July two
Speaker 1: thousand nine until August two thousand and fifteen. So what's
Speaker 1: at the heart of all this. Well, Apple had this
Speaker 1: policy in place that every single employee was to submit
Speaker 1: their bags and personal iPhones for a search before they
Speaker 1: could leave the store. The company said this was an
Speaker 1: effort to cut back on employees stealing products from the
Speaker 1: store or potentially making off with trade secrets. A group
Speaker 1: of employees sued the company and it became a class
Speaker 1: action suit with more than fourteen thousand employees involved in it.
Speaker 1: But the core of the lawsuit wasn't so much about
Speaker 1: the fact that the employees had to submit to a search.
Speaker 1: It was more about Apple refusing to count that time
Speaker 1: as time worked by the employee. In other words, Apple
Speaker 1: was treating these searches as if they were off the
Speaker 1: clock in the free time of the employees, which the
Speaker 1: employees were arguing was a violation of California state law.
Speaker 1: So the legal representation for the employees were they were
Speaker 1: successful to say that the searches were a ring on
Speaker 1: company time and that employees therefore should have been compensated
Speaker 1: for that time. Now, you might wonder how much time
Speaker 1: did these searches take. Well. Engadget reports that the average
Speaker 1: weight was between five to twenty minutes. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like very much time, right, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: just not five to twenty minutes. It's not a whole
Speaker 1: lot of time. But if you've ever driven in California,
Speaker 1: you know that that state's rush hour ain't no joke.
Speaker 1: And every minute you're spent being forced to stay at
Speaker 1: work where you're not on the clock not fun. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I mean that's that's the point, right, It's still
Speaker 1: your time, and you would not be doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: not be spending it sitting at work. You would only
Speaker 1: do that if you were on the clock. So employees
Speaker 1: should still have been compensated for their time, even if
Speaker 1: that time was still a short amount each day plus
Speaker 1: over you know, a length of your term of employment,
Speaker 1: that five to twenty minutes. That really adds up. So
Speaker 1: Apple has agreed to pay out a settlement to claimants.
Speaker 1: The full settlement is a hair under thirty million dollars.
Speaker 1: But again, we're talking about more than fourteen thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred employees who are covered in this class action suit.
Speaker 1: So each person should expect to receive a payout of
Speaker 1: around one thousand, two d eighty six bucks. Uh. That's
Speaker 1: significantly more than what I typically see when I look
Speaker 1: at class action suits. Uh. You often see ones that
Speaker 1: have hundreds of thousands of claimants, and so everyone ends
Speaker 1: up getting like a fraction of a dollar. Uh. And
Speaker 1: typically the lawyers make out like bandits. The individual claimants
Speaker 1: get very little, and the company gets you know, a
Speaker 1: a fine that they must pay. But anyway, this whole
Speaker 1: agreement is not quite done and dusted just yet. In fact,
Speaker 1: the final approval for this settlement amount won't happen until
Speaker 1: this summer. But then, assuming everything goes to you know,
Speaker 1: the courts approval, this story will finally have an ending.
Speaker 1: A federal judge has ruled that the US Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 1: or f TC, can move forward with an antitrust case
Speaker 1: against Facebook slash Meta. Now this comes after lawyers for
Speaker 1: Meta filed a motion to dismiss the case, and it
Speaker 1: looks like it's going to be able to go on.
Speaker 1: This was not always a sure bet. The FTC had
Speaker 1: previously filed with the federal courts and received a rejection
Speaker 1: from the judge. The judge said that the FTC had
Speaker 1: failed to provide facts to support the case being made
Speaker 1: against Meta. But second times the charm in this case,
Speaker 1: I guess, as the judge now says that the revised
Speaker 1: filing contains sufficient support to merit a case. The argument
Speaker 1: the FTC is making is that Facebook slash Meta had
Speaker 1: a pretty simple and straightforward strategy when it came to
Speaker 1: competitors or even potential competitors, and it boils down to
Speaker 1: if you can't beat them, by them. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: when exectit, Facebook would look at services like say Instagram.
