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 I love all things tech and this is our
Speaker 1: news episode for January one, Thursday. I'm recording this on January,
Speaker 1: so there will likely be more stories that I did
Speaker 1: not cover between when this episode finishes recording and when
Speaker 1: it publishes. I apologize for that. Things are changing pretty
Speaker 1: darn quickly right now. But let's get to the topics
Speaker 1: as I chose for today's episode. First, we're going to
Speaker 1: look at a changeover at Intel. After serving as CEO
Speaker 1: of Intel for two years, Bob Swan is getting the boot.
Speaker 1: Swan had taken over the job in two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: when the previous Intel CEO, Brian Kerzanitch, resigned after it
Speaker 1: was discovered he had had an undisclosed affair with another
Speaker 1: Intel employee. Yikes. Now the chip manufacturing company has made
Speaker 1: this decision to replace Swan after losing the coveted most
Speaker 1: valuable computer chip company. It's kind of like beauty pageant,
Speaker 1: I guess, but no. Intel had been the most valuable
Speaker 1: chip company in the unit US before Video took that
Speaker 1: crown in July. Intel has had more than its share
Speaker 1: of problems lately, including manufacturing issues that have resulted in
Speaker 1: delays for Intel's next generation of chips, and once the
Speaker 1: company had to say, you know, we are a year
Speaker 1: behind where we're supposed to be, it really hurt the
Speaker 1: company big time. The stock market saw shares in Intel
Speaker 1: dropped by seventeen. Replacing Swan will be Pat Gelsinger, who
Speaker 1: currently serves as the chief executive of vm ware, but
Speaker 1: before that ten years before joining vm Ware, Gelsinger spent
Speaker 1: thirty years of his career at Intel, so he is
Speaker 1: no stranger to the halls of Intel. We'll have to
Speaker 1: see if Gelsinger can guide Intel back to its former
Speaker 1: leadership status in the industry in chip manufacturing. And because
Speaker 1: that last story was about chips, and because we all
Speaker 1: know you can't have just one, by the way, message
Speaker 1: me if you happen to get that reference I made.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about Qualcom. Qualcom is also known as
Speaker 1: a semiconductor microchip company, primarily known for developing chips for
Speaker 1: mobile devices like smartphones. Now, the company is making a
Speaker 1: one point for billion dollar acquisition of another chip company
Speaker 1: called Nuvia. Nuvia has a core chip design that was
Speaker 1: originally based on ARMS architecture. ARM meanwhile, is in the
Speaker 1: process of being acquired by in Vidia. So we're kind
Speaker 1: of seeing some big chip manufacturing companies, you know, big
Speaker 1: titans of industry, kind of squaring off against each other.
Speaker 1: In Vidia, but you know, they added Armed to their arsenal.
Speaker 1: They're sitting at the top right now. Intel's trying to
Speaker 1: regroup and regain that old top dog spot, and then
Speaker 1: Qualcom is adding Nuvia to its business in an effort
Speaker 1: to carve out a bigger space for itself in the
Speaker 1: chip game. Will have to keep an eye and see
Speaker 1: where this goes from here. Apple announced an initiative in
Speaker 1: which the company will contribute sixty million dollars to help
Speaker 1: fund various projects that share the goal of challenging systemic racism.
Speaker 1: The company will provide funds to venture capital firms like
Speaker 1: Harlem Capital, which in turn will use that money to
Speaker 1: help entrepreneurs who are people of color and help them
Speaker 1: get their projects funded. There has long been a distinct
Speaker 1: lack of diversity in tech in general, but when we
Speaker 1: look at venture capital in particular, there is a stark gap.
Speaker 1: So in ten, for example, out of the eighty five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in VC funding that went to various projects,
Speaker 1: less than one percent of that money went to projects
Speaker 1: helmed by women of color. Now, these problems are multi layered,
Speaker 1: from a lack of visibility for these projects, a lack
Speaker 1: of diversity in the banking institutions themselves, a lack of
Speaker 1: support for STEM education projects for people. It's it's sort
Speaker 1: of an enormous challenge that has lots of different facets
Speaker 1: to it. So projects like this aim to change that,
Speaker 1: which is great news for everybody because, as I've often said,
Speaker 1: when we get to hear everyone's idea, we all benefit
Speaker 1: from the best ideas that are out there. But for
Speaker 1: a really long time, there have been entire populations of
Speaker 1: people who have had their ideas unheard. My hope is
Speaker 1: that we are going to see more companies support efforts
Speaker 1: like this, and the tech sector will tackle the problem
Speaker 1: head on. Because while sixty million dollars is a lot
Speaker 1: of money, I mean, we were talking about eighty five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in VC funding total, so that tells you
Speaker 1: that sixty million is just it's just a drop in
Speaker 1: the bucket. Really, when we're looking at the big picture.
