Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: August twenty fourth, twenty twenty three. So last night here
Speaker 1: in the United States, there were a couple of important
Speaker 1: political events, and don't worry, this is not going to
Speaker 1: be about the actual politics. Rather it's to talk about
Speaker 1: TV versus online. So last night, the Republican candidates who
Speaker 1: are vying for the party's nomination for the upcoming general election,
Speaker 1: with one quite notable exception, all appeared in a debate
Speaker 1: on Fox News. I haven't seen reliable figures about how
Speaker 1: many people actually watch the deb I did see one
Speaker 1: piece that said it was twenty three point nine million people,
Speaker 1: but I haven't found any corroborating reports on that, and
Speaker 1: this was not a site I was familiar with, so
Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable actually using that as a benchmark. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people were watching it. However,
Speaker 1: we do know how many people saw although maybe they
Speaker 1: only briefly saw the counter programming to the debate former
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump appeared in an interview with Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 1: and this was posted on X formerly known as Twitter,
Speaker 1: So that interview gathered seventy four million impressions. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you scrolled past the interview, if it
Speaker 1: just showed up in your feed and you went right
Speaker 1: past it, that still counted as an impression. If you
Speaker 1: watched three seconds of it before you said nah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to see this, that still counted as an impression.
Speaker 1: If you watched it on your phone, then turned it
Speaker 1: off and switched over to a tablet and started watching
Speaker 1: it again, that actually counted as two impressions. So what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that even if the GOP debate on
Speaker 1: Fox News quote unquote only got around twenty four million viewers,
Speaker 1: the seventy four million impressions of Donald Trump's interview on
Speaker 1: X doesn't actually mean that seventy four million people tuned
Speaker 1: into the thing. So this really drives home the double
Speaker 1: edged sword of online content. Content providers can sometimes count
Speaker 1: the briefest of impressions the same as they would for
Speaker 1: someone who watched a piece from beginning to end. If
Speaker 1: they say it's a view. Even if you only saw
Speaker 1: ten seconds of it, and it's like an hour long program.
Speaker 1: That's an issue, right. It doesn't come across as being
Speaker 1: very honest and on it. I believe in the long
Speaker 1: run it ends up being a huge liability. But it
Speaker 1: is the way things have been done online for quite
Speaker 1: some time. And what do I know, I just make
Speaker 1: the stuff. The Taiwanese Semiconductor Fabrication Company TSNA is in
Speaker 1: the news again here in the United States. You might
Speaker 1: recall that TSMC is building out a facility in the US,
Speaker 1: specifically in Arizona. So earlier this summer, TSMC officials said
Speaker 1: that this facility is being delayed because, in their own words,
Speaker 1: they could not find suitable workers in the United States
Speaker 1: to build out the facilities. They didn't have the highly
Speaker 1: trained people they needed, according to TSMC representatives, They said
Speaker 1: they would need to bring over experts from Taiwan to
Speaker 1: manage and build out this high tech, precise facility, and
Speaker 1: this prompted US workers and politicians to object. Some said
Speaker 1: TSMC was really more concerned with bringing over a workforce
Speaker 1: that would work longer hours and essentially follow orders without
Speaker 1: putting up a fuss about it. North American workers connected
Speaker 1: to the project are now voicing concerns and objections. They
Speaker 1: have said that management at TSMC is really to blame
Speaker 1: for these delays. The workers so, according to multiple although
Speaker 1: unnamed workers, TSMC management has failed to provide critical information
Speaker 1: that the workers needed in order for them to do
Speaker 1: their jobs. They said, well, the reason it's taking so
Speaker 1: long that we're not making progress is it because we're
Speaker 1: not trained to do this work. It's that we're not
Speaker 1: getting the information we need in order to do our work.
Speaker 1: They also said that the construction site itself is unsafe,
Speaker 1: that there are lots of safety violations going on, and
Speaker 1: that TSMC's management have been directing construction workers to violate
Speaker 1: international building code because, according to what the workers are saying,
Speaker 1: the managers claim, this is how it's done in Taiwan.
