Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, February twenty four, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and probably the biggest story in the world right now
Speaker 1: is Russia's invasion of Ukraine, something that has heightened tensions
Speaker 1: around the globe, and of course that also spills over
Speaker 1: into tech news. In the hours before open hostilities, Reuters
Speaker 1: reported that the US will likely begin with holding tech
Speaker 1: from Russia, ranging from products like computer systems to individual
Speaker 1: components like semiconductors and aircraft parts. Interestingly, though not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: the language is directed more at Vladimir Putin than at
Speaker 1: Russia as a whole, and Putant's tendency toward authoritarianism arguably
Speaker 1: justifies that wording. The US Deputy Treasury Secretary said that, quote,
Speaker 1: We're going to cut him off from Western technology that's
Speaker 1: critical to a dancing his military, cut him off from
Speaker 1: Western financial resources that will be critical for feeding his
Speaker 1: economy and also to enriching himself. Uh. The he in
Speaker 1: this case being Putent and again this all came out
Speaker 1: before Russia's actual invasion. But yes, we should see various
Speaker 1: sanctions around the world. I know the UK has also
Speaker 1: started to announce some and likely a lot of that
Speaker 1: is going to focus not just on finances but on
Speaker 1: tech as well. In addition to the explosions and gunfire
Speaker 1: happening in Ukraine. By the way, any listeners out in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: I really hope you and your loved ones are safe.
Speaker 1: But the country has also been under a pier attack.
Speaker 1: It appears that distributed denial of service attacks, also known
Speaker 1: as the DOS attacks, have hampered Ukraine's internet infrastructure. In addition,
Speaker 1: it seems as though there's been a deployment of a
Speaker 1: type of malware designed to infect and then wipe out
Speaker 1: data on machines, and that this has been targeting some
Speaker 1: computer systems in Ukrainian organizations. Now, just in case you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with the term di DOS attack, the basic
Speaker 1: ideas that you have a distributed network of machines, so
Speaker 1: a whole collection of computers that are distributed in an
Speaker 1: area could be all around the world actually, and you
Speaker 1: use these to target specific web servers and you overwhelm
Speaker 1: those servers with traffic such as a pin request or
Speaker 1: maybe even a pin request that goes back to an
Speaker 1: address that doesn't exist, and the web server attempts to
Speaker 1: respond to all those requests because that's how you know,
Speaker 1: the Internet functions, is that if it didn't respond to
Speaker 1: these request USTs, then the Internet wouldn't work. It has
Speaker 1: to be able to respond to these things. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of equivalent to bringing a doorbell and then
Speaker 1: running away. I've used this analogy before. Imagine that you
Speaker 1: are required to answer your door every time the doorbell rings.
Speaker 1: And someone rings your doorbell, so you get up, you
Speaker 1: walk to your front door, You open the door, no
Speaker 1: one's there. You close the door. Someone rings the doorbell.
Speaker 1: You have to turn back around and go back to
Speaker 1: the door, open it. And this just happens over and
Speaker 1: over to the point where you can't do anything else.
Speaker 1: That's essentially the basic version of a distributed denial of
Speaker 1: service attacks. If you just imagine that all the neighborhood
Speaker 1: kids in all the neighborhoods around you are all in
Speaker 1: on this, and they're all taking turns doing it. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what's going on on a the you know,
Speaker 1: an analogy level well. There are companies like cloud Flare
Speaker 1: that specialize in mitigating the dose attacks, and some of
Speaker 1: Ukraine's most critical services, such as those connected to financial
Speaker 1: military operations, appeared to have weathered the storm a little
Speaker 1: bit better than you know, just about everybody else. The
Speaker 1: malware is a different matter, the Wiper malware. This is
Speaker 1: software that appears to have been created in late twenty one,
Speaker 1: which could indicate that this was a planned part of
Speaker 1: the invasion, and that the invasion itself has been something
Speaker 1: that's been the work for at least a few months,
Speaker 1: which honestly, I would be shocked to hear otherwise it
Speaker 1: The narrative coming out of Russia is that this was
Speaker 1: something that kind of happened suddenly, but all evidence seems
Speaker 1: to contradict that. Moscow so far has denied any involvement
Speaker 1: in the DIDOS attacks or the malware. But as we
Speaker 1: covered in a recent tech News episode, much of the