Speaker 1: It is, however, a step in the right direction. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to give a shout out to Apple for
Speaker 1: making that move. And we also have a couple of
Speaker 1: Facebook stories here. It wouldn't be a tech stuff news
Speaker 1: without them. One of them is that signal a messaging
Speaker 1: app has experienced quote unquote unprecedented growth, a warning to
Speaker 1: a report on Reuter's the reason for the apps sudden
Speaker 1: rapid adoption, Well, that actually goes back to Facebook changing
Speaker 1: the terms of service for WhatsApp, indicating that the company
Speaker 1: would be mining data in the WhatsApp messaging service and
Speaker 1: then sharing that information with Facebook proper. Likewise, another messaging
Speaker 1: service called Telegram has also seen an uptick in user
Speaker 1: numbers as people begin to move to alternatives. When Facebook
Speaker 1: first purchased WhatsApp, I remember seeing people concerned about issues
Speaker 1: like security and privacy. Now it seems those fears were
Speaker 1: well warranted. And just to be clear, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I predicted any of this. Rather, I'm saying some very
Speaker 1: smart people who pay much closer attention to messaging services
Speaker 1: than I do. We're pointing this out years ago. So
Speaker 1: how big of an uptick are we talking about with signal.
Speaker 1: They saw downloads hit seventeen point nine million over the
Speaker 1: last week, which is sixty two times greater than the
Speaker 1: number of downloads they saw the previous week, which is
Speaker 1: a significant signal. WhatsApp saw a decline in downloads, but
Speaker 1: it was still downloaded ten point six million times, So
Speaker 1: it's not exactly going anywhere anytime soon. And as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: I'm recording this on Wednesday, janu as I record this episode,
Speaker 1: Reuters reports that a Facebook spokesperson has indicated that the
Speaker 1: company has seen an increase in messages and activities that
Speaker 1: indicate potential future acts of violence in the ongoing political
Speaker 1: chaos unfolding in the United States. The spokesperson called the
Speaker 1: siege on the US capital a galvanizing event and that
Speaker 1: numerous groups were posting messages indicating a possible repeat of
Speaker 1: what we saw on January six in various states around
Speaker 1: the country. All capitals in the United States, all the
Speaker 1: dates capitals are on alert for this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: The FBI actually has issued warnings about planned armed protests
Speaker 1: set to occur across the US in the days leading
Speaker 1: up to and including Joe Biden's inauguration and The spokesperson
Speaker 1: said that Facebook is sharing more information with law enforcement
Speaker 1: across the nation. In related news, YouTube has suspended President
Speaker 1: Trump's YouTube channel, following a similar course set by companies
Speaker 1: like Facebook and Twitter. While communication channels are being more
Speaker 1: carefully monitored or in the cases of parlor or if
Speaker 1: you prefer parley, uh, they're being removed entirely, and it
Speaker 1: appears as though will be having to deal with the
Speaker 1: long term consequences stemming from years of misinformation and propaganda campaigns.
Speaker 1: And again, as I have said many times on this show,
Speaker 1: I advocate everyone employing critical thinking and compassion. I think
Speaker 1: the lack of both of those things leads us to
Speaker 1: terrible violence and a general disregard for the welfare of
Speaker 1: our fellow human beings. And we can be better than that.
Speaker 1: We just have to put forth the effort to do it.
Speaker 1: And our last story for this section is again about
Speaker 1: parlor or parley. I'm just gonna keep saying parlor. I
Speaker 1: know that it could be the French word parlay, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna stick with what most people are saying.
