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, Diamond Executive producer with I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, August twenty twenty two. We got a
Speaker 1: lot to get through. Let's do it. Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: recently shut down a network of fake accounts spreading propaganda
Speaker 1: that was attempting to portray a foreign country in a
Speaker 1: positive light in various regions. The twist to this story
Speaker 1: is that for the first time, this campaign was pushing
Speaker 1: a pro US perspective in places like Asia in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. We've seen efforts like this originating out of
Speaker 1: other places like China or Russia, that this is the
Speaker 1: first time we're talking about this some lar campaign that
Speaker 1: appears to have been based out of the United States
Speaker 1: and the United Kingdom. The effort used lots of recently
Speaker 1: established fake accounts, all pushing pro US narratives in these
Speaker 1: regions while also criticizing everything from Russia's war against Ukraine
Speaker 1: to human rights violations in China. But the use of
Speaker 1: fake accounts is against Facebook and Twitter's policies. No matter
Speaker 1: what the messaging is, and so those platforms have been
Speaker 1: taking an active stance in weeding out and shutting down
Speaker 1: these profiles. Also, NBC reports that the campaign appeared to
Speaker 1: have a minimal impact and that the posts didn't have
Speaker 1: much engagement from the general public. Most activity belonged to
Speaker 1: other fake accounts in an effort to boost visibility. Fortune
Speaker 1: reports that major companies like Apple, Honda, and Mazda are
Speaker 1: reevaluating their supply chain strategies. At the heart of the
Speaker 1: matter is the dependence upon in China. The cheap labor
Speaker 1: and manufacturing costs in China have long attracted major companies,
Speaker 1: which look to save on costs while making their products
Speaker 1: in order to maximize profit, but relying on China for
Speaker 1: manufacturing has become less attractive in recent years. The country's
Speaker 1: no tolerance approach to COVID means that operations are routinely
Speaker 1: interrupted as a region goes into lockdown with every outbreak.
Speaker 1: The deteriorating relationship between China and the United States is
Speaker 1: a big threat to the optics are also not great
Speaker 1: due to the aforementioned human rights violations in China. That's
Speaker 1: a very real thing. Propaganda campaigns aside, and in Central China,
Speaker 1: where a lot of these factories are located, a camastrophic
Speaker 1: drought has dried up rivers. That means that dams are
Speaker 1: not able to generate enough electricity through hydro power to
Speaker 1: supply factories, which has forced more interruptions in manufacture ring.
Speaker 1: And there's this real old saying that I'm sure all
Speaker 1: of you have heard that says don't put all your
Speaker 1: eggs in one basket. But the truth is, for a
Speaker 1: long time, many companies have essentially ignored that age old
Speaker 1: wisdom when it comes to the supply chain, and as
Speaker 1: a result, a disproportionate amount of the work involved in
Speaker 1: many supply chains happens in China. And now we're starting
Speaker 1: to see companies explore strategies meant to diversify the supply chain,
Speaker 1: something that has really become critically important as we've seen
Speaker 1: so many disruptions in supply chains reek havoc on company
Speaker 1: plans and consumer experiences over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Does this mean we'll see much more robust supply chains
Speaker 1: in the future. I'm kind of skeptical because I expect
Speaker 1: most companies will seek out the next cheapest, viable solution
Speaker 1: to their manufacturing needs, rather than truly diversify their approach
Speaker 1: to spread out risk. In an ideal world, we would
Speaker 1: see supply chains that are as robust as the Internet is.
Speaker 1: Should one part of the supply chain falter, you would
Speaker 1: be able to route around it with minimal disruption, But
Speaker 1: I think that's being overly optimistic. Nine to five MAC
Speaker 1: reports that Apple maybe on the verge of allowing users
Speaker 1: to delete the Apple Wallet app, which would be a
Speaker 1: pretty big deal as Apple routinely integrates its own apps
Speaker 1: into iOS in fundamental ways and doesn't allow users to
Speaker 1: delete them from their iOS devices. So why would Apple
Speaker 1: take this step giving users the chance to switch to
Speaker 1: some other digital wallet, particularly when doing so raises problems
Speaker 1: when users want to make a purchase through Apple pay Well.
