Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my 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 iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: I love all things tech. And it's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, September twenty one, twenty one. And
Speaker 1: here's a follow up on a story that I talked
Speaker 1: about last week. The Wall Street Journal has recently published
Speaker 1: a few stories that put Facebook in a really negative light.
Speaker 1: One of those stories was about an internal study that
Speaker 1: looked at how divisive content on Facebook goes up in
Speaker 1: the ranks in the Facebook algorithm because that kind of
Speaker 1: content encourages high engagement. So essentially, it's saying what most
Speaker 1: of us already know, which is that if you stir
Speaker 1: shinola up, folks will get head up about it and
Speaker 1: join the fracas. That's my colloquial way of saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, saying or posting awful things gets a rise
Speaker 1: out of people, and they in turn get emotional and
Speaker 1: typically they then engage. And we know this is a
Speaker 1: thing because it's been going on since long before there
Speaker 1: ever was an Internet, and even back in the days
Speaker 1: when the Internet wasn't really much more than a bunch
Speaker 1: of message boards. We saw this in the form of
Speaker 1: flame wars. Like everybody knows this. This is like the
Speaker 1: basis of a lot of toxic behavior on the Internet
Speaker 1: and in the world in general. So none of this
Speaker 1: is new, But the study essentially confirmed that Facebook's algorithm
Speaker 1: promotes content like that and then amplifies it, so something
Speaker 1: that was already getting a lot of engagement could go
Speaker 1: to the level where it goes viral, and when that
Speaker 1: stuff is divisive, it can do a lot of harm.
Speaker 1: Then there was the study that I talked about last
Speaker 1: week in which Facebook researchers found that Instagram users can
Speaker 1: experience a negative impact on their mental health. Particularly teenage
Speaker 1: girls are are vulnerable to this, and the researchers found
Speaker 1: that some users, including up to thirty two of teenage girls,
Speaker 1: experience self esteem issues and worse, and that this links
Speaker 1: back to their activities on Instagram. But those stories weren't
Speaker 1: the end of it. There was more. The journal also
Speaker 1: published a report that said as bad as Facebook is
Speaker 1: dealing with these issues in English speaking countries, it's even
Speaker 1: worse elsewhere, and that's because apparently Facebook just doesn't have
Speaker 1: the staff on hand to deal with problems in places
Speaker 1: that have other languages, and so issues like misinformation campaigns
Speaker 1: can be even worse in those other places because there
Speaker 1: aren't enough moderators who can curb the problem. They're not
Speaker 1: enough people who understand the language to recognize when those
Speaker 1: things are happening. CNBC's Salvador Rodriguez points out that a
Speaker 1: company that makes around thirty billion dollar in profit, and
Speaker 1: that's not revenue, that's profit, you know, they might be
Speaker 1: able to actually hire on some folks who understand other languages.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a pretty salient point. Facebook has
Speaker 1: responded in a blog post that essentially says the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal got stuff wrong. However, the blog post does
Speaker 1: not refute any of the points of the internal study
Speaker 1: that the journal was citing. So I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: the wrong stuff would be any conclusions that the journalists
Speaker 1: were drawing as a result of reading over the data.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that blog post is going to
Speaker 1: convince anyone. I feel like there's a real momentum building
Speaker 1: against Facebook, and my guess is that soon it's going
Speaker 1: to be politically unfeasible to offer the company any sort
Speaker 1: of protection. In related news, the m I T Technology
Speaker 1: Review gained possession of another Facebook internal study. These things
Speaker 1: just keep on coming out. This one was actually done
Speaker 1: way back in twenty nineteen. I say way back because
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen was before we ever had a pandemic. Do
Speaker 1: you remember those days? Anyway, that study was looking into
Speaker 1: the proliferation of troll farms that were dedicated to spreading
Speaker 1: misinformation and propaganda in the lead up to the presidential
Speaker 1: election in the United States. A former Facebook employee handed
Speaker 1: the report over to the m I T Technology Review.
