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. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Thursday, April twenty twenty two. Also,
Speaker 1: if this episode sounds a little different, it's because I'm
Speaker 1: actually in the office today and using a slightly different
Speaker 1: microphone set up. So that's why. Now let's get to
Speaker 1: the news. If you listen to Tuesday's news episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, you heard me talk about how Elon Musk
Speaker 1: declined an offer to join Twitter's board of directors, and
Speaker 1: that one of the potential reasons for that might have
Speaker 1: been that if he had joined the board of directors,
Speaker 1: he would have to agree to a limit of no
Speaker 1: more than fourteen point nine percent of Twitter's shares. He
Speaker 1: would not be allowed to purchase more than that, So
Speaker 1: the implication there being that Ellen potentially wanted to control
Speaker 1: Twitter that would require him to own at least fifty
Speaker 1: of Twitter's stakes. Well, now it sounds like phase two
Speaker 1: of his plan has launched, because Bloomberg reports Musk has
Speaker 1: made an offer to buy Twitter for fifty four dollars
Speaker 1: and twenty cents per share. That would bring the total
Speaker 1: valuation of Twitter's purchase to around forty three billion dollars. Now,
Speaker 1: this would be an outright hostile takeover, or potentially a
Speaker 1: hostile takeover, with Musk attempting to convince current shareholders to
Speaker 1: sell off their shares at a premium markup. And in
Speaker 1: pre market trading, Twitter shares were around forty eight dollars
Speaker 1: per share, so Musk is giving a bit of a
Speaker 1: markup on that cost, and he's hoping the offer remakes
Speaker 1: is one that big shareholders just can't refuse. Now, Twitter's
Speaker 1: board was fairly diplomatic in its response, saying it would
Speaker 1: review the offer and respond in whatever way was in
Speaker 1: the best interest of Twitter stockholders. This is by no
Speaker 1: means a surefire deal. Last year, Twitter shares climbed to
Speaker 1: seventy dollars per share, so it shows the company has
Speaker 1: hit much higher highs than where it's at right now,
Speaker 1: and even higher highs than Musk's offer. So that has
Speaker 1: been enough to suggest, at least to some analysts, that
Speaker 1: Musk's offer, while significant, is still far too low for
Speaker 1: Twitter shareholders to take it seriously. And Musk himself has
Speaker 1: said it's the best and last offer that he'll he'll make.
Speaker 1: He also seems to have implicitly threatened that he's going to,
Speaker 1: you know, offload all his stock if this deal doesn't
Speaker 1: go through, which could have a negative effect on Twitter's
Speaker 1: share price. So it's almost like, like some people are saying,
Speaker 1: it's almost like he's he's committing almost a kind of
Speaker 1: extortion when you look at it that way. It's not
Speaker 1: what I'm saying because I don't want to get sued,
Speaker 1: but that is what some folks are, particularly over on Reddit,
Speaker 1: which you know, the most level headed people in the
Speaker 1: world are on Reddit, but a lot of them are
Speaker 1: kind of making that that argument. Whether or not that's
Speaker 1: the case, I can't say. But as for how I
Speaker 1: feel about this, Twitter is the one social platform that
Speaker 1: I still hang out on regularly now, but y'all have
Speaker 1: probably picked up on the fact that I am not
Speaker 1: the world's biggest elon Musk fans. So if his deal
Speaker 1: were to go through, I feel like I would just
Speaker 1: kind of fade away from Twitter too, and that would
Speaker 1: leave me no option but to scream my daily word
Speaker 1: all scores out the window to anyone who can hear me.
Speaker 1: But we're not there yet. In related musk news, a
Speaker 1: former Tesla employee sued the company last year, alleging that
Speaker 1: he was the target of racial abuse at the factory
Speaker 1: where he worked. He was an elevator operator there. And
Speaker 1: at the end of at that court case, a jury
Speaker 1: found in the employees favor and awarded him nearly a
Speaker 1: hundred thirty seven million dollars. So why am I talking
Speaker 1: about now, Well, we finally got to a federal judge
Speaker 1: upholding the verdict. But in the process, the judge slashed
Speaker 1: the jury awarded amount and reduced it down to fifteen
Speaker 1: million dollars. That's still obviously a huge chunk of change.