Speaker 1: This is likely due to the European Union's recent pressure
Speaker 1: on Apple. The argument is that Apple's integration of Apple
Speaker 1: Wallet and its refusal to grant other digital wallets the
Speaker 1: same level of interoperability with Apple processes amounts to anti competitiveness,
Speaker 1: and actually it reminds me of the massive antitrust lawsuit
Speaker 1: that Microsoft faced in the nineties, which focused on how
Speaker 1: Microsoft made its own Internet Explorer browser and integrated part
Speaker 1: of Windows. That led Netscape to accuse Microsoft of engaging
Speaker 1: in anti competitive behavior, particularly since at that time Microsoft
Speaker 1: Windows was by far the dominant operating system in the
Speaker 1: consumer market. Courts actually agreed, and Microsoft was very nearly
Speaker 1: forced to break up into separate companies, but a subsequent
Speaker 1: court decision would reverse that course anyway. One major issue
Speaker 1: the EU has is that Apple doesn't allow any other
Speaker 1: digital wallet app but it's own to use the NFC
Speaker 1: technology that's built into iPhones. NFC is near field communication
Speaker 1: and this is the short range wireless tech that allows
Speaker 1: for small data transfers, you know, like contactless payments, and
Speaker 1: the EU has argued that Apple holding back access to
Speaker 1: NFC amounts to anti competitive behavior. So we haven't seen
Speaker 1: anything official yet, at least not as the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast, but we're going to keep our eyes on
Speaker 1: this to see if Apple does allow users to actually
Speaker 1: fully remove Apple Wallet from their iOS devices. Speaking of
Speaker 1: Apple and anti competitive allegations, the company Match Group, which
Speaker 1: owns the dating slash hook up app Tender, has filed
Speaker 1: an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, this time in India. Match
Speaker 1: Group says that Apple treats dating apps unfairly, that Apple
Speaker 1: has this in app commission required for any purchase that's
Speaker 1: made within an app, uh, and that it doesn't do
Speaker 1: this for some other types of companies like righte haling companies,
Speaker 1: and I find that argument kind of interesting. See Apple
Speaker 1: and Google too for that matter. Has restricted its commission
Speaker 1: to only applying to apps that have in app digital purchases.
Speaker 1: It does not charge a commission on apps that are
Speaker 1: designed to purchase real world stuff. So, if you're playing
Speaker 1: a digital game and you want to pay for some
Speaker 1: in game content, while Apple will take a cut of that,
Speaker 1: but if you're ordering a real world pizza to be
Speaker 1: delivered to your home using an app, Apple does not
Speaker 1: take a cut of that transaction. Well, what match Group
Speaker 1: is saying is that right hailing companies get a pass
Speaker 1: from Apple. Apple does not take a commission if you
Speaker 1: were to use an app like Lift or Uber. But
Speaker 1: match Group says that that doesn't make sense because they
Speaker 1: get charged for Tender but not for Lift or Uber,
Speaker 1: and that in all cases, these apps are really just
Speaker 1: about bringing together people in the real world. You know,
Speaker 1: when you hail a ride, it's about arranging to meet
Speaker 1: someone at a specific place at a specific time. So
Speaker 1: match Group argues, that's what dating apps are doing too,
Speaker 1: and so why should it be fair for Apple to
Speaker 1: take a cut of tenders in app purchases but not
Speaker 1: a cut from right hailing company transactions. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: convinced that that line of argument is bulletproof, because I
Speaker 1: think there's a case to be made that right hailing
Speaker 1: is definitely more than just bringing two or more people
Speaker 1: together in the same place at the same time. But anyway,
Speaker 1: match Group is hoping that India's competition regulator will force
Speaker 1: Apple to change its policies, similar to how regulators in
Speaker 1: the EU and in the US are pressuring Apple to
Speaker 1: allow apps to offer alternative payment systems outside of Apple's
Speaker 1: own system. And Video is getting ready to announce a
Speaker 1: new generation of graphics processing cards in September. According to
Speaker 1: The Verge, rumor has it, We're going to get a
Speaker 1: new generation of GPUs designated by the prefix for zero
Speaker 1: or forty. So right now you have cards like thirty
Speaker 1: eight and thirty ninety that are dominating in Video's portfolio
Speaker 1: from a performance perspective, that's like the top of the