Speaker 1: That employee reportedly had nothing to do with the the study,
Speaker 1: but had access to it before they left Facebook, and
Speaker 1: the study showed that troll farms were pushing content out
Speaker 1: that was seen by around one hundred forty million Americans
Speaker 1: every month, and that these troll farms had created networks
Speaker 1: of Facebook pages, and that some fifteen thousand pages targeting
Speaker 1: US audiences actually originated out of Kosovo and Macedonia. Now
Speaker 1: keep in mind this is after Facebook had already been
Speaker 1: through the wringer in the two thousand sixteen election, which
Speaker 1: means you would expect Facebook to have some protections in
Speaker 1: place to guard against the same sort of thing. Happening
Speaker 1: again just a few years later, but according to the review,
Speaker 1: the few measures that Facebook did activate mostly prevented quote
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst end quote. Jeff Allen, author
Speaker 1: of the report and who was at the time a
Speaker 1: senior level data scientist with Facebook, said that quote, we
Speaker 1: have empowered in authentic actors to accumulate huge followings for
Speaker 1: largely unknown purposes end quote. So, in other words, Facebook
Speaker 1: has given the ability for people who are not who
Speaker 1: they claim to be to get enormous followings and then
Speaker 1: potentially to do, you know whatever. It might be good,
Speaker 1: or it might be bad, probably bad. So this ties
Speaker 1: in with our earlier story showing that Facebook is very
Speaker 1: much aware of how its systems enable bad actors to
Speaker 1: reach huge audiences and spread misinformation. When that misinformation convinces
Speaker 1: people that, you know, the COVID vaccine is harmful, or
Speaker 1: that misinformation says the virus itself is overblown, then it
Speaker 1: not just you know, affects those users on Facebook. It
Speaker 1: affects their behaviors and people can get sick and some
Speaker 1: of them will die. Facebook, as you would imagine as
Speaker 1: representatives that say say the company is taking measures to
Speaker 1: keep the platforms safe and to eliminate these issues. But
Speaker 1: like I said, I feel that Facebook is pretty much
Speaker 1: on a collision course with the US government and likely
Speaker 1: some other governments around the world, with the aim to
Speaker 1: break up the company or otherwise reduce its power to
Speaker 1: facilitate harm. I mean, it is pretty damning evidence when
Speaker 1: internal studies within Facebook are confirming some of the accusations
Speaker 1: that people have had against the company, and meanwhile representatives
Speaker 1: for the company have continuously denied or deflected those accusations.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile their own studies from inside the house are saying
Speaker 1: the same thing. Not a good look. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I talked about how El Salvador adopted bitcoin as their
Speaker 1: the country's national currency. Previously, it had been mostly relying
Speaker 1: on the US dollar. Well, recently, bitcoin has had a
Speaker 1: bit of a dip. It dropped ten percent in value
Speaker 1: very quickly, not long ago. It's not to say that
Speaker 1: it's in a spiral or anything, but it didn't have
Speaker 1: a dip, and Salvador and President Naive Boo Keley responded
Speaker 1: to that by directing the government to purchase even more bitcoin,
Speaker 1: buying the dip. In other words, the country purchased another
Speaker 1: hundred fifty bitcoin which was worth around six and a
Speaker 1: half million dollars at the time, and that brings the
Speaker 1: total number of bitcoin held by El Salvador to seven hundred.