Speaker 1: They saw that the photo sharing platform could potentially rival
Speaker 1: Facebook itself and pull people's time and focus away from Facebook. Now,
Speaker 1: I've talked about how Facebook's business model depends on keeping
Speaker 1: people tied to the site for as long as possible.
Speaker 1: That applies to all of Facebook's platforms, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. So obviously, anything that could threaten that,
Speaker 1: anything that could pull people's attention away from those properties,
Speaker 1: is seen as a problem by Facebook. So the FTC
Speaker 1: is arguing that Facebook tries to sidestep this challenge by
Speaker 1: just buying up companies that could stand in the way
Speaker 1: whenever the opportunity arises, and uh FTC provided enough information
Speaker 1: to support this argument to convince the judge that a
Speaker 1: lawsuit can in fact move forward, an antitrust suit can
Speaker 1: move forward. I would also like to add that Facebook
Speaker 1: frequently tries to imitate other platforms like U TikTok is
Speaker 1: a big example right now. Clearly Facebook has not purchased TikTok,
Speaker 1: but I bet you dollars to donuts they've talked about it,
Speaker 1: at least at Facebook. But Facebook did introduce reels to Instagram,
Speaker 1: which is a product that looks an awful lot like
Speaker 1: the video platform on TikTok and and reels, it just
Speaker 1: seems to be their approach to trying to keep people
Speaker 1: on Instagram rather than having them go off the platform
Speaker 1: and and check out videos and doom scroll on TikTok
Speaker 1: instead of doom scrolling on Instagram. Uh so, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you can't beat them, you buy them, And if
Speaker 1: you can't buy them, I guess you imitate them. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we still have to go through the actual antitrust suit,
Speaker 1: Like this was just the preamble to see if if
Speaker 1: a suit was you know, merited. So this matter is
Speaker 1: far from resolved. It could potentially lead to a situation
Speaker 1: where the US government forces to spin off some of
Speaker 1: its properties. Maybe, but a lot of other things have
Speaker 1: to happen before that comes to pass. An international group
Speaker 1: of fact checkers have sent an open letter to YouTube's
Speaker 1: CEO saying that the platform is quote one of the
Speaker 1: major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide end quote this.
Speaker 1: According to the Associated Press, The fact checkers assert that
Speaker 1: bad actors on the platform are utilizing it to spread
Speaker 1: falsehoods and dangerous information, particularly in non English speaking countries.
Speaker 1: They say that YouTube appears to be doing very little
Speaker 1: to address this problem, again in non English speaking countries,
Speaker 1: and that the company's efforts have mostly been focused on
Speaker 1: English speaking regions and the meanwhile, there is real damage
Speaker 1: being done around the world and it's facilitated by YouTube.
Speaker 1: That's essentially the argument. They also called for YouTube to
Speaker 1: superimpose images our messages that debunk misinformation when it's identified. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, when you find a video that is
Speaker 1: UH sending out falsehoods that there should be a visual
Speaker 1: queue that says, hey, this is misinformation. Because the group
Speaker 1: says that displaying fact checking information is much more effective
Speaker 1: than just deleting videos. And of course, the big issue
Speaker 1: with deleting videos is that frequently bad actors can just
Speaker 1: re upload it on another channel they own. But by
Speaker 1: creating a process to label videos as containing misinformation, YouTube
Speaker 1: can take away the power of those videos. I think
Speaker 1: that's a pretty great idea in general, but I do
Speaker 1: wonder how you would go about implementing it, particularly on
Speaker 1: a scale as large as YouTube. We know that hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours of video get uploaded to YouTube every single minute,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious as to how you would design a
Speaker 1: system to catch stuff quickly and effectively. If you relied
Speaker 1: solely on human beings to moderate content, you would have
Speaker 1: a situation like that old I Love Lucy episode in
Speaker 1: which Lucy is at the conveyor line as bond bonds
Speaker 1: are zooming pastor and she's just shoving them in her
Speaker 1: shirt and in her mouth and everything because she's overwhelmed. Well,
Speaker 1: imagine that scenario and multiply it by I don't know
Speaker 1: a Brazilian because as you would be reviewing one video,
Speaker 1: more than a hundred hours of other video would be
Speaker 1: joining the network every single minute. That's a dawning challenge
Speaker 1: and I don't have an answer for it. I assume
Speaker 1: you would have to go towards some sort of automated solution,
Speaker 1: but then you have to make sure that whatever automated
Speaker 1: solution you design is effective and it's not prone to
Speaker 1: bias or false negatives. There are a host of other
Speaker 1: issues that come up, So I definitely feel that this
Speaker 1: is a real world problem that we need to address.