Speaker 1: TSMC has denied any wrongdoing and says the company is
Speaker 1: dedicated to health and safety. So I'm sure the story
Speaker 1: is far from over. It is true that there are
Speaker 1: parts of at least China where substandard building code has
Speaker 1: led to some truly dangerous buildings that are not built
Speaker 1: to last the test of time, whether or not that's
Speaker 1: actually the case at this Arizona facility. I can't say,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure the way things are going, it's going
Speaker 1: to lead to like an investigation at some point. While
Speaker 1: a lot of stories I cover in the show tend
Speaker 1: to fall into the let's warn you about AI category,
Speaker 1: one company is absolutely raking in the cash thanks to
Speaker 1: the intense interest in artificial intelligence. So there's one company that,
Speaker 1: without question is really benefiting from the AI craze, and
Speaker 1: that company is in Nvidia, which is best known for
Speaker 1: creating stuff like graphics processing units or GPUs, or like
Speaker 1: gaming rigs and stuff. Nvidia reported that in Q two
Speaker 1: of this year it generated thirteen point five billion with
Speaker 1: a B dollars in revenue. But that's revenue, right, That's
Speaker 1: an impressive amount for revenue. But let's talk about profit.
Speaker 1: What do you have after you've subtracted all the costs
Speaker 1: of doing business? While on that note, Nvidia saw six
Speaker 1: point one eight eight billion dollars in profit in the
Speaker 1: second quarter of twenty twenty three. That is a lot
Speaker 1: of profit. It's also a pretty big jump from last year.
Speaker 1: And by a big jump, I mean an increase of
Speaker 1: eight hundred forty three percent. And this is despite the
Speaker 1: fact that while there was a surge in GPU purchasing
Speaker 1: during the pandemic in twenty twenty. There has since been
Speaker 1: a big move away from buying GPUs for a few reasons. One,
Speaker 1: you had the cryptocurrency Ethereum move away from proof of
Speaker 1: work to proof of steak, which meant there no longer
Speaker 1: was this cryptocurrency need to buy up all the GPUs,
Speaker 1: so that demand and went away. And then of course
Speaker 1: we have all the economic concerns, the inflation and things
Speaker 1: like that that have meant that a lot of people
Speaker 1: have cut back on their spending. So we've seen GPU
Speaker 1: sales dip a bit, but the AI chip market has
Speaker 1: clearly gone in the opposite direction, and in Nvidia expects
Speaker 1: this gravy train is just going to keep on chugging along,
Speaker 1: at least for the near future. Anyway. The company projects
Speaker 1: that it will generate sixteen billion dollars in revenue next quarter,
Speaker 1: primarily due to the demand for AI chips in things
Speaker 1: like data centers. Now, assuming AI isn't going anywhere, which
Speaker 1: seems like a pretty safe assumption, I mean, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: see a cooling off period from like the hype cycle,
Speaker 1: but I don't think AI is just going to disappear.