Speaker 1: In the US, Parlor filed a lawsuit against Amazon. The
Speaker 1: company has accused Amazon of making an illegal, politically motivated
Speaker 1: choice to shut down Parlor specifically to benefit Twitter, which
Speaker 1: is an odd thing to to say. However, Amazon has
Speaker 1: responded in this lawsuit by providing a large amount of
Speaker 1: correspondence from Amazon to Parlor, pointing out how many times
Speaker 1: there were cases of Parlor posts that violated the terms
Speaker 1: of service that Parlor agreed to when they secured the
Speaker 1: server space with Amazon Web Services. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: Amazon is saying, listen, we told you numerous times about
Speaker 1: this illegal material that was appearing on your platform, and
Speaker 1: it was only getting worse, and it was clear that
Speaker 1: you could not stop it, so we had no choice
Speaker 1: but to boot you because you were your your platform
Speaker 1: was violing the terms of service. This is probably not
Speaker 1: going to go so well for Parlor, I would think.
Speaker 1: I think that the evidence is pretty strong, and I
Speaker 1: think the public sentiment is also fairly strong on this matter.
Speaker 1: So this I expect we'll see end up being dismissed.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, Parlor still having trouble figuring
Speaker 1: out where it will go next, if it will go
Speaker 1: anywhere next. So that story is still unfolding as I
Speaker 1: record right now. Well, that wraps up that first section.
Speaker 1: It was a short one today, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: spend more time talking about less heavy stuff. So when
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll take another look at some of
Speaker 1: the crazy stuff going on at the virtual c S
Speaker 1: one after this short break. Okay, over at the virtual
Speaker 1: cs let's say it's a virtual Las Vegas. Razor showed
Speaker 1: off a couple of interesting ideas. There's Project Hazel, a
Speaker 1: k a. The World's smartest smart mask. During the pandemic,
Speaker 1: Razor actually used its manufacturing facilities to create disposable medical
Speaker 1: grade masks for people who work in healthcare, for frontline employees,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, because there was a real lack
Speaker 1: of that, and that's really cool. I think it's awesome
Speaker 1: that tech companies were able to pivot quickly and start
Speaker 1: to reconfigure their manufacturing processes to make stuff that there
Speaker 1: was a real need for. It actually reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of the stories we would hear about the Second
Speaker 1: World War and how the manufacturing facilities across Europe and
Speaker 1: the United States would all get reconfigured to produce things
Speaker 1: for the war efforts. Now we're seeing that with the pandemic. However,
Speaker 1: Razors also said the new normal has inspired them to
Speaker 1: make their own smart mask, and according to Razor, it's
Speaker 1: classified as an in n respirator, meaning this would be
Speaker 1: an incredibly efficient mask for fil trading airborne particles. This
Speaker 1: is the kind of stuff that verse responders need to
Speaker 1: be wearing. It's also the kind of stuff that tends
Speaker 1: to be at a real shortage, and so the general
Speaker 1: public is encouraged not to get in respirators because it
Speaker 1: means fewer for everybody else who needs them. However, this
Speaker 1: is sort of a concept Razor is showing off, and
Speaker 1: it has an active heat exchange system. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: allow cool air into the mask and release hot air
Speaker 1: exhaled by the wear. The mask also has a clear
Speaker 1: face plate, so instead of it being like a solid
Speaker 1: cover over your mouth you see, it's transparent so people
Speaker 1: can see your mouth, and ideally that would mean to
Speaker 1: be easier to understand what someone is saying. It also
Speaker 1: apparently has a microphone built into it and a speaker
Speaker 1: built into it so that people can hear you. You
Speaker 1: don't sound muffled personally. I hope it has a voice
Speaker 1: modulator in it so that way I could talk like Bain.