Speaker 1: I am at a loss as to what that solution
Speaker 1: could be, but then you know there are people far
Speaker 1: more intelligent than I am who are working on this problem.
Speaker 1: I have an update for the ongoing story about the
Speaker 1: US Federal Aviation Administration or f a A, and it's
Speaker 1: uh kind of tense conversation with the telecommunications industry regarding
Speaker 1: five G, namely A T and T and Verizon. Those
Speaker 1: are the two companies that are specifically kind of at
Speaker 1: odds with the f a A. So the story so
Speaker 1: far has been some tension between them and the f
Speaker 1: a A over the rollout of five G technology, and
Speaker 1: the concern is that five G frequencies, specifically those in
Speaker 1: the C band spectrum of five G, could potentially interfere
Speaker 1: with the operation of sensitive equipment on board airplanes and jets,
Speaker 1: like radio altimeters. So last year A T and T
Speaker 1: and Verizon purchased up pretty much all of the C
Speaker 1: band spectrum of frequencies in an auction. That's why those
Speaker 1: two companies have been sing gold out. Now. I point
Speaker 1: that out because until I read this update in Reuters,
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know why it was just A T
Speaker 1: and T and Verizon that we're getting called out. That's
Speaker 1: just bad form on my part for not diving in
Speaker 1: deeply enough to find out the reason why. Anyway, we're
Speaker 1: starting to see some progress being made. For example, A
Speaker 1: T and T has agreed to create a sort of
Speaker 1: buffer zone around fifty airports so that jets flying in
Speaker 1: and out of those won't be bombarded with frequencies that
Speaker 1: could potentially cause interference. Uh. The f a A has
Speaker 1: issued new sort of directives for aircraft that have untested altimeters,
Speaker 1: you know, altimeters where we don't know if five G
Speaker 1: would interfere with their operation or not, And the f
Speaker 1: a A says that those aircraft will not be allowed
Speaker 1: to land at air strips or airports in low visibility
Speaker 1: settings if five G happens to be deployed within that region. Uh.
Speaker 1: It sounds like there's a big move to replace older
Speaker 1: radio altimeters with newer technologies that have more effective shielding
Speaker 1: against these radio frequencies. So there's overall this kind of
Speaker 1: push to adopt technologies that should at least theoretically be
Speaker 1: resistant to this kind of interference. You might remember that
Speaker 1: for ages, the rules on airplanes for bade people from
Speaker 1: even having a cell phone on at all out of
Speaker 1: concern that RF signals from the phones could create interference
Speaker 1: for various airplane systems. Eventually we got away from that obviously.
Speaker 1: Now you can have your phone on, although you're supposed
Speaker 1: to have it an airplane mode when you're on an airplane.