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to see how El Salvador progresses
Speaker 1: while relying on a currency that has frequent and frequently
Speaker 1: dramatic fluctuations in value. I'm not saying it's impossible, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tricky. If bitcoin stabilizes and becomes more
Speaker 1: of a reliant kind of thing or reliable kind of thing. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it could work, but right now, it's just
Speaker 1: it's so volatile that I am very curious to see
Speaker 1: how this works for El Salvador in the future. And
Speaker 1: of course we talked to in the previous episodes about
Speaker 1: how a lot of critics are worried that the fact
Speaker 1: that bitcoin is is frequently associated with stuff like money
Speaker 1: laundering and corruption, that this will play a large role
Speaker 1: in El Salvador as well, but we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see. Let's talk about tech and climate change for
Speaker 1: a second. So the Big Five that being Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and Facebook have all stated that their respective companies have
Speaker 1: plans to go carbon neutral and at least in some
Speaker 1: cases even carbon negative over the next several years, most
Speaker 1: of which are aiming around for that goal. Microsoft even
Speaker 1: says that the company intends to remove enough carbon from
Speaker 1: the atmosphere to offset all the carbon the company has
Speaker 1: ever generated. Ever, So, in other words, by I think
Speaker 1: it's twenty fifty, Microsoft plans on having systems in place
Speaker 1: that will effectively remove the equivalent amount of carbon that
Speaker 1: the company has ever produced. That's pretty phenomenal if it
Speaker 1: actually works out. Now, let's talk a little bit about actions,
Speaker 1: because those speak louder than words, right. You can claim
Speaker 1: to have this plan in place, but unless you do
Speaker 1: stuff about it doesn't do you much good. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to some of these companies, the promises being
Speaker 1: made might not actually be achievable, at least not from
Speaker 1: the companies themselves all by themselves. Let's take Apple for example.
Speaker 1: So the Guardian reports that a semiconductor manufacturing company called
Speaker 1: t s MC, this is part of Apple's supply chain,
Speaker 1: has its goal to become carbon neutral by twenty Now,
Speaker 1: Apple's goal was to get its entire supply chain to
Speaker 1: carbon neutral by so there's a disconnect there of twenty years.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's huge, right now, The company t s
Speaker 1: MC in Taiwan uses nearly five of all electricity and
Speaker 1: Iwan while manufacturing silicon chips. It also used around sixty
Speaker 1: three million gallons of water in twenty nineteen for that purpose,
Speaker 1: and it will likely consume more over the near future,
Speaker 1: not less, at least, you know, when the ability to
Speaker 1: manufacture at scale has really returned in full effect. And
Speaker 1: this is yet another reminder that the world is way
Speaker 1: more complicated than the way we typically see it in messaging.
Speaker 1: You know, you might think, oh, Apple, Apple makes iPhones,
Speaker 1: that iPhone came from Apple, but we all know that's
Speaker 1: oversimplifying things way too much because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different companies that that produce components within that iPhone
Speaker 1: that are not Apple. Apple partners with those companies, they
Speaker 1: are part of Apple's supply chains. So it is a
Speaker 1: much more complex ecosystem than just a single company. And
Speaker 1: we have to remember there's this ripple effect, right, The
Speaker 1: manufacturing process has this ripple effect on different economies around
Speaker 1: the world as well as different environments. Now, I am
Speaker 1: not blaming Apple for this, because I mean, for one thing,
Speaker 1: the company made its own uh owned and operated businesses
Speaker 1: carbon neutral back in eighteen. That is amazing. Hats off
Speaker 1: to Apple for doing that. That's great. This is just
Speaker 1: a reminder that when we hear these promises about attaining
Speaker 1: carbon neutrality across all lines of businesses, we have to
Speaker 1: remember it's not always entirely up to the companies that
Speaker 1: are making those promises, and we need to make sure
Speaker 1: that all the pieces are in place in order to
Speaker 1: take care of all the different components. We have more
Speaker 1: to talk about with tech, even more with tech and
Speaker 1: climate in just a moment, but first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, before the break, I was talking about
Speaker 1: carbon neutrality and climate change in tech. This is kind
Speaker 1: of related to that in a way. I want to
Speaker 1: talk out the Bezos Earth Fund that's obviously named after
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. That fund has pledged
Speaker 1: one billion dollars toward efforts to conserve and protect vulnerable
Speaker 1: areas around the world. And this is part of a
Speaker 1: ten billion dollar commitment that Jeff Bezos has made toward
Speaker 1: preserving natural habitats and fighting climate change globally. And the
Speaker 1: initial focus is on a region in the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 1: a tropical region of the Pacific uh the tropical Andes
Speaker 1: Mountains and the Congo Basin. Now you might wonder how
Speaker 1: does this actually work, because obviously you can't just dump
Speaker 1: airplane loads of cash on an area to make it better.