Speaker 1: I just wear a mask. I was born in the dock. Okay,
Speaker 1: enough of that. There are LED lights on it because
Speaker 1: I mean, Razor makes gaming material stuff like gaming keyboards
Speaker 1: and controllers, so a core their LED lights on it. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's necessary, but I guess it
Speaker 1: makes it more cool. The recharging case, because obviously it
Speaker 1: has to have a recharging case if it's got these
Speaker 1: other electronic components in it has ultra violet lights built
Speaker 1: into the inside of the case in order to sterilize
Speaker 1: and disinfect the mask in between uses. And just as
Speaker 1: a reminder, there is no actual product here. There there
Speaker 1: are prototypes, but this is not a thing you can
Speaker 1: go out and buy. And Razor also has a history
Speaker 1: of showing off things that are interesting ideas at c
Speaker 1: e s, but they never make it to market. So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't expect this to become the new fashion accessory
Speaker 1: of one, but it might encourage some other companies to,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of give it a go and innovate
Speaker 1: in the mask space. Razor also showed off Project Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: which I think is best described as the Iron Throne
Speaker 1: but for gamers, like if a Project Brooklyn gaming chair
Speaker 1: with the grand prize and a Fortnite tournament, I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised. Now, again, this is a concept. It
Speaker 1: is not a commercial product, but it looks pretty sick.
Speaker 1: Imagine a gaming chair. It's got a dusk that can
Speaker 1: be built into the front of it just attaches to
Speaker 1: the front of the chair, so you can put your
Speaker 1: keyboard and mouse there. And it has a sixty inch display,
Speaker 1: a curved sixty inch display giving a panoramic view that
Speaker 1: hangs in front of view at head level. The concept video,
Speaker 1: which I should add, is all just concept. It's not
Speaker 1: an actual thing. It's like c g I. It shows
Speaker 1: this chair with a screen emerging out of the back
Speaker 1: of the chair on extendable arms that then move the
Speaker 1: screen so that it is in front of the player
Speaker 1: sitting in the chair and stretch it to the full
Speaker 1: width of that sixty inch display. Motors in the seats
Speaker 1: would provide haptic feedback, so when you're piloting that chopper
Speaker 1: in a game, you would feel the thud of the
Speaker 1: rotors as you beat the air into submission. And except
Speaker 1: this is again just a concept, is not an actual product.
Speaker 1: It is cool. But then if I said, imagine I
Speaker 1: made a pair of shoes that can make you fly.
Speaker 1: That would sound cool too, but it doesn't make them real. Now,
Speaker 1: if you do want a gaming chair that can hold
Speaker 1: displays right in front of you with an arm that
Speaker 1: extends over your head to hold those displays in place,
Speaker 1: and you can look like a member of the Legion
Speaker 1: of Doom in the process, you can check out a
Speaker 1: gaming chair from Aser called Thrown Nose. They have such monstrosities,
Speaker 1: and according to the website, the going price for one
Speaker 1: of those babies is just a low, low fourteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Over at LG, the company showed off the Rollable, a
Speaker 1: smartphone device with a flexible oh Lad screen. It's a
Speaker 1: little hard to describe an audio, but imagine you've got
Speaker 1: a smartphone. It's a typical smartphone size. It's in your hands.
Speaker 1: But then you decide you want to tablet. So you
Speaker 1: take the edges of your smartphone and you pull them
Speaker 1: so that they are more of a tablet shape. You
Speaker 1: actually stretch the frame of your smartphone and the screen
Speaker 1: stretches along with it. That's kind of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, although you would probably have a control to
Speaker 1: do this automatically. The oh Lad screen rolls up inside
Speaker 1: the device and it's kind of like a window shade
Speaker 1: in that way, and the device can change shape based
Speaker 1: on whatever form factor you need at any given time. LG,
Speaker 1: by the way, is not the only company to show
Speaker 1: off rollable oh lad screens like this. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of others, like TCL. Foldable smartphones are so last year.
Speaker 1: This year it's all about rollable smartphones. Now. There's no
Speaker 1: word yet on when something like this might come to market,
Speaker 1: or how much it will cost if it does, or
Speaker 1: you know, if people will actually think it's you know,
Speaker 1: useful enough to spend money on it. But the technology
Speaker 1: behind this is super interesting, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of other possible applications for flexible to place, so I
Speaker 1: think this is neat even if it never becomes an
Speaker 1: actual phone. A lot of car companies skipped this year's
Speaker 1: c E S, but one that showed off an interesting
Speaker 1: concept was GM, and it's called the E v O
Speaker 1: t L. This is a flying car concept. Those letters
Speaker 1: stand for Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing and it looks
Speaker 1: like a funky quad copter drone, just you know, a
Speaker 1: drone that's large enough to carry people in it. So
Speaker 1: the two front propellers are mounted at the base of
Speaker 1: the front of the vehicle, and the rear propellers are
Speaker 1: mounted at the top of the back of the passenger cabin,
Speaker 1: so it does have a bit of an odd look.