Speaker 1: But you know, before you couldn't even do that, Like
Speaker 1: you couldn't even have like an e book reader on
Speaker 1: on an airplane. Uh. And then they said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you can have it on, but not during takeoff and
Speaker 1: landing and all that kind of stuff. This is similar
Speaker 1: to that, but we are seeing some progress. All right,
Speaker 1: We've got some more stories to get to, but before
Speaker 1: we get to them, let's take a quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: Business Insider reports that hackers have launched a malware campaign
Speaker 1: that is likely using email as the delivery mechanism. This
Speaker 1: is kind of old school to to blast out emails
Speaker 1: containing malware. The malwaring question is wrapped up in a
Speaker 1: file that has been named a Macron stats dot e
Speaker 1: x c. That's an executable file. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: this is a campaign that is leveraging the a Macron
Speaker 1: outbreak in an effort to convince people to click on
Speaker 1: the file. You know, if you scare people and say
Speaker 1: you need to know this information, click on this, then
Speaker 1: maybe it's effective, and then at that point malware installs
Speaker 1: on the target machine. The actual malware is called redline stealer,
Speaker 1: and it typically steals login information like user names and
Speaker 1: passwords from the infected computer and then sends them off
Speaker 1: to the hacker, who then sells that information on the
Speaker 1: dark web. The security firm Forte Guard has identified twelve
Speaker 1: countries where this attack has appeared so far, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like this is not a targeted focused campaign. Rather,
Speaker 1: this is like a classic malware campaign where hackers are
Speaker 1: just casting as wide a net as they possibly can
Speaker 1: and hope to get some hits. So this is just
Speaker 1: yet another reminder that it is a bad idea to
Speaker 1: click on files that are sent through email, particularly if
Speaker 1: they're coming from someone you don't know, and if they
Speaker 1: are coming from someone you know, it's best to touch
Speaker 1: base with that person make sure that they, you know,
Speaker 1: legitimately sent you a file before you do anything, because
Speaker 1: this is just uh an easy vector for hackers to
Speaker 1: to take. It's also an easy one for us to
Speaker 1: avoid if we're just a little careful. CNBC reports that
Speaker 1: there's a land rush going on in the virtual space,
Speaker 1: with folks spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure
Speaker 1: your virtual real estate. And yes, this relates back to
Speaker 1: the concept of the metaverse. Uh. This story actually feels
Speaker 1: like deja vu to me because I remember hearing similar
Speaker 1: things way back when Second Life was buzzworthy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: folks are shelling out big bucks to secure specific space
Speaker 1: on digital you know, various virtual environments, including ones with
Speaker 1: names like the Central Land and Sandbox. And we're starting
Speaker 1: to hear a lot of people say, pump the brakes
Speaker 1: a bit before you jump on this speculation board. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I would like to add my voice to the
Speaker 1: folks who are saying, hey, be careful, um, don't put
Speaker 1: any money that you aren't willing to just say goodbye
Speaker 1: to into virtual real estate right now, right if you
Speaker 1: can't afford to lose that money, I mean, just assume
Speaker 1: that money is lost, because that way, if it's not,
Speaker 1: if things turn around and things are great, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: If you're counting on it and it doesn't, that's bad.