Speaker 1: That's far from the massive rebuke that the jury had
Speaker 1: intended against Tesla. In metaverse news, the tech world is
Speaker 1: a buzz after discovering that Meta the apparent company of Facebook,
Speaker 1: intends to slap a forties seven point five percent fee
Speaker 1: on all transactions that take place regarding digital experiences and
Speaker 1: items within Horizon Worlds, which is the company's virtual environment platform.
Speaker 1: So people are essentially saying this is showing us Facebook's
Speaker 1: plan for the metaverse, right that Facebook wants to dominate
Speaker 1: the metaverse, and then four anyone who wants to interoperate
Speaker 1: within that world to pay nearly fifty of every transaction
Speaker 1: to Facebook itself. And it really does sound like Meta
Speaker 1: is taking a big page out of Apple's book and
Speaker 1: then cranking the dial up to eleven. Uh again, like,
Speaker 1: if you want to do business within meta space, then
Speaker 1: you have to funnel that business through Meta's processing system,
Speaker 1: and by doing that you incur two different fees. One
Speaker 1: of those fees is a hardware platform fee that applies
Speaker 1: to all sales that go through the Meta quest Store,
Speaker 1: which is kind of akin to the app store on smartphones.
Speaker 1: It's where users would purchase you know, games and experiences
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. And then there's a seventeen
Speaker 1: point five percent fee charged against the Horizon VR platform itself.
Speaker 1: And as you can imagine, being told to play in
Speaker 1: the space is gonna cost you nearly half of every
Speaker 1: sale you make. Hasn't floated over so well in the
Speaker 1: developer community, and I feel this is really where we're
Speaker 1: seeing Meta pour so much money into the metaverse. You know,
Speaker 1: this is why it's happening, because it's a mad dash
Speaker 1: to become the biggest and preferably the only metaverse game
Speaker 1: in town. If you dominate it, then you get to
Speaker 1: dictate what the what the the terms are, right, You're
Speaker 1: the one who sets all the rules. So it would
Speaker 1: give Meta all the leverage in the world to charge
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted and restrict access however they liked, and
Speaker 1: exploit the technology and whichever ways are going to make
Speaker 1: the most money. From a business perspective, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what capitalism is all about, right, Like it's that's that's
Speaker 1: what the machine is geared for. But from a quality
Speaker 1: of life and fairness perspective, it really kind of bites. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Apple took the opportunity to fire a shot across the
Speaker 1: bow of Meta. Market Watch got a quote from Fred
Speaker 1: Sayings of Apple that blasted Meta for repeatedly criticizing Apple
Speaker 1: in the past for its thirty percent cut for in
Speaker 1: app transactions. But then, of course Meta turns around in
Speaker 1: heaps and even bigger cut for its own community of
Speaker 1: merchants and developers in the Horizon world space. So Apple
Speaker 1: isn't so much defending its own practice instead of saying,
Speaker 1: Facebook really wants to use Apple for free, and they
Speaker 1: say we're greedy. But then look at the Shenanigans their pulling. Now.
Speaker 1: Now I'm paraphrasing, but I feel like that's an accurate
Speaker 1: depiction of what is going on here. Meanwhile, Apple still
Speaker 1: faces opposition all around the world when it comes to
Speaker 1: how it conducts itself within app purchases and Apple's own
Speaker 1: payment processing system. My guess is that Meta's plan will
Speaker 1: similarly become the focus of scrutiny by regulators everywhere at
Speaker 1: some point. But right now the company could be in
Speaker 1: the clear simply because we're so far away from a
Speaker 1: metaverse actually being a thing anyway that regulators might not
Speaker 1: see that there's very much to regulate as of yet.
Speaker 1: But yeah, things are starting to get a little spicy.