Speaker 1: line of Invidios products and recently, we've actually seen more
Speaker 1: availability for those cards. You know, for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: in Video's most powerful cards were really hard to get
Speaker 1: hold of, and if you could find one, it was
Speaker 1: chances are it was on the aftermarket and it was
Speaker 1: at a huge markup. And this was largely because of
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency miners, specifically ether miners as an ethereum miners. This
Speaker 1: was a thing that we saw a lot. Bitcoin had
Speaker 1: actually reached a level where bitcoin miners were not relying
Speaker 1: on GPUs anymore. They were not powerful enough. They had
Speaker 1: switched to a SAC or application specific integrated circuit poward
Speaker 1: riggs at that time. But cryptocurrency has gone into a
Speaker 1: massive recession or a collapse or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it, and that meant that the return on investment
Speaker 1: for running a power hungry mining operation really became too low.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it costs you more money to run
Speaker 1: your computer system then you are making out of the
Speaker 1: mining operation. That's just not a good deal. It means
Speaker 1: you're just losing money. So this meant that there was
Speaker 1: less demand for those GPUs, and in Video actually found
Speaker 1: itself overstocked on graphics cards because demand had dropped and Finally,
Speaker 1: gamers actually have a decent chance to get their hands
Speaker 1: on these things as close to m s r P
Speaker 1: or manufactured suggested retail price, so at the asking price
Speaker 1: for these things instead of those crazy markups. However, all
Speaker 1: that being said, with the possible debut of a new
Speaker 1: generation of graphics cards within sight, presumably with much greater capabilities,
Speaker 1: it's probably not the best time to scoop up that
Speaker 1: thirty eight or thirty nine card if you want the
Speaker 1: best of the best. And keep in mind the that
Speaker 1: m s RP is still pretty day expensive for the
Speaker 1: top of the line models. So the Verge reminds us
Speaker 1: that there might be a significant gap between when in
Speaker 1: Video announces this next GPU architecture, which has the code
Speaker 1: name love Lace. I think that's great, and when consumers
Speaker 1: will actually have a chance to buy a card based
Speaker 1: off that architecture. So if you've been waiting to finally
Speaker 1: get one of these top performance cards, you might want
Speaker 1: to actually wait a little bit longer just to see
Speaker 1: what comes next and whether that's something you want. Also,
Speaker 1: when new cards come out, there's a chance, not a guarantee,
Speaker 1: but there's a chance that those thirty eight and thirty
Speaker 1: ninety models might get a price reduction. Um kind of
Speaker 1: hard to say, because when you're talking about teetering on
Speaker 1: economic recession and supply chain issues and all these other
Speaker 1: economic issues that are affecting the world, you cannot guarantee
Speaker 1: that you're going to see a price come down. But
Speaker 1: it is a possibility. All Right, We've got some more
Speaker 1: stories to cover, but before we get into that, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. The threat analysis group at Google
Speaker 1: is warning us that a tool called hyper skate can
Speaker 1: give hackers the ability to download a target's entire email inbox,
Speaker 1: and that this tool works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail,
Speaker 1: and others. Also, this tool does not require the hacker
Speaker 1: to trick someone into downloading some malware. However, it does
Speaker 1: mean the hacker does have to get access to the
Speaker 1: target's account somehow, So that could mean using some other
Speaker 1: kind of malware in order to get access, or you know,
Speaker 1: trying to guess or find a target's account password. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of times if you ever get those
Speaker 1: messages that your your password might have been compromised in
Speaker 1: a database breach. This is one of the reasons you
Speaker 1: should definitely pay attention to that and change those passwords,
Speaker 1: because if someone has just a file of passwords, they
Speaker 1: might be able to get access to your account and
Speaker 1: then download all of your email using a tool like this.
Speaker 1: So this is also a reason, by the way, why
Speaker 1: you should always enable multi factor authentication if it's available.