Speaker 1: So just say, all right, well goodbye three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I don't know who can afford to do that, but
Speaker 1: that that's kind of the scale we're talking about. So yeah,
Speaker 1: be careful and don't do that. Just just invest money
Speaker 1: where you can afford to lose that money. And I
Speaker 1: want to mention again that you know, we're so far
Speaker 1: away from a real metaverse, a compelling metaverse, one that
Speaker 1: can allow more than say, a couple of dozen people
Speaker 1: to gather in the same virtual space at the same time,
Speaker 1: um and do things that are on a really kind
Speaker 1: of deep level, Like you can have a little virtual
Speaker 1: environment that people can log into. You know, we've got
Speaker 1: video games that allow for the simultaneous play of more
Speaker 1: than a hundred people. But that's a very narrow, narrowly
Speaker 1: defined environment it right, where you have a limited number
Speaker 1: of interactions you can take within that environment. Because it's
Speaker 1: a game. You know, you're not allowed to do everything.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to do whatever the game is meant for
Speaker 1: you to do. While the metaverse theoretically is a place
Speaker 1: where you would have much fewer constraints on what you
Speaker 1: could do. You would have an enormous variety of things
Speaker 1: you could do, perhaps even things that you could never
Speaker 1: do in real the real world. Like I think of
Speaker 1: the matrix where you know you see neo fly at
Speaker 1: the end of it, well spoiler alert from a movie
Speaker 1: that came out in the late nineties. But but but
Speaker 1: you know, I think of something like that with the metaverse. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna take a while for us to
Speaker 1: have the technology to support that kind of thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: I mentioned last year that a VP at Intel said,
Speaker 1: our technology is is will need to be a thousand
Speaker 1: times more powerful to support a really meaningful metaverse. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: if you go and buy virtual real estate in one
Speaker 1: of these virtual environments, who's to say that that virtual
Speaker 1: environment is still going to be around whenever the metaverse
Speaker 1: actually does become a legit thing. If it ever does,
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical that it ever will. But even if it does,
Speaker 1: there's the very real possibility that the place where you
Speaker 1: bought your you know, virtual acreage isn't really a thing anymore,
Speaker 1: and is is the digital equivalent of a ghost town,
Speaker 1: and isn't really connected to a larger metaverse that's meaningful.
Speaker 1: That would just mean that you wasted all that money.
Speaker 1: So that would be a bad investment right now. The
Speaker 1: folks who are running these virtual environments, they're making the killing,
Speaker 1: particularly as virtual real estate prices balloon beyond belief. But
Speaker 1: this is probably not sustainable. And I agree with folks
Speaker 1: like Mark Stapp, who is a professor at Arizona State University,
Speaker 1: and he says, quote, if it continues the way it's going,
Speaker 1: it is most likely going to be a bubble end quote,
Speaker 1: and like Professor Staff, I would never say definitively that
Speaker 1: this is a bubble, but I'm gonna say that it
Speaker 1: sure does walk and quack like a bubble. Besides which,
Speaker 1: my guess is that again, we're several years away from
Speaker 1: having a really compelling metaverse experience. If such a thing
Speaker 1: as possible, it probably will be possible. I'm just grouchy.
Speaker 1: I'm determined to be a techno hermit. I don't think
Speaker 1: you're ever gonna come across me in the metaverse. I'm
Speaker 1: more likely to be sitting quietly in a chair, reading
Speaker 1: a book, or perhaps playing Seven Days to Die because
Speaker 1: I've gotten addicted to that game. In the state of
Speaker 1: Massachusetts here in the United States, held a referendum on
Speaker 1: a right to repair law for cars, and the voting
Speaker 1: populace of Massachusetts overwhelmingly supported the law. Voted in favor
Speaker 1: of it so voted against. That is an overwhelm homing
Speaker 1: win when you're looking at a lot of votes that
Speaker 1: come down to like fifty two versus is a huge win. Well,
Speaker 1: the car companies were not thrilled with this, and they
Speaker 1: quickly filed lawsuits to reverse the law or the very
Speaker 1: least delay when it would go into effect. See it's
Speaker 1: supposed to take effect this year, but the car companies
Speaker 1: say that's too soon and it should really be more
Speaker 1: like or really never. Years ago, Massachusetts actually voted that
Speaker 1: car companies would have to make wired connection telematic data
Speaker 1: accessible in Massachusetts, and that would mean that say, an
Speaker 1: independent repair shop or potentially even just a private car
Speaker 1: owner would be able to diagnose problems with their car
Speaker 1: and complete repairs on that car, rather than being forced
Speaker 1: to take the vehicle to, say, an official dealership to
Speaker 1: get the work done. We've been seeing this trend of
Speaker 1: turning tech into closed off ecosystems so that one party
Speaker 1: has essentially economic control over the whole thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: we talked about this earlier this week with Cannon and
Speaker 1: its printer and toner cartridges. Uh. But anyway, that earlier
Speaker 1: law which did pass, had a technical gap in it
Speaker 1: because it did not anticipate wireless systems, and so the
Speaker 1: law only required automakers to comply with it using wired systems.
