WEBVTT - Tech News: Beware of Chinese and Korean Hackers 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.280 He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.480 Johnan Strickland. I'm an executive producer for I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.480 And how the tech are you. It's time for the 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.840 tech news for Thursday, July seven, two thousand twenty two. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.200 And while the biggest news today is about a world 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.760 leader resigning, that's not directly related to text. So we'll 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.280 just have to settle on some runners up and this 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.319 will be a fairly quick episode, I think. Now. Our 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.960 first story is about a man named Brennan Lawson who 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.080 has sued his former employer, which happens to be Meta, 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:50.599 you know, Facebook. Lawslin was part of Facebook's escalations team. 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.600 For those who are not in the know, and I 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.240 count myself among them because I learned about this today. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:01:00.440 The escalations team is part of Facebook's content moderation strategy. UH. 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:06.560 The escalation team typically handles higher profile content moderation instances, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.680 such as when someone in a government position flags content 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:15.080 on Facebook, so it's kind of the fast lane for 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.880 content review and moderation. Anyway, Lawson claims that while he 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.759 was working in that department, he saw that Facebook employees 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:27.679 could retrieve information that users had deleted, such as messages 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.760 that were sent between different users on Facebook Messenger. That 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.320 actually contradicts Facebook's claims that once a user deletes content 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.760 off the platform, Facebook subsequently wipes that content off its 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.400 own servers. Lawson said that there were cases in which 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.840 law enforcement would demand access to user information during investigations, 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:53.800 for example, and that Facebook employees would regularly retrieve information, 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.520 including the deleted stuff, and then review it before deciding 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.160 what to pass on to law enforcement. Lawson objected to 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:06.360 this practice, saying that Facebook was, you know, being disingenuous, 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.760 is being dishonest with its users. Lawson claims he was 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.480 subsequently fired in a retaliatory action, one that Facebook masked 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.240 by saying that it was actually because Lawson had mishandled 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.840 a situation in which he attempted to help his grandmother, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.720 who said her account had been hacked. According to Business Insider, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.840 Facebook said Lawson failed to fill out a field in 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.760 an online form with his grandmother's email address. Now, I 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.000 didn't realize that was such a terrible mistake that it 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:41.560 would warrant termination anyway. If Lawson's claims are true, then 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.440 I expect we'll see a lot more pressure applied to Facebook. 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:50.040 Presumably this capability to look at deleted material wouldn't work 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.320 if you were to enable end to end encryption in 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.480 your Facebook messenger app, assuming that it really is true 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.320 end to end encryption, because if it is is, then 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.239 no other parties besides the ones actually in the conversation 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.679 should be able to see the contents of that conversation. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.160 So I guess this is really me saying that if 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.440 you want your private messages to remain private, you should 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.080 switch to end to end encryption, because that's not on 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.280 by default. We've got a couple of stories about law 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:25.000 enforcement agencies and intelligence operations issuing warnings about hackers, and 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.320 first up, it's all about China. The US FBI and 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.640 the u k m I five issued a joint statement 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.880 warning the world about Chinese hackers and the country's increased 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.600 online activity. The warning largely focused on two different kinds 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.440 of threats. One involves attempts to interfere in political and 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.120 democratic processes in various countries. The two agencies indicated that 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:54.080 Chinese hackers had been actively attempting to disrupt elections in 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:59.440 various countries, really in an effort to shape global politics. Uh, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.240 most lee in a way that benefits China, which is 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.200 pretty you know, that's that's pretty obvious. I guess The 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.920 other big branch involves technological espionage, namely that Chinese hackers 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.880 are attempting to steal technology and information, and that China 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.040 poses as a huge threat to Western businesses. In fact, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.000 FBI Director Christopher Ray said that China's hacking department is 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:28.480 quote bigger than that of every other major country combined 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.919 end quote. Representatives from China were quick to dismiss the claims, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.599 saying that they are untrue and it's an example of 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:42.560 Western countries demonizing China. The FBI also issued another warning 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:47.800 about hackers, this time regarding North Korean state sponsored hacking groups. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.120 This warning was about ransomware attacks. North Korean hackers have 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.400 been targeting various healthcare institutions with these attacks, attempting to 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.240 lock down computer network systems while demanding ransoms to return 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:05.960 operations to the healthcare entities. Obviously, any disruption of a 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.800 healthcare company's system is a crisis, which is why hackers 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.880 target these organizations in the first place. It's very difficult 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.600 to tell a hospital to be patient and to not 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.760 pay off a ransom when patients lives could potentially hang 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.360 in the balance. The FBI stresses that paying a ransom 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.800 is never a good idea. For one thing, there's never 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.719 a guarantee that the hackers will actually return access to 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.840 the locked off systems, so you could pay and still 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.800 be locked out. But another reason is because every ransom 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.440 that is paid ends up justifying the attack. If the 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.479 attacks end up being profitable, then there's going to be 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.760 more attacks. If targets refuse to pay ransoms, the attacks 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.320 don't pay off, and you know, the thought goes the 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.760 hackers will turn to something else rather than spending their 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.960 time and effort doing something that nets them no financial gain. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.719 As for why North Korea sponsoring these attacks, the hypothesis 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.240 is that it's all in an effort to secure more 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.120 funds to pay for weapons such as nuclear weapons, as 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.200 various sanctions around the world have otherwise placed tight restrictions 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.279 on North Korea. One hacking story that we've talked about 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:22.159 several times on Tech Stuff involves Apple devices. You might 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:26.520 remember the Israeli company n s O Group famous for 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:31.159 creating a product called Pegasus. Pegasus is essentially an attack 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.159 that can compromise an iOS device like an iPhone simply 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.440 by sending this attack over I message. The target wouldn't 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.919 even have to open the message for that attack to work, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.599 at least previously, so their phone would just become a 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.240 surveillance device that was really under the control of the 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.719 person who committed the attack. While Apple would subsequently patch 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.440 out that particular vulnerability, The experience prompted the company to 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:04.320 create a new feature called lockdown Mode. Now, lockdown mode 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:09.800 is meant for high profile iPhone users, people like politicians, journalists, 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.720 political activists, that kind of thing, the type of people 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.200 who would frequently become the targets of this type of attack, 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.080 because you know, NSL group sells this this tool to 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:27.800 various country governments, many of which are, let's say they 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:33.520 lean heavily authoritarian. And while the claim is that this 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.640 tool is meant to help fight things like terrorism, the 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.000 reality is this tool has been used to attack lots 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.360 of different people, many of whom are not terrorists, but 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:51.280 do pose a threat to authoritarian regimes. So lockdown mode 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.120 turns off many of the iPhones features in an effort 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.680 to reduce the pathways that a hacker could take to 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.240 compromise an iOS device. So one such feature would be 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.400 the preview function and eye message. You know this, this 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.920 function that would have activated an attack like Pegasus. However, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.440 there are also a ton of other features that lockdown 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.480 mode disables, including ones that most users would probably want 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:22.360 to retain access to. Like, you probably don't want to 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.800 put your phone in lockdown mode if you're just a 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.400 typical user. And again, Apple intends lockdown mode for those 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:31.920 users who are more likely to be targeted by these 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.560 kinds of attacks, you know, like state sponsored attacks. Most 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.360 of us don't warrant that kind of attention. Uh. The 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.719 mode goes into a beta test this week, and from 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.600 what I understand, it will be available to all iPhone 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.600 users later this year. So while you might not have 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.480 a need for this feature, it should be available to 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.840 you if you would want to enable it. Just know 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.880 that if you do enable it, you'll be eliminating a 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.679 whole bunch of the selling points that Apple leans on 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.000 when it's promoting the iPhone. Then again, if you are 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.400 a high profile user, that tradeoff might not be such 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.360 a bad deal. It's been a hot minute since I've 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.520 mentioned Elon Musk in one of these episodes, and really 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.079 it's just gonna be a tangential thing here because this 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.320 is more about how employees who are leaving Tesla are 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.760 getting scooped up in other big tech companies. So Musk 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:24.760 tweeted a few weeks ago that they were going to 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.240 be cutbacks at Tesla. Then he kind of went back 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.160 and forth about what that actually meant. And he also 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.120 demanded that employees put in a full forty hour work 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:37.040 week at the office before even thinking about working remotely, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.160 which you know, some folks interpreted as an attempt to 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:45.040 encourage employees to resign rather than have to go through layoffs. Well, 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:49.400 a report from Punks and pen Stripes, which describes itself 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.040 as a quote private network of transformation executives end quote, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.400 has tracked some four fifty former Tesla employees as they 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.720 moved on and updated their linked in profiles to indicate 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.800 where they had gone to. So, according to those changes 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.760 