Speaker 1: But this could mean that we're right now witnessing the
Speaker 1: moment when Nvidia gets propelled into the next stage of
Speaker 1: becoming a corporate powerhouse, so to speak. Apple did a
Speaker 1: very not Apple like thing the week the company sent
Speaker 1: a letter to California State Senator Susan Egman in support
Speaker 1: of a bill that's under consideration by the state. It
Speaker 1: is SB two four four that probably doesn't help you
Speaker 1: out very much. It's a right to repair bill, so
Speaker 1: quick recap. The right to repair movement aims to force
Speaker 1: companies to make it possible to perform maintenance and repair
Speaker 1: on products without first having to go to some authorized
Speaker 1: or licensed repair shop. So the philosophy behind right to
Speaker 1: repair is that once you buy something that is yours
Speaker 1: and you should have the freedom to repair it and
Speaker 1: to maintain it without having to stay inside the manufacturing
Speaker 1: company's ecosystem. And if you were to stay in the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: that might require you to schlep dozens or even hundreds
Speaker 1: of miles to get to the closest authorized repair shop,
Speaker 1: which is an unnecessary hardship. Traditionally, Apple has sort of,
Speaker 1: while not outrite a pose right to repair, effectively done
Speaker 1: so the company likes to keep everything in house. But
Speaker 1: Apple in the past has said that this is mostly
Speaker 1: for the consumer's own good. It guarantees a level of
Speaker 1: service that you wouldn't get elsewhere, and it protects the customer,
Speaker 1: but critics have said it's really more about trapping the
Speaker 1: customer in a system that just keeps generating revenue for Apple. Anyway,
Speaker 1: tech Crunch received a statement from Apple, and the company says, quote,
Speaker 1: Apple supports California's Right to Repair Act, so all Californians
Speaker 1: have even greater access to repairs while also protecting their safety, security,
Speaker 1: and privacy. We create our products to last and if
Speaker 1: they ever need to be repaired, Apple customers have a
Speaker 1: growing range of safe, high quality repair options, and I
Speaker 1: should acknowledge that last year Apple introduced the self service
Speaker 1: repair program, which kind of eased off the company's tradition
Speaker 1: of requiring customers to go through official Apple channels for
Speaker 1: maintenance and repair. Now you could argue this is just
Speaker 1: the company seeing the writing on the wall and getting
Speaker 1: ahead of it, but either way, it's great for consumers,
Speaker 1: especially in the state of California. Hopefully you will see
Speaker 1: this kind of adopted throughout the United States and the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Okay, I've got some more news
Speaker 1: items to cover, but before we get to that, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We're back. Tesla has been having
Speaker 1: a rather dramatic twenty twenty three. According to Yahoo Financed,
Speaker 1: Tesla's stock price was at two hundred and ninety one
Speaker 1: dollars a share back on July nineteenth, but in the
Speaker 1: weeks following, the stock has lost nearly twenty percent of
Speaker 1: its value. Just as a note, as right this episode,
Speaker 1: the stock is currently trading at around two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty three dollars per share, So this also means the
Speaker 1: market cap for Tesla has taken a hit. If you
Speaker 1: listened to yesterday's Tech stuff, you know a market A
Speaker 1: company's market cap is the number of outstanding shares multiplied
Speaker 1: by the price of e share. So a twenty percent
Speaker 1: decline would mean that Tesla saw a drop of nearly
Speaker 1: two hundred billion dollars in market cap. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: A bunch of the factors that did this are outside
Speaker 1: the company's control, like inflation and interest rates. But according
Speaker 1: to some analysts, Tesla manufacturing facilities are filling up with
Speaker 1: cars that are not getting sold. Customers aren't buying the cars,
Speaker 1: and so while the manufacturing facilities have been making them,
Speaker 1: they haven't actually been rolling off of lots, and that
Speaker 1: could potentially lead to Tesla having to make a decision
Speaker 1: like to cut costs on Tesla vehicles. Again, I think
Speaker 1: it's only fair to point out this is by no
Speaker 1: means the lowest that Tesla's stock has been this year.
Speaker 1: So late last year the stock actually hit more than
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars per share, but by early January it
Speaker 1: was down to one hundred and thirteen dollars. So it
Speaker 1: has been a rocky road for the car company and
Speaker 1: it's continuing to face economic pressures and increased competition in
Speaker 1: the EV marketplace. There's a hacker group called Lapsus that's
Speaker 1: Lapsus Dollar Sign that has targeted some major companies, among
Speaker 1: them in Nvidia, Ubers. Also another company, Rockstar Games that's
Speaker 1: the video game company behind the Grand Theft Auto series.