Speaker 1: So then you saw car companies migrate over to wireless
Speaker 1: approaches and they didn't have to comply because the wireless
Speaker 1: wasn't covered well the law shut that gap down, and
Speaker 1: according to Motherboard, car companies have brought a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the state, claiming the law to be unconstitutional. I am
Speaker 1: not sure on what grounds that claim is based off of.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a Hail Mary play to me, but I
Speaker 1: could very well be missing something obvious. I am not
Speaker 1: a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination, but
Speaker 1: my guess is that with a seventy support in the state,
Speaker 1: the car industry is going to have a real tough
Speaker 1: time convincing lawmakers in Massachusetts to overturn this law or
Speaker 1: to amend it in a way that takes the teeth out.
Speaker 1: I think most politicians in the state are going to
Speaker 1: feel a lot of pressure to stick to what the
Speaker 1: voters were asking for, because doing otherwise is a great
Speaker 1: way to find your exit out of local politics. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got a couple more stories to cover, but before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take another quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you happen to be a famous person and you
Speaker 1: are approached by someone who's asking you to endorse a cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: you might want to do your homework first. Kim Kardashian
Speaker 1: and Floyd Mayweather are learning that firsthand, as they face
Speaker 1: a lawsuit from investors who lost money in a cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: called ethere um Max, which I should add is not
Speaker 1: actually related to the famous cryptocurrency ether that's on the
Speaker 1: Ethereum blockchain. It has a very similar name, which is
Speaker 1: a that's a red flag right there, but it's not
Speaker 1: related to it. Both Kardashian and Mayweather promoted this crypto
Speaker 1: token over the last year two and now a group
Speaker 1: of investors claim that their promotion was spreading misinformation about
Speaker 1: the tokens, and subsequently it drove up the cost of
Speaker 1: the tokens temporarily before the bottom dropped out and the
Speaker 1: investors then lost a ton of money. So what they're
Speaker 1: saying is that ethereum Max was a pump and dump scheme. Now,
Speaker 1: in case you're not familiar with that term, the idea
Speaker 1: is that, let's say that you want to run this scheme,
Speaker 1: so you either establish or you buy up a ton
Speaker 1: of something that's super cheap and has low value, right,
Speaker 1: low market value. Uh, this could be anything. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be cryptocurrency. It can literally be anything, and
Speaker 1: you just buy it up and then you use various
Speaker 1: means to drive up excitement and speculation about that thing
Speaker 1: so that more folks jump on board and buy it
Speaker 1: all up. So this always makes me think of the
Speaker 1: film trading places. But you get you get things moving
Speaker 1: so that investors start thinking, oh, this is the next
Speaker 1: you know, big ticket, this is the next to the
Speaker 1: moon thing. We're gonna I want to get in on
Speaker 1: this early on so I can make a mint and
Speaker 1: a bunch of people start buying it. Well. Increased demand
Speaker 1: typically prompts an increase in price. Right, if more people
Speaker 1: are demanding it, the value goes up. You can demand
Speaker 1: a higher price for the thing. So there you are
Speaker 1: sitting on amount of whatever it we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: whether it's cryptocurrency or something else that you bought at
Speaker 1: pennies on the dollar, and now it's worth a ton
Speaker 1: of money. So you quickly sell it all off and
Speaker 1: you dump it before folks figured out it it's just
Speaker 1: smoking mirrors, and you make a huge profit. Then you're
Speaker 1: off to Rio to join the producers. Meanwhile, all the
Speaker 1: rest of the folks who joined in after you, they're
Speaker 1: left holding the bag and they're trying to sell off
Speaker 1: their investment as the prices start to come down. And
Speaker 1: if they're lucky, they might break. Even if they're not lucky,
Speaker 1: they can lose a ton of money in the process.