on LinkedIn, ninety former Tesla employees found work with rival 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:14.760 electric vehicle companies Rivian and Lucid Motors. Eight former Tesla 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.559 employees listed their new employer as one of the more 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.280 traditional auto manufacturing companies. That is, you know, a company 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.960 that might make electric vehicles, but it's not exclusively in 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.000 that business, so companies like Ford or General Motors. Other 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:34.920 former Tesla folks moved to companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.320 and Amazon, some of them going to an Amazon backed 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.360 company called zooks zo o X, which is an autonomous 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.640 vehicle company. A few ten in fact kept it in 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.640 the family then moved on over to SpaceX, a different 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.960 elhon must company. And this report is kind of interesting 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.360 because a lot of news pieces have talked about how 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.000 companies in the tech sector have largely initiated hiring free 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.440 is uh and and these changes make it sound like 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.480 it's not quite at that level. There are companies that 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.600 have put in hiring freezes, but it's not industry wide. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.760 A lot of companies have been cutting back on hiring, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.839 but they haven't eliminated it entirely. So just to kind 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.240 of mitigate some of the fear, uncertainty and doubt out there. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.000 Not to say that things are hunky dory and all rosy, 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.000 but they're not. They're also not as dire as some 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.160 reports tend to make it out to be. Now, there 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.600 are plenty of signs of concern that economic factors are 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.640 going to remain let's say, challenging for the near future, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.800 so we should keep that in mind as well. We'll 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.360 have some more stories, but first let's take a quick break. 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:57.840 Before the break, we were talking electric vehicles, and speaking 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.240 of e vs, Consumer Reports released a survey result that 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.679 indicated that twenty eight percent of Americans who are surveyed 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.320 say they would not buy an electric vehicle. And you 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.160 might wonder, well, what's the reason why did they say that? 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.720 And there are actually several different reasons that people cited. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.600 One is the concern about driving range. You know, how 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.040 far you can go on a single charge in an 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:27.400 electric vehicle. There's this continuing fear of becoming stranded, like 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.880 on a highway because your car ran out of juice. 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:35.320 That fear really isn't an issue for most people under 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.719 normal driving situations. Electric vehicles have ranges well beyond what 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.760 most commutes involved. So like the average commute in the 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.240 United States is between thirty and forty miles round trip, 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.000 and electric vehicles typically have a driving range of more 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.120 than two hundred miles, like two hundred thirty miles. A 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:54.680 couple of years ago, it was actually higher, it was 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.280 like two fifty miles on a single charge. So assuming 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.200 you were recharging your v hicle at home every day, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:03.880 you'd be fine to go to and from work, plus 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.320 run all your errands and not have to worry about 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.280 running out of battery. Road trips would be a different story, 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.040 of course. But another big concern that people cited was 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.319 the lack of charging stations. That there's not the infrastructure 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.719 to support electric vehicles. And it is true that there 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.760 are not nearly as many electric vehicle recharging stations, and 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.760 they're not nearly as accessible as gas stations are, like 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:35.040 those outnumber electric vehicle charging stations by a huge factor. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.079 But another reason that people said they wouldn't buy any 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.000 v was because of the cost of electric vehicles. And 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.080 they are pretty darn expensive. And that's even within the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.760 context of how all cars are pretty darn expensive right now. 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.720 Consumer Reports indicates that a lack of education about electric 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.439 vehicles is one of the reasons for this significant response. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.560 I mean, we're talking about more than a quarter of 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.880 all those who were surveyed here. It appears that many 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.840 of those survey didn't know about various economic incentives that 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.760 can offset the price of electric vehicles, nor did they 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.080 understand the driving range capability of these vehicles, So it 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.160 could be that more education would mean future surveys would 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.400 show very different results. More education is definitely needed if 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.920 we want to see more states push for moving off 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:26.600 of internal combustion engine vehicles in favor of electric vehicles. Uh. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.720 If we don't have education and people are acting on 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.720 a misunderstanding of the capabilities of e vs, then they're 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.200 more likely to you know, vote against it, which when 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:43.960 you're talking about finding ways to reduce climate impact. Uh, 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.360 we need every single step to go in the right direction, 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.320 and any delay is just gonna make matters worse. The 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.240 Competition and Markets Authority or c m A in the 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.280 UK is investigating Amazon to see if the company is 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.440 unfairly rigging the game on its platform. And I almost 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.440 didn't include this story because I'm certain it's one we've 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.760 talked about before, but apparently this is a more recent investigation. 