Speaker 1: The Pacific Ocean does not care if you make it
Speaker 1: rain dollar bills over it. No, So this fund is
Speaker 1: actually doling out large amounts of money toward established organizations
Speaker 1: that focus on this kind of work on preservation and
Speaker 1: fighting climate change. So really it's almost like a grant
Speaker 1: foundation that's granting this money to other organizations. This in
Speaker 1: itself is still a challenge, both because even if you're
Speaker 1: just donating to charity yourself, you always want to try
Speaker 1: and select organizations that have the potential to do the
Speaker 1: most good with your donation and to make the best
Speaker 1: use of the money you you offer. And also, once
Speaker 1: you hit a certain scale of donation, you might actually
Speaker 1: be giving an organization more money than that organization can manage.
Speaker 1: It can literally be too much of a good thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you are really focusing on smaller, more local organizations
Speaker 1: that can do you know, direct good in a region,
Speaker 1: then you might have to spend a lot more time
Speaker 1: managing that whole situation. Because again, you don't want to
Speaker 1: overwhelm the organization by giving it more than it can handle.
Speaker 1: But at least this is some good news that's related
Speaker 1: to Amazon, which is nice because the rest of my
Speaker 1: Amazon news is not quite so positive. Of those pieces
Speaker 1: is about um sponsored results in Amazon item listings. So
Speaker 1: when you go on to Amazon and you're searching for something,
Speaker 1: let's say it's a ball peen hammer, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: get results on that, and that's going to include results
Speaker 1: from companies that have paid to be in your view,
Speaker 1: like on that first page. So Amazon has been doing
Speaker 1: this for a while. It's not like it's brand new,
Speaker 1: but over time the company has increased the number of
Speaker 1: sponsored item slots on those initial lists. Like in the
Speaker 1: past it might be you know, two to three items,
Speaker 1: and now it can be five or six on some searches. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like search engines in general, you know, we typically
Speaker 1: see people stick to the first page or first couple
Speaker 1: of pages of results when they're searching for stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: I have to admit I'm kind of an outlier because
Speaker 1: I will frequently page through multiple pages in an effort
Speaker 1: to find, you know, the best fit for whatever item
Speaker 1: I'm looking for. I've always got this fear that on
Speaker 1: the next page was the perfect fit, and I went
Speaker 1: with something you know, I settled for something less. So
Speaker 1: with these sponsored results, there's no algorithm around how popular
Speaker 1: the item is, or how well reviewed it is or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It shows up there because the company
Speaker 1: paid for that spot. And Amazon has also increased the
Speaker 1: price for ads, which, yeah, I don't even know how
Speaker 1: much revenue Amazon must be pulling in when you factor
Speaker 1: both of those things together. They're showing more ads, and
Speaker 1: they're charging more per AD, and they've got millions of
Speaker 1: people using the site, and I mean, that's going hog wild,
Speaker 1: especially during pandemic. Now, the amount charged is not a
Speaker 1: big amount on a per click basis. If you look
Speaker 1: at it as how much does Amazon charge for an
Speaker 1: AD for a single click, it's a dollar twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That's not very much, But that's one click. That's per click, right.