Speaker 1: Vice has a couple of Arcticle goals about Amazon and
Speaker 1: its ongoing struggles against unionization attempts. On April thirte Lauren
Speaker 1: Kory Gurley's article Amazon cracks down on organizing after historic
Speaker 1: union win, and then today Gurley has another article titled
Speaker 1: Amazon Labor union is inspiring Amazon workers around the country
Speaker 1: to unionize. So we've got kind of two sides of
Speaker 1: a coin going on here. So the first bit concerns
Speaker 1: the employees at the Staten Island, New York Warehouse. Uh,
Speaker 1: these Amazon employees recently passed a vote to form a
Speaker 1: union and now they're going to have union elections coming
Speaker 1: up later this month. Meanwhile, according to employee complaints, Amazon
Speaker 1: reps have been busy removing pro union literature and signage
Speaker 1: and holding mandatory anti union meetings on an even you know,
Speaker 1: more frequent basis, and the company has hired high powered
Speaker 1: union busting consultants to work on this. The complaints include
Speaker 1: allegations of illegal activity because it is against the law
Speaker 1: for a company to remove or toss pro union literature
Speaker 1: that's in designated break areas. And if that is in
Speaker 1: fact what has been happening, because again I'm basing this
Speaker 1: purely unemployee reports and the reporting of vice that um
Speaker 1: that you know, the company could really get into trouble
Speaker 1: for doing this, for for conducting illegal union busting tactics. However,
Speaker 1: that is something that could take months just to get
Speaker 1: into the court system and months more to resolve, and
Speaker 1: that's assuming anyone actually presses formal charges on this matter.
Speaker 1: So Amazon could just be employing a strategy to cause
Speaker 1: as much trouble as possible in order to head things off,
Speaker 1: mitigate the impact of unionization, break the union spirit as
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible, and then just deal with any
Speaker 1: consequences that happened later on. However, all that might actually
Speaker 1: end up biting Amazon on the butt, because the second
Speaker 1: of those two articles indicates that a lot of other
Speaker 1: Amazon on facilities around the United States are showing signs
Speaker 1: of organizing in the wake of the Staten Island warehouse vote.
Speaker 1: And it's even possible that Amazon's actions could anger more
Speaker 1: people into taking action. And I've been saying for a
Speaker 1: while now that I'm getting the sense there's this growing
Speaker 1: labor movement here in the United States. I feel it's
Speaker 1: still in that growing phase, and it does have the
Speaker 1: potential to snowball into a full on labor revolution. But
Speaker 1: I want to stress I'm talking about potential here. Nothing
Speaker 1: is ever a guarantee. It's also possible that down the
Speaker 1: road we're gonna look back on this time in history
Speaker 1: just see it as kind of a brief flash in
Speaker 1: the pan that quickly fizzled out. That could happen too.
Speaker 1: It really just depends upon the will of the workers.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I think I can hear the
Speaker 1: people sing By the way, both of those articles on
Speaker 1: Vice are well worth a read. You should definitely check
Speaker 1: those out. We've got some more news stories to cover
Speaker 1: in today's episode. Before we get to that, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back. There's an ongoing blacklist in
Speaker 1: the United States against certain companies in China. That blacklist
Speaker 1: means ain't no one here in the US supposed to
Speaker 1: sell components to those companies without the express permission of
Speaker 1: the U S government in the form of a special license. Now,
Speaker 1: a US company called Synopsis is under investigation for doing
Speaker 1: just that. The company makes software for electronic design automation.
Speaker 1: So this is a kind of software that helps chip designers,
Speaker 1: like semiconductor chip designers, lay out their architecture, and it's
Speaker 1: one of many important pieces in the microchip and semiconductor industries.
Speaker 1: The U S. Department of Commerce is investigating to see
Speaker 1: if Synopsis supplied either directly or through affiliates, this kind
Speaker 1: of software. Two companies connected to the telecommunity aaitions company Huawei. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've been following tech news for a while, you
Speaker 1: might remember that Huahwei is a company that fell into
Speaker 1: the U. S. Government's cross hairs. A couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: Huawei makes lots of stuff, including components for telecommunications infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and many US based telecommunications companies relied on Huawei technology.