Speaker 1: I know it can be a hassle, but it really
Speaker 1: is useful. It means that if someone does attempt to
Speaker 1: log in as you, they're gonna have a harder time
Speaker 1: doing it. I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but i
Speaker 1: will say it's harder, and you are likely to get
Speaker 1: an alert that's saying something hinky is going on, which
Speaker 1: gives you a chance to take action. So activate that
Speaker 1: m F a option in in everything that offers it, y'all. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the team over at Google reports that it looks like
Speaker 1: most of the targeting activity that's using hyper escape right
Speaker 1: now is happening inside Iran. Now to me, that suggests
Speaker 1: that this could be a state sponsored campaign in order
Speaker 1: to gain access to high profile targets email accounts. No
Speaker 1: word on whom be responsible. I've got a few ideas,
Speaker 1: but you know it would just be pure speculation, so
Speaker 1: I'll save them for myself. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Speaker 1: Security Agency is urging companies and organizations to be super
Speaker 1: proactive when it comes to adopting a post quantum cryptography standard.
Speaker 1: What what alright? So on Tuesday I talked about a
Speaker 1: Japanese company and its plans to enter the quantum computer
Speaker 1: market with a sixty four cubit machine, And on that episode,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that quantum computing has the potential to drastically
Speaker 1: simplify a certain subset of computational problems that traditionally are
Speaker 1: extremely difficult for classic computers to solve. So a classic
Speaker 1: computer might take hundreds or thousands of years to solve
Speaker 1: some of these problems. But because quantum computing uses a
Speaker 1: different approach, one that if you have the right algorithm,
Speaker 1: the right program, you could solve these kinds of problems
Speaker 1: in a relatively fast and trivial manner. That means things
Speaker 1: are poised to change drastically and soon. One of those
Speaker 1: things is really important. It's encryption. It's how we encrypt
Speaker 1: data so that people can't just see what that data is. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to launch into a full explanation of
Speaker 1: digital encryption here. I have done full episodes about that topic.
Speaker 1: But I will oversimplify a little bit and say that
Speaker 1: you can think of modern encryption essentially depending upon taking
Speaker 1: two very very large prime numbers with hundreds of digits,
Speaker 1: and then taking these two prime numbers, then performing a
Speaker 1: mathematical operation on the two which gives you a third number,
Speaker 1: and you use that to encode data, and to decode
Speaker 1: the data, you need to know at least one of
Speaker 1: the prime numbers that were used to make that third number.
Speaker 1: Um really you need both, but you have that ability
Speaker 1: to decode to reverse the process that was used to
Speaker 1: encrypt the information. Now, because we're talking about two really
Speaker 1: really really big prime numbers, figuring out which prime numbers
Speaker 1: were used to encrypt something is really hard to do.
Speaker 1: For a classic computer essentially has to go, you know,
Speaker 1: case by case doing prime number, prime number, prime number,
Speaker 1: prime number, until it figures out the ones that were
Speaker 1: used to encrypt, and that can take thousands of years.
Speaker 1: But a quantum computer, again, if paired with the right algorithm,
Speaker 1: could do the same process fairly quickly, at least with
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of uh certainty. So you might get
Speaker 1: a response that says it's, you know, certain that this
Speaker 1: particular solution applies to the problem, and that's that's that
Speaker 1: stands to completely change encryption. It means that should someone
Speaker 1: actually have access to a quantum computer and that kind
Speaker 1: of algorithm, they could potentially decrypt everything that's ever been
Speaker 1: encrypted up to now and have free access to all
Speaker 1: the secret information that's ever been on digital platforms. So
Speaker 1: that's obviously a huge security issue, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the biggest security issue. You can have no more secrets.
Speaker 1: So this agency is telling companies that they need to
Speaker 1: start working on migrating to a post quantum encryption strategy,
Speaker 1: one that's fundamentally different from what we use for today's encryption,
Speaker 1: and the agency has been working to standardize so far
Speaker 1: for post quantum encryption algorithms. That in itself is not easy.
Speaker 1: You might remember from a recent news item that one
Speaker 1: proposed post quantum computing algorithm turned out to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: to a classic computer attack. A researcher actually found a
Speaker 1: way to exploit that algorithm in a non quantum approach,
Speaker 1: So while it might have been robust from a quantum
Speaker 1: computing approach, it wasn't from another angle. So making a
Speaker 1: robust encryption process is pretty darned tricky. Today, the US
Speaker 1: state of California is issuing rules that regard the state's
Speaker 1: transition to a ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles
Speaker 1: or the sale of them, I should say, so, the
Speaker 1: plan is to have a total ban on the sale
Speaker 1: of new ice vehicles by five but this is going
Speaker 1: to happen in stages. So starting in TWI of all
Speaker 1: new vehicles sold in the state of California will need
Speaker 1: to be free of carbon emissions, so we're mainly talking
Speaker 1: about things like electric vehicles here By it will need
Speaker 1: to be sixty eight percent of all new vehicles sold
Speaker 1: in California, and by all new vehicles sold in California
Speaker 1: will need to be free of carbon emissions in their operation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the manufacturing of vehicles itself creates carbon emissions, but that's
Speaker 1: a thing for another podcast. The used car market, as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, is going to be unaffected.