Speaker 1: You multiply that times potentially tens of thousands of click
Speaker 1: and you apply that pricing across all items, across all categories,
Speaker 1: and you really start seeing the cash pile up, which
Speaker 1: I guess then you could throw at the Pacific Ocean. Amazon,
Speaker 1: by the way, says that it doesn't dedicate slots to
Speaker 1: sponsored items, So in other words, it doesn't have like
Speaker 1: a minimum or a set amount. It's not like every
Speaker 1: time you search for something, you're gonna get six sponsored
Speaker 1: results and then everything else. In fact, it's possible, according
Speaker 1: to Amazon, that you could do a search and get
Speaker 1: no sponsored items at all, depending on whatever it was
Speaker 1: you were searching for. Now, I've recently had to purchase
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, so anecdotally, I can say that
Speaker 1: I have noticed way more sponsored items than I remember
Speaker 1: seeing in the past. However, I also have to say
Speaker 1: that could just be confirmation bias on my part. It
Speaker 1: might not actually reflect reality. It may just be that
Speaker 1: I'm noticing it more. Anyway, it's good to pay attention
Speaker 1: to this kind of thing when you're a comparison shopping now.
Speaker 1: Just because something is sponsored doesn't mean it's the best fit,
Speaker 1: but it all. It doesn't mean it's not the best fit.
Speaker 1: It might be the best option for you, but it
Speaker 1: is good to remember that it's a sponsored item and
Speaker 1: that the reason it's showing up in your view has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with its price, its quality, or reviews
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Uh, it may fit those criteria
Speaker 1: that you need, but it doesn't necessarily do that, so
Speaker 1: you need to keep that in mind when you're comparison shopping.
Speaker 1: OSHA a k a. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Speaker 1: is a regulatory agency in the United States that is
Speaker 1: charged with assuring safe and healthy working conditions in the
Speaker 1: US by establishing and enforcing standards. And when there is
Speaker 1: an incident that that results in an injury, like a
Speaker 1: serious injury, something you know, beyond just slapping a band
Speaker 1: aid on someone, then companies are supposed to report that
Speaker 1: to OSHA. They are legally bound to do so well.
Speaker 1: The Tech Journal is m site. The information took data
Speaker 1: from OSHA and looked at Amazon delivery stations. Now, delivery
Speaker 1: stations are hubs that exist between warehouses and customers. Amazon
Speaker 1: essentially established delivery stations largely in an effort to eliminate
Speaker 1: the need to rely on other delivery services like ups
Speaker 1: and instead use its own owned and operated delivery vehicles
Speaker 1: in order to get packages to end customers. So the
Speaker 1: way Amazon typically works with shipping is that it has
Speaker 1: these massive warehouses that hold products. These then get shipped
Speaker 1: to the delivery stations, and then workers at the delivery
Speaker 1: stations sort and load the boxes onto delivery vehicles, which
Speaker 1: then go out to you know, deliver the stuff to customers.
Speaker 1: And according to the information, the rate of injuries at
Speaker 1: Amazon delivery stations is more than twice that of the
Speaker 1: industry average. People are getting hurt twice as often at
Speaker 1: Amazon delivery stations as people who work at comparable facilities.
Speaker 1: It's also a higher injury rate than what is seen
Speaker 1: at other Amazon facilities, including warehouses and sorting facilities. The
Speaker 1: delivery stations are the most dangerous. The information also points
Speaker 1: out that companies only report to OSHA if those injuries
Speaker 1: are severe enough. Like I was saying before, it has
Speaker 1: to be something more than what would require a first
Speaker 1: aid response. So we're not just talking about people stubbing
Speaker 1: a toe or something. We're talking about some serious injuries,
Speaker 1: everything from moderate to potentially critical injuries. And you know,
Speaker 1: who knows how many bumps and scrapes people are getting
Speaker 1: along the way. The study also found that Amazon had
Speaker 1: overstated the number of employees working at these delivery stations
Speaker 1: on more than one occasions. Now that matters because it
Speaker 1: means Amazon's information to OSHA indicates that these delivery stations