Speaker 1: But after critics raised concerns that Huahwei could use embedded
Speaker 1: tech to potentially spy on Americans and share that information
Speaker 1: with the Chinese government, there was a seismic shift. Telecommunications
Speaker 1: providers were given deadlines to extract Huawei tech from their systems,
Speaker 1: and Huawei in general was put on this blacklist. Now,
Speaker 1: in order to sell legally to Huahwei, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: a company first has to obtain a special license from
Speaker 1: the U. S government. According to these allegations, that's something
Speaker 1: that Synopsis may not have done. Now. For its part,
Speaker 1: Synopsis denies it has done anything wrong. It claims that
Speaker 1: it has abided by all laws and regulations. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to wait for the outcome of the investigation to
Speaker 1: see if the authorities agree. And it could possibly be
Speaker 1: the case. It could very well be that this is
Speaker 1: just a very complicated thing. Synopsis did nothing wrong, and
Speaker 1: we go from there. We have to wait and find out.
Speaker 1: But speaking of China, the conglomerate ten Cent will be
Speaker 1: cracking down on a service that previously would allow Chinese
Speaker 1: gamers to access certain foreign games that weren't on the
Speaker 1: approved list by the Chinese government for Chinese consumption. Now,
Speaker 1: one story we've seen play out over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years is China's authorities pushing back against the tech sector.
Speaker 1: In particular, the government has issued tighter regulations and restrictions
Speaker 1: and closed a lot of loopholes that existed earlier. One
Speaker 1: of those was this platform that would let people in
Speaker 1: China use apps that would give them a speed boost,
Speaker 1: and that would allow them to access certain games, including
Speaker 1: games from overseas. Now ten Cent is going to restrict
Speaker 1: those apps so that they only interface with games that
Speaker 1: operating within China itself. So those apps are essentially, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's a speed boost. It's a way for
Speaker 1: users to make use of higher bandwidth internet connections, because
Speaker 1: the typical internet connection in China is far too slow
Speaker 1: to allow for things like gaming. You you just it's
Speaker 1: not practical for that. Uh, so you could use these apps.
Speaker 1: You can become a customer and use these apps and
Speaker 1: by that way access gaming, and some people are doing
Speaker 1: it to access games from other countries. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: gonna be tough not just on gamers, but also for
Speaker 1: all those game companies that saw the apps as a
Speaker 1: kind of hush hush way to tap into the truly
Speaker 1: massive market of Chinese gamers. US cryptocurrency enthusiast Virgil Griffith
Speaker 1: has been sentenced for more than five years in jail
Speaker 1: after bleading guilty on charges of helping North Korea find
Speaker 1: ways to sidestep sanctions. Griffith advised North Korean government officials
Speaker 1: and how they could leverage cryptocurrencies like a theory them
Speaker 1: to ignore sanctions against them from other countries, as well
Speaker 1: as to do stuff like launder money. You know, the
Speaker 1: stuff that regulators have said for a long time is
Speaker 1: something they are concerned about when it comes to cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: but it's something that a lot of crypto bros often
Speaker 1: wave off or ignore. They're like, oh, you're just scared
Speaker 1: of losing your power. But then we get actual instances
Speaker 1: of this happening. It's really, I think a big step
Speaker 1: back for the crypto community when one of their recognized
Speaker 1: experts in the field is practicing the very thing that
Speaker 1: regulators have been scared about the whole time. And to
Speaker 1: be clear, I'm not saying that cryptocurrency is inherently bad,
Speaker 1: or that it's even mainly used for illegal activities. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that cryptocurrency is very well suited for
Speaker 1: those types of illegal activities, and so it shouldn't surprise
Speaker 1: us when some people put it to that very specific use. Anyway,
Speaker 1: North Korea is by no means a in lee country
Speaker 1: to the United States, so it comes as a little
Speaker 1: surprised that Griffith received a fairly stiff penalty here. And
Speaker 1: my guess is it would have been even more severe
Speaker 1: had he pled not guilty and it had gone to trial,
Speaker 1: assuming of course, that he had ultimately been found guilty
Speaker 1: of the crime. So it could have been worse, I guess,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Yesterday, several US agencies issued warnings
Speaker 1: that cybersecurity researchers had discovered malware tools created by quote
Speaker 1: unquote unnamed advanced threat actors. This comes from an article
Speaker 1: from The Guardian which is titled US Federal alert warns
Speaker 1: of the discovery of malicious cyber tools. So the threat
Speaker 1: actors in question designed malware tools specifically meant to interface
Speaker 1: with industrial control systems. Now, these are not like your
Speaker 1: standard personal computers. These are purpose built systems that are
Speaker 1: in charge of handling really important and really specific tasks.