Speaker 1: And it turns out these hackers are a bunch of
Speaker 1: teenagers in the United Kingdom. Their attacks have proven to
Speaker 1: be pretty darn effective. Some members allegedly carried out hacking
Speaker 1: attacks while they were actually out on bail for charges
Speaker 1: of other hacking attacks, and while the group pulled off
Speaker 1: some attacks that seemed on the surface to be ransomware employees,
Speaker 1: they weren't particularly dedicated to seeing those plans through to
Speaker 1: the point of, you know, actually collecting a ransom. They
Speaker 1: were more frequently doing stuff like infiltrating a company systems,
Speaker 1: stealing a whole bunch of data, and then dumping that
Speaker 1: data on the web somewhere. According to investigators, the attacks
Speaker 1: that the hacker used were not particularly complicated, although they
Speaker 1: were often said to have been creative, but they were
Speaker 1: really really effective, and that doesn't speak highly of corporate
Speaker 1: security practices. A couple members of the hacker gang are
Speaker 1: already in custody. In one case, a judge has already
Speaker 1: ruled that that particular member is not fit to stand trial.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how this continues to unfold. For old
Speaker 1: folks such as myself who have fond memories of developing
Speaker 1: hand cramps while holding an Atari twenty six hundreds c
Speaker 1: X forty joystick, I got good news. The upcoming Atari
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred plus console is now available for pre order.
Speaker 1: It is one hundred and twenty nine dollars in ninety
Speaker 1: nine cents. It will also come with a game cartridge
Speaker 1: that will contain ten classic Atari titles, including Yars Revenge.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, the game designer who created Yurs Revenge would
Speaker 1: go on to make Et the Extraterrestrial, sometimes referenced as
Speaker 1: one of the worst games of all time, though it
Speaker 1: was not really his fault, but that's a story for
Speaker 1: another time. Other titles include the classic adventure Missile Command
Speaker 1: Is on There, Combat Is On There. Plus, the Atari
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred plus console will be able to play
Speaker 1: any Atari twenty six hundred cartridge. So if you happen
Speaker 1: to have an old box full of Atari twenty six
Speaker 1: hundred cartridges, guess what, they will be playable again on
Speaker 1: this machine. But if you have your collection in storage,
Speaker 1: no worries. You could go out and buy a Harmony cartridge.
Speaker 1: This is one that's created by hobbyists, and this cartridge
Speaker 1: plugs into Atari twenty six hundred just as any video
Speaker 1: game cartridge would, but it has a port for an
Speaker 1: SD card, So what you can do is actually go
Speaker 1: and find the RAM that's essentially the game files for
Speaker 1: any Atari twenty six hundred game you own, download it
Speaker 1: and save it to that SD card. Put that into
Speaker 1: the Harmony cartridge and plug that into your Atari twenty
Speaker 1: six hundred plus and then you can play the game. Now,
Speaker 1: technically you can do do that with any realm of
Speaker 1: Attari twenty six hundred games, not just the ones you own,
Speaker 1: but you're only supposed to do it if you own
Speaker 1: the game already, because doing so means that you're essentially
Speaker 1: making a backup of your media. That's legal. Just taking
Speaker 1: any realm not legal, because that's essentially piracy. The other
Speaker 1: alternative is you can go around to garage sales and
Speaker 1: you know, eBay and that kind of stuff and look
Speaker 1: for cartridges in order to build up your collection. The
Speaker 1: cool thing also about the twenty six hundred plus is that,
Speaker 1: unlike the original Atari twenty six hundred, it can connect
Speaker 1: to a modern television through HDMI, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to find some weird janki adapter to make it all work.
Speaker 1: This does not mean that the games are suddenly going
Speaker 1: to look better than they did. It'll probably look worse
Speaker 1: because they've got to be on a much larger screen,
Speaker 1: but it will mean that they're playable. I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, although I suspect if I were to actually
Speaker 1: get one of these and play it. I might touch
Speaker 1: it maybe three times before never touching it again unless
Speaker 1: I had Pitfall or River Raid, because those games slap.
Speaker 1: This week, Sony gave us more information about the PlayStation Portal,
Speaker 1: a handheld gaming device that will retail for two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: It has an eight inch screen with ten ADP resolution.