Speaker 1: So in other words, yes, you cannot buy a new
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine vehicle in California starting in but theoretically,
Speaker 1: at least you would still be able to buy used
Speaker 1: vehicles in California. Now it's possible that we're gonna see
Speaker 1: other states follow California's lead. California traditionally is the most
Speaker 1: progressive when it comes to these kinds of of measures
Speaker 1: that are meant to tackle stuff like carbon emissions, you know,
Speaker 1: the climate that kind of thing. But even if other
Speaker 1: states are low to adopt California's approach, the size of
Speaker 1: California alone, you know, they have a huge driving population
Speaker 1: that's going to really force automakers to shift to more
Speaker 1: e V production. That's one of the reasons why we're
Speaker 1: seeing that kind of stuff happen right now, with companies
Speaker 1: like Ford undergoing dramatic transformations, including thousands of layoffs. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as these companies adjust towards producing more electric vehicles. In Germany,
Speaker 1: in the state of Lower Saxony, fifteen diesel trains have
Speaker 1: been retired and have been replaced with trains running on
Speaker 1: hydrogen fuel cells. So the diesel trains were responsible for
Speaker 1: the consumption of more than four hundred twenty thousand gallons
Speaker 1: of diesel fuel each year, and of course diesel engines
Speaker 1: are a source of carbon emissions. Hydrogen fuel cells do
Speaker 1: not release carbon dioxide. Instead, the byproducts of a hydrogen
Speaker 1: fuel cell our heat, electricity, and water, typically water, vapor,
Speaker 1: because fuel cells operate at a fairly high temperature, so
Speaker 1: the water tends to be emitted as steam. Now you
Speaker 1: might wonder why we don't rely more on hydrogen fuel cells.
Speaker 1: The technology is old, it's proven. There are vehicles out
Speaker 1: there that are fuel cell vehicles, but we don't see
Speaker 1: them all over the place. Why is why is it
Speaker 1: that fuel cells are not the standard if they operate
Speaker 1: at such a clean level. Well, the big sticking point
Speaker 1: is that it can get hard to get your hands
Speaker 1: on pure hydrogen. So hydrogen is the most plentiful element
Speaker 1: in the universe. However, it's also super friendly. By that,
Speaker 1: I mean it's eager to bond with other elements. When
Speaker 1: that happens, that effectively locks hydrogen away. It forms these
Speaker 1: molecular bonds. It is not going to let go of
Speaker 1: those without putting up a fight. So we have to
Speaker 1: actually spend energy in order to free hydrogen up, to
Speaker 1: harvest it and then use it. Right now, Germany is
Speaker 1: harvesting hydrogen as it is produced as a byproduct in
Speaker 1: various chemical processes. But in the future, Germany says the
Speaker 1: plan is to use renewable energy to generate hydrogen. And
Speaker 1: my guess is that they're going to use electrolysis, that
Speaker 1: is where you direct a an electric current into water
Speaker 1: in an effort to break those molecular bonds between hydrogen
Speaker 1: and oxygen and then you harvest the hydrogen. Um. Yeah, so, like,
Speaker 1: it's it's not that hydrogen is a bad fuel to use,
Speaker 1: especially in fuel cells. It's just that finding the right
Speaker 1: strategy to free hydrogen from whatever else is tricky. You know,
Speaker 1: we are also living in a world where getting access
Speaker 1: to water can be tricky. You know, look at at
Speaker 1: places that are undergoing massive drought, like the middle of
Speaker 1: China or the American Southwest. It is tough to sell
Speaker 1: the idea of using water to generate hydrogen so that
Speaker 1: you can have fuel cells when you have people who
Speaker 1: are depending on just a drinking source of water. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a complicated issue. It's not something that's so
Speaker 1: simple to solve. It's too bad because again, hydrogen being
Speaker 1: so plentiful, if we could easily access a source of
Speaker 1: it without these other consequences, that would be a huge,
Speaker 1: huge thing. We would clearly see countries migrating over to
Speaker 1: hydrogen based economies. We just haven't really found the right
Speaker 1: balance for that yet. All right, we've got a couple
Speaker 1: more stories that we want to cover. Let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break. Mhm. One thing that I've learned about Japan,
Speaker 1: and full disclosure, I have yet to visit the country,
Speaker 1: but I really want to go. But one thing I've
Speaker 1: learned is that people are dependent upon and and count
Speaker 1: upon trains running on time. Like the fact that Japan
Speaker 1: is so good most of the time at operating trains,
Speaker 1: that the various companies in Japan do a really good
Speaker 1: job of operating trains. It becomes, you know, second nature
Speaker 1: to just assume that your train is going to be
Speaker 1: at the station on schedule. It's a huge deal in Japan.