Speaker 1: The four rotors are not all on the same plane.
Speaker 1: In other words. The company also showed off another concept
Speaker 1: vehicle called the Cadillac Halo, a silvery van looking like
Speaker 1: thing that would be autonomous and it would have various
Speaker 1: entertain ament systems on the interior to keep people occupied
Speaker 1: as they get, you know, robos shuttled around. I don't
Speaker 1: think we're going to see either concept transform into actual
Speaker 1: vehicles anytime soon, but they were cool to look at.
Speaker 1: The company Sigma Phase really knows how to speak my language,
Speaker 1: because that company has introduced an ice cream making machine
Speaker 1: that produces ice cream out of single serve pods, kind
Speaker 1: of like how curig machines use pods to make coffee.
Speaker 1: This machine is called the cold Snap Now. According to
Speaker 1: c Net, it takes between sixty and nineties seconds for
Speaker 1: this machine to make your ice cream, you know, or
Speaker 1: your sorebet or your frozen margarita. There are apparently many options.
Speaker 1: The pods themselves are made from aluminum not plastic, and
Speaker 1: the company says this was done in order to make
Speaker 1: them easier to recycle. But like a lot of things
Speaker 1: on this list, it's a prototype and a heavy one.
Speaker 1: Apparently it weighs about fifty pounds. Uh it way is
Speaker 1: that much because it has to have a heavy duty
Speaker 1: compressor in there to do rapid heat exchange in order
Speaker 1: to to create the freezing action needed to produce ice cream.
Speaker 1: The company does not expect this to go to market
Speaker 1: until at least two and it will likely set you
Speaker 1: back a big chunk of change, maybe as much as
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. Plus the pods will be a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks each, so this is definitely more expensive than
Speaker 1: buying an ice cream maker and just getting the ingredients
Speaker 1: together to do it yourself. Still, it looks super you
Speaker 1: know cool. Pana Sonic introduced the Nano e H in
Speaker 1: a six seven w hair dryer. Thanks Pana Sonic. That
Speaker 1: name is very easy to say. We'll just call it
Speaker 1: the Nano by the way, that's nano with an E
Speaker 1: at the end, not to confuse it with nano from
Speaker 1: like nanotechnology. Panasonic says this thing pulls moisture from the
Speaker 1: air in order to dry your hair, which, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that works. Like that sounds wrong
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, is the idea that the hair
Speaker 1: dryer actually just makes the air more dry around you,
Speaker 1: and then the moisture in your hair moves from an
Speaker 1: area of high concentration to low concentration, making the laws
Speaker 1: of thorout dynamics do all the work for the hair dryer.
Speaker 1: I really don't know. Also, I haven't had hair since,
Speaker 1: so hair dryers frightened and confused me. As a matter
Speaker 1: of course. Oh, I hear you say, but what about toilets?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about any smart turlets? And I sure,
Speaker 1: can you know me and my toilet humor? Or at
Speaker 1: least I can tell you about another concept product. This
Speaker 1: one is called the Wellness Toilet from Toto, and as
Speaker 1: the name suggests, this toilet monitors your health by well
Speaker 1: by by looking at your poop. Yeah, it's meant to
Speaker 1: analyze waste to help provide recommendations for living a healthier lifestyle.
Speaker 1: But as I mentioned, it's a concept. It's not an
Speaker 1: actual thing you can buy, so I guess that's kind
Speaker 1: of crappy. There are, of course, a lot of other
Speaker 1: products on display at c S. One that I did
Speaker 1: not mention is Samsung showed off a one hundred and
Speaker 1: ten in television of four K resolution TV. It is
Speaker 1: a monstrosity. It looks gorgeous, it is huge, and it's
Speaker 1: going to actually go on sale in March, So this
Speaker 1: is a product that's actually going to market. We don't
Speaker 1: know how expensive it is, but I have seen people
Speaker 1: make guesses, and the guesses tend to be around the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of a hundred fifty thousand dollars. Yikes. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a pretty impressive thing to look at, at
Speaker 1: least the videos. I obviously haven't seen one in person.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of other things to cover.