Speaker 1: It's got a refresh rate of sixty hurts, and it
Speaker 1: kind of looks like if you took this screen, you know,
Speaker 1: and you had it in landscape mode, and then you
Speaker 1: crammed the left side and the right side of a
Speaker 1: dual sense controller on either side of the screen, and
Speaker 1: you might be saying, hey, Jonathan, how many games can
Speaker 1: this handheld device hold? Or can I take this with
Speaker 1: me everywhere and thus play PlayStation games? And the answers
Speaker 1: to those questions is a bit disappointing because the PlayStation
Speaker 1: Portal can only stream games from your PS five that's
Speaker 1: using remote play, so this is really just a portable
Speaker 1: second screen for your PS five at home. As Kyle
Speaker 1: Orland of Ours Technica points out, this is pretty disappointing
Speaker 1: since you can already get the PS five Remote Play
Speaker 1: app for both iOS or Android devices, so you can
Speaker 1: use your own phone or tablet to access the same
Speaker 1: stuff that the portal can do. You just need to
Speaker 1: pair it with a game controller and you're good to go.
Speaker 1: You get your own DIY portal that way. Plus, hey,
Speaker 1: your DIY version of the portal can do other stuff
Speaker 1: like if it's your smartphone, you can make calls with it,
Speaker 1: or smartphone or tablet you can watch your tiktoks on it.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a good idea to look into
Speaker 1: the PlayStation portal before you put in a pre order,
Speaker 1: so that you understand what it can do, what it
Speaker 1: doesn't do, and then make the decision of doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to drop two hundred bucks on this peripheral. I
Speaker 1: got a couple of article recommendations for you, but before
Speaker 1: I get to that, I have one final story. I
Speaker 1: am flush with excitement about this one. I am, of
Speaker 1: course talking about the ARST that stands for the abrasion resistant,
Speaker 1: super slippery flush toilet. Also, I bet ARST sounds a
Speaker 1: bit like how some people would sound while using the gadget. Okay,
Speaker 1: so some folks in China developed this material using a
Speaker 1: combination of plastic and hydrophobic grains of sand, which then
Speaker 1: they injected a silicon based oil into this mixture, and
Speaker 1: what they got was a very, very slippery surface. They
Speaker 1: used all sorts of different stuff to try and stick
Speaker 1: to it, like honey and porridge and muddy water and
Speaker 1: fake poo, and it just slid off of this like
Speaker 1: water off a duck's back. They even subjected the surface
Speaker 1: to abrasive treatments. They use sandpaper and a knife and
Speaker 1: a file, and they really went at it to try
Speaker 1: and scuff up the material, but it still retained its slipperiness.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of jokes I could make about this,
Speaker 1: but the innovation has some pretty cool implications. A toilet
Speaker 1: bowl that is resistant to stuff sticking to it will
Speaker 1: be easier to clean and to keep clean, and it
Speaker 1: could require less water for fleshing, which is a big
Speaker 1: deal with conservation efforts. So maybe in the future we'll
Speaker 1: see most toilets made from material like this. That'd be
Speaker 1: pretty slick. Okay, now for article recommendations where you're not
Speaker 1: going to get top notch potty humor like you do
Speaker 1: on this show. So first up, Ashley Belanger of Ours
Speaker 1: Technica has an article titled YouTube may face billions in
Speaker 1: fines if FTC confirms child privacy violations. So Berlanger details
Speaker 1: how some advocacy groups say YouTube has failed to prevent
Speaker 1: targeted advertising on children's programming despite a mandate to do that,
Speaker 1: while YouTube executives say the allegations are based on an
Speaker 1: incorrect assessment of how the platform operates. You should read
Speaker 1: the piece. It's very well written and explains the issue well.
Speaker 1: Next up is another Ours Technica article, this one by
Speaker 1: Ron Amadeo, and it's titled Project Muhan is Google and
Speaker 1: Samsung's inevitable Apple Vision pro clone. And while the article
Speaker 1: does go into Project Mouhan, I would say that it's
Speaker 1: really more about how the engineers who are working on
Speaker 1: various Google AR and VR projects have encountered lots of
Speaker 1: internal obstacles while doing their work, mostly stemming from management
Speaker 1: that has failed to settle on a solid plan of action.
Speaker 1: Both articles are a great read, and as always, I
Speaker 1: have no connection to either the authors of these pieces
Speaker 1: nor to Ours Technica itself. And that's it for the
Speaker 1: Tech News for Thursday August twenty fourth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again. Really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
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