Speaker 1: Commuters rely on trains heavily in Japan, and they expect
Speaker 1: the train to be at the station precisely when it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be, and to leave the station not a
Speaker 1: second early or late. In fact, there was an incident
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seventeen in which a train left
Speaker 1: a Japanese station twenty five seconds early, and the company
Speaker 1: was obligated to apologize to commuters because a few were
Speaker 1: left behind on the platform and they had to wait
Speaker 1: for the next train which got them to their destination.
Speaker 1: Six minutes late. Meanwhile, I'm over here in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and sometimes when I go to the public transportation system nearby,
Speaker 1: the display will say that the next train will arrive
Speaker 1: sometime in all right, well, let's get back to the news.
Speaker 1: The Japanese company j R. East, in an effort to
Speaker 1: modernize operations, chose to digitize train time tables, and then
Speaker 1: they supplied train drivers with tablets that are meant to
Speaker 1: access these new timetables. In fact, that's the only thing
Speaker 1: these tablets are meant to do. The drivers actually have
Speaker 1: other tablets for other tasks. So the thought was these
Speaker 1: timetables could be updated in real time automatically and the
Speaker 1: operators would just have to refer to their tablets to
Speaker 1: stay on schedule. But a driver for the Fukushima Line
Speaker 1: UH forgot their password to their tablet, so they weren't
Speaker 1: able to access the digital timetable, and that gummed everything up.
Speaker 1: The driver actually had to refer to timetables posted in
Speaker 1: various stations along the route, and delay started to chalk up,
Speaker 1: and by the time they got to the final destination
Speaker 1: at the end of the line, those delays added up,
Speaker 1: and by the time the train reached the end of
Speaker 1: the line, the delays had accumulated to twenty three minutes. Now,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine the level of freak out of
Speaker 1: a twenty three minute delay if a twenty five second
Speaker 1: discrepancy prompted an official apology back in Now, the company
Speaker 1: says it's going to spend more time training drivers on
Speaker 1: the proper way to create an remember passwords, which honestly
Speaker 1: is something I think a lot of people could use
Speaker 1: a refresher course on. But yeah, interesting story. The road
Speaker 1: to the metaverse, whatever that might be, can be a
Speaker 1: treacherous one, as Capital Music Group discovered the company famously,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, signed a digital as in a
Speaker 1: computer generated rap artist named f N Meka or Maka
Speaker 1: m e k A. This rappers songs had melodies, beats,
Speaker 1: lyrics that were at least partially generated by artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't some digital avatar being controlled by a
Speaker 1: human artist who was responsible for creating everything that the
Speaker 1: digital avatar said, although a black artist did uh contribute
Speaker 1: the voice for f N make up. But this story
Speaker 1: is really complex. There's actually a lot of nuance to it,
Speaker 1: believe it or not. So let's start with what the
Speaker 1: original plan was. So there is a pro Fortnite gamer
Speaker 1: who uses the handle clicks c l i X. This
Speaker 1: pro gamer is also associated with a rap track that's
Speaker 1: called Florida Water. Florida Water features F and Makeup. Now, initially,
Speaker 1: clicks Is involvement caused some confusion because you can't actually
Speaker 1: hear Clicks on the track at all, but the name
Speaker 1: Clicks appears in association with the track, which, you know,
Speaker 1: people are saying, well, how is clicks even involved? Well,
Speaker 1: according to clicks as Manager, the gamer actually purchased the
Speaker 1: rights to this track, and the rapper Gunna had laid
Speaker 1: down vocals for the track already, so in other words,
Speaker 1: this track was already on its way to being fully produced.