Speaker 1: had more employees. Thus were more fully staffed, and that
Speaker 1: would usually mean that you would see fewer injuries, right,
Speaker 1: because you're you're dividing the work well amongst the people
Speaker 1: that you have. But if in fact fewer people are
Speaker 1: working there, then that means you have fewer people doing
Speaker 1: more work. And that work includes moving heavy stuff like
Speaker 1: heavy packages, as well as working around delivery vehicles that
Speaker 1: are coming and going all the time. So it's no
Speaker 1: wonder there have been lots of injuries. No real report
Speaker 1: from Amazon yet about this, apart from the company saying
Speaker 1: that it works hard to improve safety conditions and its facilities. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I've got a few more stories to cover, but before
Speaker 1: I get to those, let's take another quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit more about workers rights
Speaker 1: and tech organizations in the form of instat cart. So,
Speaker 1: the company is rumored to be preparing an initial public
Speaker 1: offering or i p O. That's when a private company
Speaker 1: becomes a publicly traded company on a stock exchange. This
Speaker 1: process is lengthy, it is not a sure thing. They
Speaker 1: just take a look at we work for an example
Speaker 1: of that. But some instacart workers are spearheading a campaign
Speaker 1: to convince users to boycott the app. They're using the
Speaker 1: hashtag delete insta Cart to promote their cause, so they
Speaker 1: want to put pressure on the company. If insta Cart
Speaker 1: is planning ongoing public then public opinion is going to
Speaker 1: impact the share price and thus the company valuation and
Speaker 1: the I p O. So this is important stuff. And
Speaker 1: the workers have a list of demands that they want
Speaker 1: to have met from the company. One of those includes
Speaker 1: Instacart reinstating a previous commission pay model where people got
Speaker 1: a dedicated amount of money per order. Um. They want
Speaker 1: a ten percent default tip built into the transaction. Right now,
Speaker 1: the default tip is at five. They wanted to be
Speaker 1: up to ten percent because they say a lot of
Speaker 1: users never bother to go outside of the default. Uh.
Speaker 1: I always I always go to twenty percent at least
Speaker 1: and sometimes over than that, because I mean, these folks
Speaker 1: are working hard and they're they're doing a real service
Speaker 1: for me. But that's me anyway. They also want a
Speaker 1: system that does not penalize workers for stuff that is
Speaker 1: outside their control. So for example, uh, there's a cold
Speaker 1: brew coffee that I absolutely love and it is almost
Speaker 1: never in stock in any of the stores. I always
Speaker 1: put it into the order just in case, but more
Speaker 1: often than not, I get a message saying they were out.
Speaker 1: Well right now, instacart allows me to review my you know,
Speaker 1: results of my delivery and I can say, oh, the
Speaker 1: delivery person didn't find all the items, uh, and that
Speaker 1: can reflect badly on that person. It penalizes the insta
Speaker 1: cart gig worker and it's not really their fault, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, if the company's off stock, they couldn't do
Speaker 1: anything about that, so it's not fair. They want that changed.
Speaker 1: They also want occupational death benefits, and they want the
Speaker 1: system that assigns orders to workers to be more transparent.
Speaker 1: They say that it's gotten less so over the years.
Speaker 1: The workers are asking users to delete the app to
Speaker 1: send a message to insta Cart because if the installed
Speaker 1: base for the app drops dramatically, they hope that that
Speaker 1: will end up pressuring the company to granting these demands
Speaker 1: because it will not look good on its way toward
Speaker 1: an initial public offering. Workers say instat carts changes have
Speaker 1: resulted in lower pay for workers who are working just
Speaker 1: as hard, if not harder, than they were before, but
Speaker 1: they're making less. The workers acknowledge that asking users to
Speaker 1: delete a delivery app during a pandemic is potentially a
Speaker 1: pretty big request for what it's worth, I just deleted
Speaker 1: it from my phone, even though I have depended upon
Speaker 1: it quite heavily in the past, because I happened to
Speaker 1: believe in the cause of the workers. All right, moving on,
Speaker 1: have you been to Thailand in the last ten years?