Speaker 1: hacking activity reported around the world, including nearly three quarters
Speaker 1: of all ransomware attacks, appears to originate out of Russia
Speaker 1: or Russia aligned countries. On a relay to note, researchers
Speaker 1: in Ukraine have been sharing information, photos, and videos on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So this includes journalists and security experts, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them have noticed that their accounts have been hit
Speaker 1: with suspensions. For example, Oliver Alexander, who has been fighting
Speaker 1: misinformation during the invasion by trying to cover things on
Speaker 1: the ground, has had his accounts suspended at least two
Speaker 1: times in the last twenty four hours. Now, in most cases,
Speaker 1: the researchers are told that they received a suspension for
Speaker 1: violating a Twitter policy, but at least in a few
Speaker 1: of those, no specific policy was cited. As of the
Speaker 1: time of this recording. The working hypothesis is that there
Speaker 1: was and potentially still is, an active campaign, likely originating
Speaker 1: in Russia, that is identifying and reporting any social media
Speaker 1: accounts attempting to cover the Ukraine invasion, and that these
Speaker 1: reports are all made in bad face in an effort
Speaker 1: to suppress information from being published. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's people saying, hey, they're spreading misinformation
Speaker 1: in an attempt to silence people. Now, a Twitter spokesperson
Speaker 1: has said that quote, We've been proactively monitoring for emerging
Speaker 1: narratives that are violative of our policies, and in this instance,
Speaker 1: we took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error.
Speaker 1: We're expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated
Speaker 1: access to a number of affected accounts. The claims that
Speaker 1: the errors were a coordinated body campaign or the result
Speaker 1: of mass reporting is inaccurate end quote. So in other words,
Speaker 1: they're refuting that hypothesis, and hopefully that is true, because
Speaker 1: presumably it will mean that from this point forward we'll
Speaker 1: see fewer mistaken suspensions and that will just be a
Speaker 1: little blip in the early days. Uh, if this actually
Speaker 1: is part of a supper Ashan campaign, maybe that will
Speaker 1: mean Twitter will develop better tools to detect and prevent
Speaker 1: those from happening, which again can be a larger benefit
Speaker 1: in the future. Switching over to North Korea, Wired has
Speaker 1: an article titled North Korea hacked him, so he took
Speaker 1: down its Internet and the pieces about a hacker who
Speaker 1: goes by the handle Packs that's p the numeral four
Speaker 1: and X, and North Korea targeted Packs because Packs does
Speaker 1: cybersecurity work and had been involved in cybersecurity work related
Speaker 1: to North Korea, and Packs did not like getting targeted
Speaker 1: and after a year of waiting to see what the
Speaker 1: US would do about this, and Seeing that apparently the
Speaker 1: answer was nothing, Packs decided to take it upon himself
Speaker 1: to do a effectively a denial of service attack on
Speaker 1: North Korea's Internet system. Now, you could argue that this
Speaker 1: is not really an effective strategy because very few people
Speaker 1: in North Korea actually have access to the Internet. A
Speaker 1: lot of folks, or at least not a lot some
Speaker 1: folks can access and intronet, but that has no connectivity
Speaker 1: to the outside. Internet's fully controlled by the North Korean government.
Speaker 1: The Internet sites in North Korea really are mostly for
Speaker 1: propaganda purposes and are outward facing, So in other words,
Speaker 1: it's for the rest of the world, not for the
Speaker 1: people in North Korea. So disrupting those just means that
Speaker 1: North Korea's propaganda campaign was somewhat hindered. In fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, like, the best this does is
Speaker 1: kind of irritate the government and it could potentially force
Speaker 1: them to start beefing up their Internet security, which could
Speaker 1: in theory disrupt say more clandestine efforts that could be
Speaker 1: going on at the same time. In other words, don't
Speaker 1: bring attention to these vulnerabilities because someone else might be
Speaker 1: using them to do some important work. Uh. Then again,
Speaker 1: you know, considering the limited use of the Internet and
Speaker 1: North Korea, you could argue that maybe there's not really
Speaker 1: any real opportunity through that route, unless, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: they are really bad at doing things like having air
Speaker 1: gaps in their system. And air gap, by the way,
Speaker 1: in case you're not familiar with that term, that's where
Speaker 1: you make certain that a system has no connectivity to
Speaker 1: outside networks. It is a standalone network. It's like an island.