Speaker 1: But then, according to clicks as Manager, Capitol Records demanded
Speaker 1: that Clicks allow F and Makeup to be included on
Speaker 1: the track or else the company wasn't going to release it,
Speaker 1: so they were, you know, effectively holding it hostage according
Speaker 1: to clicks as Manager, So Clicks, seeing no choice, allowed
Speaker 1: F and Maker too record lyrics for the track. So
Speaker 1: F and Maker's contribution included black coded lyrics, meaning that
Speaker 1: the lyrics are reminiscent of a black artist's work, not
Speaker 1: a specific black artist, but is indicative or typical from
Speaker 1: the black artist rap genre, and that brings up a
Speaker 1: lot of concerning questions. After all, F and Maka is
Speaker 1: not a real person, and yes, there is a black
Speaker 1: artist who voices the character, but the character itself isn't
Speaker 1: real and black artists didn't write its lyrics, or at
Speaker 1: least not all of the lyrics, because they were at
Speaker 1: least partially generated by artificial intelligence, and that brings up
Speaker 1: questions relating to cultural appropriation and racism. I mean, F
Speaker 1: and Maker uses some racial slurs that are not appropriate
Speaker 1: for anyone not of that culture to say. And it's
Speaker 1: an artificial entity, so some critics called F and Make
Speaker 1: a digital black face. Now complicating matters further is that
Speaker 1: many outlets have capitalized on black artists throughout history without
Speaker 1: giving the original artists credit. I mean, this is not
Speaker 1: a newsplash. This is something that's been going on for
Speaker 1: for for more than a century, and you've seen company
Speaker 1: and people making bank off of black artist creations while
Speaker 1: simultaneously never acknowledging the actual creators themselves. So the controversy
Speaker 1: surrounding F and Maka prompted Capital Music Group to drop
Speaker 1: the Digital Rapper from their label. By the way, if
Speaker 1: you want to read a truly excellent write up of
Speaker 1: this story, including more insightful analysis of the precarious relationship
Speaker 1: between big media companies and black artists, I recommend Patricia
Speaker 1: Hernandez's article titled label drops Ai Rapper with music project
Speaker 1: from Fortnite pro apologizing to black community. You can find
Speaker 1: that at Kotaku. It is a truly excellent article. Finally,
Speaker 1: I have some bad news for folks who want a
Speaker 1: brand new PS five, unless those folks are in the
Speaker 1: United States. So announced that it is raising the price
Speaker 1: tag for the PS five in regions like Canada, Mexico, Japan, China,
Speaker 1: the UK, and Europe. This is coming nearly two years
Speaker 1: after the PS five first hit store shelves, or virtually
Speaker 1: hit store shelves because he can't ever find the darned things.
Speaker 1: So it kind of reminds me of how Meta recently
Speaker 1: hiked the price on its VR gear the Quest too.
Speaker 1: That also was a price high like two years after
Speaker 1: the technology had been introduced. So why is Sony doing this?
Speaker 1: Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said that it's due
Speaker 1: to global inflation rates and trends in various nations currencies
Speaker 1: around the world. So in Europe the PS five models
Speaker 1: are going to go up by fifty euro each. In
Speaker 1: the UK they're going up by thirty pounds each, and
Speaker 1: so on. Polygon dot Com actually has a breakdown for
Speaker 1: every region as far as the price hikes go. And
Speaker 1: you know that really stinks. If you're out there and
Speaker 1: you were hoping to buy a new PS five, it's
Speaker 1: gonna cost you more money now. As I said, in
Speaker 1: the United States, we don't appear to be affected by
Speaker 1: this price hike, so presumably you will still be able
Speaker 1: to buy a PS five at the launch price, assuming
Speaker 1: you can find one somewhere. That's it for the tech
Speaker 1: News for Thursday August. Hope you are well. If you
Speaker 1: have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, please let
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