Speaker 1: The reason I ask is that if you have, your
Speaker 1: data might be among the one hundred six million records
Speaker 1: of international travelers who have gone to Thailand that was
Speaker 1: found to be stored on a database on the web
Speaker 1: without password protection. So, in other words, anyone who got
Speaker 1: hold of that U r L to that database could
Speaker 1: go and look through it and see the personal information
Speaker 1: of one six million people who had visited the country
Speaker 1: over the last decade. A security researcher with compare Tech
Speaker 1: alerted Thai authorities about this problem last month, and the
Speaker 1: day following that alert, those authorities were able to secure
Speaker 1: the database. So how long was that database up I
Speaker 1: don't know, but the search engine census c E N
Speaker 1: S y S indexed the database on August twenty one, So,
Speaker 1: in other words, not only was the database unprotected and
Speaker 1: up on the web, but a search engine indexed it
Speaker 1: so that means it would come up in search results
Speaker 1: for any sort of relevant query. The researcher who found
Speaker 1: the database found it two days after it had been indexed,
Speaker 1: and on the twenty three the database was under lock
Speaker 1: and key. The former u r L of the database
Speaker 1: is still active, but if you were to visit it now,
Speaker 1: you would see a message that reads and I quote
Speaker 1: this is honeypot. All access were logged end quote. According
Speaker 1: to the authorities, no one obtained unauthorized access to the database,
Speaker 1: though I'm not sure how they determined that or whether
Speaker 1: the information is accurate, but once again that shows how
Speaker 1: poor data management security policies can make all of us vulnerable.
Speaker 1: The folks who were in that database did nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: At least they did nothing wrong as far as being
Speaker 1: included on that database is concerned. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're entirely innocent of all wrongdoing, but they had no
Speaker 1: control over the security of their own data, and that's
Speaker 1: a problem. Netflix has an interesting new offering that has
Speaker 1: very specific parameters for a certain target audience. Viewers will
Speaker 1: get free access to about tw of all the content
Speaker 1: on Netflix Streaming to watch free of charge. That is,
Speaker 1: there's no subscription. There's no advertising, nothing, but there are
Speaker 1: a couple of requirements you have to meet. First, one
Speaker 1: is that this offering is for Android users, so it
Speaker 1: only applies on Android devices. And the other is that
Speaker 1: the offering is for people in Kenya. And you might wonder,
Speaker 1: what the what, what's going on, and maybe a lot
Speaker 1: of you are already saying, well, of course, the first
Speaker 1: taste is free, and that's exactly right. This is essentially
Speaker 1: a marketing campaign with the ultimate goal to be to
Speaker 1: convince Kenyans to subscribe for you know, paid for Netflix services.
Speaker 1: You know, you give them a sample of what is
Speaker 1: available on the platform. Android smartphones are popular in Kenya,
Speaker 1: often like the most popular computing device in Kenya, and
Speaker 1: so that represents a potential new audience for a Netflix.
Speaker 1: But to get things rolling, the company needs to convince
Speaker 1: Kenyans that they want the service in the first place.
Speaker 1: And I think you were going to see lots of
Speaker 1: similar campaigns across different companies in different parts of the world.
Speaker 1: Many companies use growth as the most important metric of
Speaker 1: the organization's success, but for subscription based businesses, there comes
Speaker 1: a point in any market where you start to hit saturation.
Speaker 1: And you see growth slow down, you might even see
Speaker 1: it stabilize, and if you're in trouble, it might start
Speaker 1: to go and reverse. It is very hard to create
Speaker 1: new customers in a saturated market. You know, you've pretty
Speaker 1: much got everyone who wants to be on the service
Speaker 1: on the service you've got in the worlds to go,
Speaker 1: So it makes more sense to look for untapped markets
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the world and then aggressively go after those
Speaker 1: and when you do that, boom, you get your growth back. Now.
Speaker 1: I used to see this a lot when I worked
Speaker 1: for a multibillion dollar cable content company that rhymes with Discovery. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll have to see if Netflix is Queen's gambit pays off.