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.640 So at issue here is how Amazon promotes Amazon owned 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:20.000 brands to consumers, and the argument is that Amazon will 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:25.040 display its own brands ahead of competitors, which pushes customers 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.240 to buy more Amazon products, and those might not be 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.640 the best version of you know, whatever the product is, 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.320 or it might not be the least expensive or whatever, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.240 so customers could be sent to purchase a quote unquote 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:44.560 bad deal, and that Amazon is profiting over its competitors 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.200 because it's not giving the competitors a fair shake for 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.080 customers to even see the products. And we've seen this 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.680 sort of case pop up several times, like including in 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.800 the EU and here in America, and not just targeting Amazon, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:00.000 although that is a frequent target of this particular criticism. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.000 Lots of companies have been accused of promoting their own 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:07.200 products on their own platforms and then subsequently kind of 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.280 burying the competition in the process. If we were to 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.960 use an analogy, imagine that you go to a grocery 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.400 store and all the store branded products are in prominent 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:22.040 locations on shelves. They're organized, they're shiny, they're lovely, and 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.320 then all the name brand stuff, which is not owned 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.560 by the store is hidden off in corners or high 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.120 up on shelves where they're hard to reach, or maybe 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.880 on the bottom shelf where it's hard to see. That's 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.040 kind of what the c m A is looking into 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.480 with Amazon. Company reps say that Amazon will work with 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.720 the c m A during this investigation and that the 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.720 company has quote always worked hard to help small businesses 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.320 selling on Amazon to succeed, which is both in their 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.960 and our best interests end quote. I suppose the investigation 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.680 will determine if that claim is in fact accurate. Finally, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.880 research firm Ampere Analysis predicts that we're gonna see a 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.320 dip in video game sales this year, to the tune 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.119 of a one decline. Now, to put that in perspective, 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.520 we should acknowledge that the video game sector had some 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.600 pretty impressive growth over the last two years. From the 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.720 industry saw a growth of and ultimately grew to a 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:22.040 hundred billion dollar industry. This little dip would mean that 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.280 by the end of this year, we're looking more at 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:29.560 a one eight billion dollar industry that's still bookoos of buckos. Right. 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.439 As for an explanation of these changes, well, there are 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:36.600 a couple right. The first, and perhaps most obviously, the 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.600 pandemic created a bit of a boom for video games sales, 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.960 even as we saw numerous titles experienced production delays due 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.200 to COVID. Now we've got more folks going out and 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.600 abountain fewer of them are staying home all day every day. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.840 Plus you know, the concern over economic recession has a 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.160 lot of people easing off on their purchases, and then 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.640 there are the continuing issues around supply. It still hard 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.520 to find the most recent consoles on the market. It's 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.400 still hard to find like the top end video game cards, 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:12.000 which are slowly becoming less scarce and less expensive, but 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.000 they're still not widely available, nor are they backed down 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.280 to m s r P levels. So you could think 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.879 of this dip as a type of market adjustment and 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.119 not some sort of omen that the video game sector 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.880 is in trouble as a whole. Though. You know, some 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.119 companies like Activision Blizzard are still in the hot seat 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.840 for multiple reasons, but that's another story. That's it for 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.399 today's news on tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.879 future topics, please reach out to me. You can do 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:40.679 that in a couple of ways. One way is just 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.879 on Twitter. Our handle is tech stuff hs W. The 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.639 other way is to download the I Heart radio app 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.840 and navigate over to the tech Stuff podcast page. There's 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.280 a little microphone icon on that page you can click 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.840 on that leave a voice message up to thirty seconds 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.919 in length if you would like us to use that 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.240 in a future episode. You can let us know within 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.120 that message, because I'm all about opt in, not opt out, 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.720 and yeah, that's that's a couple of different ways to 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.439 get in touch with me. As for all of you, 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.040 I hope you're all well. I am slowly getting back 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.160 to where I was pre COVID, so I keep hoping 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.119 that the next time I record, I'll be back to 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.080 pre COVID levels of Jonathan. Not quite there yet, but 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.200 getting there, and I'll talk to you again really soon. 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:34.919 Y Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.960 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.200 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:41.959 favorite shows.