Speaker 1: It doesn't touch any other network. And uh, that's that's
Speaker 1: a security measure, right if you If it doesn't interoperate
Speaker 1: with any other networks, there's no way to get at
Speaker 1: it from outside. You have to get access to the
Speaker 1: actual system itself, which really cuts down on the possibility
Speaker 1: of it being um compromised. It doesn't eliminate that possibility,
Speaker 1: it just cuts way back on it. And um it
Speaker 1: would be shocking to me. I guess not shocking, but
Speaker 1: you know, if North Korea is not doing that, it's
Speaker 1: stupid because if it's not using the Internet the way
Speaker 1: other countries are, then there's no real reason to have
Speaker 1: any of its you know, crucial systems hooked up to it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's what's going on right now, and I
Speaker 1: recommend the article again. It's titled North Korea hacked him
Speaker 1: so he took down its internet. Check out that article.
Speaker 1: We've got a few more stories to cover, but before
Speaker 1: we get to those, let's take a quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: You might remember from a couple of weeks back when
Speaker 1: I talked about how the Dutch Competition Authority was levying
Speaker 1: fines against Apple for violating anti competitive regulations. Specifically, we're
Speaker 1: talking about Apple's payment system in app payment system, and
Speaker 1: how the company previously required all apps to use Apple's
Speaker 1: own operated in payment system, and that also meant that
Speaker 1: Apple could take a chunk out of every in app
Speaker 1: transaction like up to well, Apple has since change things
Speaker 1: up uh. It has announced that developers will be able
Speaker 1: to use third party payment systems, but Apple will collect
Speaker 1: a twenty seven percent commission on all in app purchases
Speaker 1: that use a third party payment method. Now that that's rough,
Speaker 1: because chances are app developers will have to pay a
Speaker 1: cut to whatever third party payment system they're using. So
Speaker 1: you might start to suspect that while Apple is saying
Speaker 1: it is going to offer an alternative, the alternatives will
Speaker 1: likely end up being more expensive to use than the
Speaker 1: Apple provided option, and Apple still gets a cut. As such,
Speaker 1: The Netherlands Authority for Consumers says that Apple has quote
Speaker 1: refused to put forward any serious proposals end quote, and
Speaker 1: that furthermore, the company appears to be fine with paying
Speaker 1: fines even if those fines get up to fifty million
Speaker 1: euros a week for non compliance, which tells you just
Speaker 1: how important in app revenue is for Apple if the
Speaker 1: company is not responding to this stuation with more speed
Speaker 1: and seriousness. The a c M says that Apple is
Speaker 1: purposefully putting in barriers that discouraged the use of third
Speaker 1: party payment systems and has to come up with a
Speaker 1: fair alternative. The BBC News investigated how the metaverse is
Speaker 1: shaping up when a researcher posed as a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old girl and used a meta quest a k a.
Speaker 1: The old Oculus quest headset to visit the vr chat
Speaker 1: virtual space. The researcher witnessed numerous things that were wildly
Speaker 1: inappropriate for a child, including simulated sex acts. The researcher
Speaker 1: was also approached by several adult men. Remember the researcher
Speaker 1: was posing as a thirteen year old girl, and that
Speaker 1: is beyond disturbing, and reportedly the researcher even received a
Speaker 1: rape threat. On top of all that, the researcher said
Speaker 1: she used a fake identity to create an account, and
Speaker 1: there was no point where Meta actually verified her age,
Speaker 1: which meant she was free to wander into virtual space.
Speaker 1: Is very much inappropriate for children. The National Society for
Speaker 1: the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the UK responded
Speaker 1: to the report by saying that there is an urgent
Speaker 1: need to address online safety issues for children, particularly as
Speaker 1: they're such a hard push to create the metaverse. As
Speaker 1: it stands, the virtual environments that are sort of a
Speaker 1: proto metaverse are very much not a safe space. Um.