Speaker 1: That's what the lawsuit is alleging happened in this case,
Speaker 1: that Ethereum Max was a pump and dump scheme from
Speaker 1: the beginning, and that Kardashian and Mayweather were part of
Speaker 1: the mechanism to drive up the cost of the token
Speaker 1: before the scammers, you know, pull the plug. I think
Speaker 1: the thing to take home here is that crypto remains
Speaker 1: a scammers paradise, so don't let yourself get caught up
Speaker 1: in the excitement without doing your homework. Now. I'm infamously
Speaker 1: negative about crypto in general for lots of reasons that
Speaker 1: I won't get into here, and I mostly feel like
Speaker 1: crypto in general is kind of a scam in a
Speaker 1: really big picture way. Um, it's sort of the thing
Speaker 1: where you could actually have a fake it till you
Speaker 1: make it approach, but I'm not convinced that the make
Speaker 1: it has actually happened. However, you've all heard me go
Speaker 1: on enough about that kind of stuff already, so let's
Speaker 1: move on. But let's talk about other scams that you
Speaker 1: should be on the lookout for. We talked about email,
Speaker 1: We've talked about crypto. Ours Technica ran a piece recently
Speaker 1: titled quote scammers put fake QR codes on parking meters
Speaker 1: to intercept parker's payments end quote. I love that headline.
Speaker 1: It gives you the gist right away. So kudos to
Speaker 1: John Broadkin and the team at ours Technica for putting
Speaker 1: this together. The article, by the way, also fantastic. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the scam here is that thieves put up QR code
Speaker 1: stickers on parking meters around several cities in the state
Speaker 1: of Texas. So if you were to go park somewhere
Speaker 1: in Texas and you see the parking meter, and you
Speaker 1: walk up and it's got this sticker with a QR
Speaker 1: code on it, and you use your smartphone to scan
Speaker 1: the code and then visit the associated website it was
Speaker 1: sending you to. You would see what appeared to be
Speaker 1: a pretty simple payment site, presumably for that parking meter,
Speaker 1: but in fact you would just be sending money straight
Speaker 1: to the thieves because it wasn't connected to the payment
Speaker 1: system at all for the cities. The cities in question
Speaker 1: release statements saying that they don't use QR codes for
Speaker 1: this very reason. That scammers can use fake QR codes
Speaker 1: to divert traffic to their own sites. Instead, the cities
Speaker 1: use cash and cards at the meters themselves, and I
Speaker 1: assume all of them. I know Austin for sure has
Speaker 1: an official smartphone app on that side, So as long
Speaker 1: as scammers can't make a fake parking payment app and
Speaker 1: pass it off as real and legit in various cities,
Speaker 1: you can be reasonably sure that if you're using a
Speaker 1: payment app for the city you are in, that you're
Speaker 1: actually paying the meter. That way, you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about thieves taking your money or the city taking
Speaker 1: your car. So yeah, just a reminder that QR codes
Speaker 1: might lead you to places you really don't want to go.
Speaker 1: But maybe you do want to go to Disney World.
Speaker 1: I did last year, and it was weird. I was
Speaker 1: being super careful, my whole family was being super careful
Speaker 1: while we were there, but being around that many people,
Speaker 1: a lot of whom we're not being particularly careful, that
Speaker 1: gave me tons of anxiety. I actually kind of regret
Speaker 1: having gone, but it was a big family trip and
Speaker 1: a surprise for my nieces, so I waited and decided
Speaker 1: to go, and yeah, still feel weird about that. Luckily,
Speaker 1: everyone was safe, everyone was healthy both before, during, and after.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's not the point of this segment. No
Speaker 1: Disney filed a patent that potentially gives us a glimpse
Speaker 1: what we could encounter on future trips to their theme
Speaker 1: parks and other Disney related places. The patent, which was
Speaker 1: approved right at the very tail end of last year,
Speaker 1: is for what they're calling a virtual world simulator. Now,
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like the patent is describing a
Speaker 1: three D projection mapping technology paired with cameras and motion
Speaker 1: sensors and facial recognition and an AI system to determine
Speaker 1: where someone is looking at any given time. So this
Speaker 1: is how I imagine it would play out. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you're on Main Street, USA at Disney World's Magic Kingdom,
Speaker 1: and you've got a ton of cameras trained on you.