Speaker 1: Like it might be a system that connects to a
Speaker 1: power grid or the system that connects to a natural
Speaker 1: gas facility, and it controls not just computer systems but
Speaker 1: also actual like you know, valves and things like that. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're talking about these similar, large industrial complex systems that
Speaker 1: typically are very tightly integrated into our infrastructure. Now, this
Speaker 1: is not a new thing for us to see threats
Speaker 1: to these types of institutions. Several years ago, a link
Speaker 1: the investigation found evidence that cyber spies had compromised computer
Speaker 1: and electro mechanical systems in the power grid and the
Speaker 1: United States, as well as other infrastructure, and that those
Speaker 1: spies were likely either from China or working on behalf
Speaker 1: of the Chinese As for this latest realm, the current
Speaker 1: suspicion is that the attackers are connected to Russia, but
Speaker 1: there's no firm evidence on the matter that has been
Speaker 1: shared so far. Details on the matter are scarce, but
Speaker 1: according to one US official, AGE were able to discover
Speaker 1: the malware before they could actually be used in an attack,
Speaker 1: so that's a good thing. Finally, Disney has shut down
Speaker 1: an unauthorized copy of the game Club Penguin. It was
Speaker 1: called Club Penguin rewritten and thus evicted thousands of online players.
Speaker 1: All Right, you might not know what this is. Club
Speaker 1: Penguin was this online RPG that was marketed to younger audiences,
Speaker 1: and in the game, players would be little cartoon penguins,
Speaker 1: and they could do all sorts of cute c stuff,
Speaker 1: playing various little games and things. Well, Disney bought that
Speaker 1: property in two thousand seven, spinning at an incredible seven
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to do so. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: seven hundred million dollars for Club Penguin comes out to
Speaker 1: in terms of per pound of penguin, but it's got
Speaker 1: to be a lot. However, over the course of the
Speaker 1: following decade, Club Penguin's relevance began to fade, and Disney
Speaker 1: ultimately decided to shut down the main game. They launched
Speaker 1: a couple of related products that didn't last very long either,
Speaker 1: and fan would occasionally decide that they would get a
Speaker 1: copy of the code for the game and host it
Speaker 1: on a private server or a shared server, and they
Speaker 1: would invite other folks to come and play. Now, sometimes
Speaker 1: this led to pretty shady situations and dangerous situations where
Speaker 1: you know you had some some schevy stuff happening, and Disney,
Speaker 1: perhaps the most enthusiastic defender of copyright and IP that
Speaker 1: ever existed, would go after these servers after discovering them,
Speaker 1: and that is what happened with Club Penguin Rewritten. The
Speaker 1: server hosting the copy was in England, and Disney got
Speaker 1: hold of the City of London Police and pretty soon
Speaker 1: the server administrators willingly surrendered the server to the authorities
Speaker 1: and it got shut down. This is one of those
Speaker 1: situations where I can kind of see both sides of
Speaker 1: the issue. For fans, it is really frustrating when a
Speaker 1: big company purchases an I P and then doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything with it. They just hold onto it and that
Speaker 1: means no one can do anything with it. Meanwhile, you
Speaker 1: might really want to see another game or another product
Speaker 1: in that line, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, this is also a property that
Speaker 1: Disney owns, so it has the right to do nothing
Speaker 1: with it if it wants to. It stinks, but it
Speaker 1: can um and if someone is ripping off the game
Speaker 1: and shady stuff is going on, that can reflect badly
Speaker 1: on Disney. I mean they do own the property, it
Speaker 1: can still tarnish Disney's reputation. So they have a vested
Speaker 1: interest in going after those kinds of things and shutting
Speaker 1: it down. But we end this episode saluting our fallen
Speaker 1: penguin friends. May you sled merrily through the cyber afterlife.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover on tech Stuff, you better get
Speaker 1: in those requests quick on Twitter because once Elon Musk
Speaker 1: owns the place, I am out. But the handle we
Speaker 1: use is text stuff hs W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again. Really. So, tech Stuff is an I Heart
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