Speaker 1: That was a reference. I've been talking a lot about
Speaker 1: NASA recently, with series on text stuff dedicated to things
Speaker 1: like the evolution of space suits and the various space
Speaker 1: stations that have been in orbit around the Earth over
Speaker 1: the years, and have also covered the Artemis Project, NASA's
Speaker 1: plan to return to the Moon. Now, while the return
Speaker 1: of humans to the Moon is likely to be pushed
Speaker 1: back from the plan deadline because of stuff like you know,
Speaker 1: not having space suits ready in time, other parts of
Speaker 1: the project are moving forward. One of those is to
Speaker 1: land a new rover on the surface of the Moon.
Speaker 1: The rover is called the Volatile Investigating Polar Exploration Rover
Speaker 1: or VIPER. Now that tells me someone came up with
Speaker 1: an acronym that they thought was totally bad ass, and
Speaker 1: then they worked their way backward from there. Or maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Maybe they came up with a full name
Speaker 1: first and then they said, hang on. The acronym for
Speaker 1: this name is VIPER. That's bad ass. Anyway, NASA has
Speaker 1: identified the target landing spot for the rover. It's near
Speaker 1: the south pole of the Moon, on the edge of
Speaker 1: a crater called the Nobile Creator and Viper's mission will
Speaker 1: be to seek out resources that could be useful you know,
Speaker 1: some might say critical for long term Moon missions. We're
Speaker 1: talking stuff like ice, which could be used to generate
Speaker 1: not just water, but also oxygen and even rocket fuel.
Speaker 1: This will mark the first time that anything has directly
Speaker 1: explored that specific region of the Moon. Previously, we've studied
Speaker 1: it only through fly by missions, where you know, satellites
Speaker 1: have gone by and taken measurements and metrics and pictures
Speaker 1: and stuff. But this will be the first time we'll
Speaker 1: have wheels on the ground, so to speak, in that region.
Speaker 1: The thought is that in areas that are in permanent
Speaker 1: shadow on the Moon, you might be able to find ice,
Speaker 1: but we won't know for sure until we go there.
Speaker 1: Viper is scheduled to go loony in tree. And finally,
Speaker 1: another space news, Pooping in space is difficult. I've covered
Speaker 1: this extensively, some might even say gratuitously, in those text
Speaker 1: Stuff episodes about space suits. But recently this has popped
Speaker 1: into the news again thanks to the crew of the
Speaker 1: Inspiration Four. That was the group of four non astronauts
Speaker 1: who boarded a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft last Wednesday, went
Speaker 1: into orbit, stayed there for a few days, and then
Speaker 1: returned back to Earth this past weekend. Elon Musk, responding
Speaker 1: to questions about the mission, said that the next Crew
Speaker 1: Dragon space capsule would have quote an upgraded toilet end
Speaker 1: quote because and I quote, we had some challenges with
Speaker 1: it this flight. Now you might wonder where the toilet
Speaker 1: is on the Crew Dragon capsule, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: it's located above the crew seats. It's on the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Now in microgravity, up and down are largely meaningless, but
Speaker 1: it does mean that to use the toilet, you'd have
Speaker 1: to float up to the top of the capsule, position
Speaker 1: yourself so that you are upside down with regard to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the capsule, and position yourself on the toilet,
Speaker 1: and you use a little privacy curtain that divides the
Speaker 1: capsule so that you know you're not turning it into
Speaker 1: a spectator sport, and then you are inside a glass
Speaker 1: dome once you're you know, positioned on the toilet, and
Speaker 1: then you would do your business. You know what a
Speaker 1: feeling when you're pooping on the ceiling. I made myself
Speaker 1: laugh when I thought that up, which tells you that
Speaker 1: i might be forty six years old, but I'm still
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy at heart. Anyway, the next
Speaker 1: Dragon capsule will have an improved toilet, and I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to learn what the heck that actually means. And
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the news for Tuesday, September twenty one. One.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for topics I should cover on
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is text Stuff h s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I heart radio production. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.