Speaker 1: They're out of sight, but they're all looking at you,
Speaker 1: and they're paired with tracking software to look at your
Speaker 1: head position, where your eyes are pointed, how quickly you're moving,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, and then projectors connected to
Speaker 1: this system create an image of I don't know, let's
Speaker 1: say it's Captain Hook because he happens to be your
Speaker 1: favorite Disney character. Uh, turns out the three D projectors
Speaker 1: are not the only thing projecting in this particular scenario anyway.
Speaker 1: The patent seems to describe a tech that would allow
Speaker 1: Disney to kind of create these sorts of projections that
Speaker 1: can move along with you and interact with you in
Speaker 1: some way. The patent specifically dismisses the idea of an
Speaker 1: associated headset, so this would not incorporate something like augmented
Speaker 1: reality glasses. It sounds kind of cool, but it also
Speaker 1: makes me a bit anxious because, I mean the level
Speaker 1: of tracking a system would need to create this kind
Speaker 1: of interaction on a level that would be really compelling.
Speaker 1: That also means that Disney would be like seriously watching
Speaker 1: your every move, and not just your move, but everyone's move.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure how the system would determine which
Speaker 1: guests gets to have this kind of experience. Uh, you've
Speaker 1: been to a Disney park, you know how crowded they
Speaker 1: can be. And I imagine you could not have this
Speaker 1: system cater to everyone all the time, because then the
Speaker 1: park would be packed to the girls, both with real
Speaker 1: world guests and all the projected characters interacting with them,
Speaker 1: and if you're not wearing a headset or anything, those
Speaker 1: interactions they could be seen by everybody. Right, It's not
Speaker 1: like just something that you would experience. Everyone would be
Speaker 1: able to see it. So it's an interesting patent. I
Speaker 1: don't know if or how it would be implemented. We
Speaker 1: may never actually see this tech materialize. Sometimes that happens
Speaker 1: with patented technology. And in fact, it could just mean
Speaker 1: that Disney sits on this to make sure no one
Speaker 1: else does it, right, not that Disney is working to
Speaker 1: do it themselves, but rather let's make sure that nobody
Speaker 1: beats us to this, because that would be a real
Speaker 1: competitive edge for for someone else. So let's patent it
Speaker 1: and then they can't do it without our permission. That's
Speaker 1: also a possibility. Uh. I think the idea is kind
Speaker 1: of neat. I I just it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: imagine how it would actually play out at Disney. For
Speaker 1: one thing, the projection mapping stuff, I'm curious where you
Speaker 1: would project it onto, um if it just be walls
Speaker 1: or something, or if there would be maybe statues around
Speaker 1: the park where you would do three D projection mapping
Speaker 1: on that. But even then if it's a statue, then
Speaker 1: you're limited in the kind of animations you can do.
Speaker 1: You can do a lot of facial animations, but you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do a lot of body stuff.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Uh. The patent is interesting, the
Speaker 1: implementation remains a mystery. Okay, that wraps up this news
Speaker 1: episode for Thursday, January twenty two. Hope all of you
Speaker 1: are well. If you have suggestions for topics I should
Speaker 1: cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out
Speaker 1: to me. The best way to do so is over
Speaker 1: Twitter and the handle for the show is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll talk to you again, really y.
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