Speaker 1: Maybe next week I might do a quick wrap up
Speaker 1: on anything that was, you know, particularly interesting or was
Speaker 1: standing out. But it's mostly the stuff you would come
Speaker 1: to expect, the various consumer electronics that we're all familiar with,
Speaker 1: just with sometimes new bells and whistles, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: are literal bells and whistles. When we come back, will
Speaker 1: cover some assorted news items, but first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're back. Disney has been making
Speaker 1: some big changes in the company's strategy for video games
Speaker 1: set in the Star Wars franchise. So for eight years,
Speaker 1: e A has had the exclusive rights to create titles
Speaker 1: using licensed properties from Star Wars. But then e A
Speaker 1: has also been the target of a lot of criticism
Speaker 1: from the game's industry in general, the game's journalism world
Speaker 1: because of how it has handled that responsibility, from canceling
Speaker 1: highly anticipated games that people really were excited about to
Speaker 1: instituting a pay to win micro transaction mechanic in Battlefront two.
Speaker 1: Before you know, public pressure made them move it out
Speaker 1: of there. EA has managed to take off Star Wars
Speaker 1: fans a lot, But now Disney has formed Lucasfilm Games,
Speaker 1: which will oversee the licensing of properties and will partner
Speaker 1: with game studios to create new Star Wars titles. One
Speaker 1: we've recently heard about is coming from Ubisoft and will
Speaker 1: be an open world game set in the Star Wars universe.
Speaker 1: We do not have much more information than that, other
Speaker 1: than it will depend on the Snowdrop game engine, which
Speaker 1: is the same game engine used by games like The
Speaker 1: Division and The Division two. There's no word on what
Speaker 1: the game will be like, who it's going to focus on,
Speaker 1: what era in the Star Wars mythology. It will be
Speaker 1: set in or anything like that, but the move shows
Speaker 1: that Lucasfilm Games is going to be working with some
Speaker 1: heavy hitters in the video games space, and e A
Speaker 1: is no longer the exclusive developer for these sort of things.
Speaker 1: On a similar note, Lucasfilm is also partnering with Machine Games,
Speaker 1: subsidiary of Bethesda, and Machine Games produced the most recent
Speaker 1: Wolfenstein games. Machine Games will be developing an Indiana Jones game,
Speaker 1: So here's hoping we'll see some high quality titles for
Speaker 1: these franchises. I still haven't played Star Wars Squadrons. I
Speaker 1: feel like I missed the boat on that one. But
Speaker 1: that was a game that had me hopeful that we'd
Speaker 1: see more great titles come out. It was the first
Speaker 1: Star Wars title in a while then I really got
Speaker 1: excited about and then failed to play, So that's on me.
Speaker 1: NASA announced that data from the New Horizons mission indicates
Speaker 1: that there are actually far fewer galaxies out in the
Speaker 1: universe than we had previously estimated. So back when the
Speaker 1: Hubble Space telescope was making observations, it led scientists to
Speaker 1: estimate that there may be as many as two trillion
Speaker 1: galaxies in our universe. We're in the Milky Way, We're
Speaker 1: in one galaxy. Just imagine that there would be two
Speaker 1: trillion other ones out there, yelza. However, New Horizon says, Yo,
Speaker 1: it's real dark out here, man Like, it is so dark,
Speaker 1: there cannot be that many galaxies out here, or else
Speaker 1: I would see the light coming from them, which has
Speaker 1: led scientists to now revise those estimates, and now we're
Speaker 1: talking more about the number of galaxies being in the
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions rather than trillions, which, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: that's still a lot of galaxies. However, this really does
Speaker 1: illustrate how little we know about our universe, including how
Speaker 1: much stuff is in it. Personally, I find this interesting
Speaker 1: because it tells us we've got a lot more to learn,
Speaker 1: and I'm always excited to see how we do that.
Speaker 1: How do we find ways to discover more information about
Speaker 1: our universe? Really exciting stuff. I'm sure that James Webb
Speaker 1: Space Telescope, when it goes online, will be looking into
Speaker 1: these mysteries as well. Over at the International Conference on
Speaker 1: Intelligent Robots and Systems, engineers from the University of Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: submitted a paper that suggests we could construct robots with
Speaker 1: parts that are made out of ice, because ice would
Speaker 1: allow robots to be able to do lots of stuff.
Speaker 1: If you needed to change the shape of a part,
Speaker 1: you can do it by melting and refreezing ice. If
Speaker 1: you need to replicate robots, ice is a pretty easy
Speaker 1: material to replicate. I mean, you just get some water
Speaker 1: and make it cold and then shape it the way
Speaker 1: you want it to be. And if you need a
Speaker 1: robot to repair itself, getting access to more water to
Speaker 1: more ice could be an easy thing, depending on where
Speaker 1: you are. Obviously, some planets would be completely devoid of ice,
Speaker 1: and that would make it difficult. But it's a really
Speaker 1: interesting idea. Now, obviously not all parts of the robot
Speaker 1: would be made out of ice. Then you would just
Speaker 1: have an ice sculpture instead. Imagine a robot that has
Speaker 1: maybe a solid body of ice, or wheels that are
Speaker 1: made of ice connected to an axle made out of metal,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's you know, some other form that I'm
Speaker 1: not even considering right now. It's a really nifty idea. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm still working my way through the paper as I
Speaker 1: record this episode, so I haven't been able to digest
Speaker 1: all of the stuff they were talking about, but I
Speaker 1: find the concept really intriguing. Another paper, this one published
Speaker 1: in Nature, reveals that scientists have sequenced the DNA of
Speaker 1: dire wolves, a species that doesn't just exist in Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones. In fact, it was a real species that
Speaker 1: when extinct here on Earth thirteen thousand years ago. The
Speaker 1: research shows that dire wolves split off genetically speaking from
Speaker 1: gray wolves more than six million years ago and evolved
Speaker 1: as a separate species. In fact, this branching was so
Speaker 1: prominent that the DNA tells us the dire wolves and
Speaker 1: gray wolves would not have been able to breed with
Speaker 1: one another. According to one researcher, Kieran Mitchell, the dire
Speaker 1: wolves appeared to be the last member of a line
Speaker 1: of canines that were distinct from all the living canines today, So,
Speaker 1: in other words, they don't resemble anything from a DNA
Speaker 1: standpoint to any canines that are around today on Earth.
Speaker 1: As to why the dire wolves went extinct when gray
Speaker 1: wolves managed to survive, scientists don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1: It is possible that the prey that the dire wolves
Speaker 1: were depending upon also when extinct. So if your food
Speaker 1: source goes away, then you're not very long to follow behind.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that other canines like gray wolves
Speaker 1: were interbreeding with each other with other canines, and that
Speaker 1: this actually led to better immune systems, that these animals
Speaker 1: that resulted from this interbreeding were better able to withstand
Speaker 1: stuff like disease, and the dire wolves, because they didn't
Speaker 1: have this genetic diversity in their line, were more vulnerable
Speaker 1: to disease. That's another possibility, but we don't have all
Speaker 1: the answers, so I'm sure we will learn more as
Speaker 1: time goes on. Finally, TikTok users are uploading videos of
Speaker 1: themselves singing sea shanties or singing along with someone else
Speaker 1: who already created a video, and they're creating these really
Speaker 1: fun mashups and harmonies along the way. And I'm fully
Speaker 1: on board so to speak with this trend. As I
Speaker 1: was singing sea shanties before it was cool. Okay, now
Speaker 1: technically I was singing them way way way after it
Speaker 1: was cool, but before it was cool. To do it again.
Speaker 1: And if you want a really nice see shanty, I
Speaker 1: recommend leave her, Johnny, leave her. This was nice. There
Speaker 1: was one time where I can cover a TikTok story
Speaker 1: and not be the grumpy old man yelling at people
Speaker 1: to get off of his lawn. That was a refreshing change.
Speaker 1: That wraps up the news stories for January four twenty one,
Speaker 1: and I will be back next week with more news stories.
Speaker 1: You will also have your your normal Tech Stuff episodes
Speaker 1: as well. I look forward to hearing from you guys.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for things I should cover in
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, be sure to reach out
Speaker 1: to me. The handle is text stuff H s w
Speaker 1: Over on Twitter and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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