Speaker 1: They actually remind me a lot of very early Internet
Speaker 1: chat rooms, which could range from just being silly and
Speaker 1: harmless to outright disturbing and pornographic, depending on the chat
Speaker 1: room and who was there at the time. The NSPCC
Speaker 1: said that as it stands, these virtual chat rooms are
Speaker 1: dangerous by design because of oversight and neglect. Meta's approach
Speaker 1: so far has been kind of a weird and gross
Speaker 1: scientific observation. Essentially, watch how people are interacting in virtual
Speaker 1: spaces and then address problems that crop up. But that
Speaker 1: does mean anyone who's adopting the Virtual Space protest, an
Speaker 1: early adopter, is effectively a guinea pig, and that person's
Speaker 1: mental health isn't really afforded very much protection. Anyway, don't
Speaker 1: let your kids use VR chat rooms just yet. The
Speaker 1: world can be a cruel and dangerous place, and the
Speaker 1: online world sometimes it's a billion times more so. Earlier
Speaker 1: this year, we talked about how Peloton, the exercise company,
Speaker 1: is going through a really rough patch. After an initial
Speaker 1: surge in demand at the top of the pandemic, things
Speaker 1: quieted down and Peloton found itself with warehouses full of
Speaker 1: product that they couldn't move. In addition, a terrible tragedy
Speaker 1: involving a treadmill made by the company necessitated an expensive recall.
Speaker 1: Shareholders began to lose confidence in Peloton, and apparently a
Speaker 1: batch of Peloton bikes coming out of a Taiwanese manufacturing
Speaker 1: facility had rust on them in mostly in non visible
Speaker 1: parts of the bikes, and the company's response reportedly was
Speaker 1: to use a chemical to conceal the corrosion. And I've
Speaker 1: seen this referred to as Project ten Man. I'm not
Speaker 1: actually sure if that originated from inside the company or not.
Speaker 1: Warehouse workers were told to use the concealer, which covered
Speaker 1: the rust with a black layer, so it wasn't removing
Speaker 1: the corrosion, it was just covering it up. It's like
Speaker 1: putting a rug over a dirty spot on the floor. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: inspectors were encouraged to downplay how badly rusted a bike
Speaker 1: actually was. Uh. And the company had adopted a policy
Speaker 1: that would allow lightly rusted vehicles or bikes, I should say,
Speaker 1: not really vehicles. They don't take you anywhere their stationary bikes,
Speaker 1: but they would allow lightly rusted ones to go on
Speaker 1: to be sold to customers and if it was deemed
Speaker 1: unsalable then it wouldn't be And the reports suggest that
Speaker 1: people at least felt pressured to air on the side
Speaker 1: of selling them to customers rather than to say no,
Speaker 1: this is unacceptable. Uh. So Platon has actually said that
Speaker 1: if anyone pushed something that should not be sold out
Speaker 1: to a customer, that was against corporate policy, and it
Speaker 1: actually falls on the person in charge of that inspection,
Speaker 1: not on Peloton. They said, no, listen, we would never
Speaker 1: want to do that. Uh. You know, we don't know
Speaker 1: where this came from these people are in charge of that,
Speaker 1: they have the authority to make those decisions, and if
Speaker 1: they chose to sell heavily rusted bikes to customers, that's
Speaker 1: that's on them now. Apparently at least six thousand bikes
Speaker 1: were affected by what Peloton creatively referred to as cosmetic oxidation,
Speaker 1: which I guess is glamour rust. The company has issued
Speaker 1: statements saying no customers have reported problems with the bikes
Speaker 1: and that the company would be certain to make available
Speaker 1: replacement parts should any problems pop up down the line
Speaker 1: due to this issue. That's good, though, I think you
Speaker 1: can make a strong argument that covering up the corrosion
Speaker 1: and calling it cosmetic oxidation points to its Peloton really
Speaker 1: knowing this wasn't a cool move from the get go.
Speaker 1: Online shopping has seen a bit of a decline as
Speaker 1: more people emerge from isolation and start to populate brick
Speaker 1: and mortar stores once again. Amazon has adjusted its forecast
Speaker 1: for first quarter sales, and it says that those estimates
Speaker 1: are now slightly lower than they originally were. eBay has
Speaker 1: had similar news. In fact, eBay's news was enough to
Speaker 1: concern shareholders and send the stock price down nearly nine
Speaker 1: and extended trading. Stephen Priest, the chief of finance at eBay,
Speaker 1: told investors, quote, the second quarter should mark the low
Speaker 1: point for margins during the year as we lap difficult
Speaker 1: comps and ramp up our pace of investment end quote.
Speaker 1: So it does sound like things are going to get
Speaker 1: worse for eBay before they get better. Andy Maxwell of
Speaker 1: torrent Freak wrote an article titled Reddit Banned two thousand,
Speaker 1: six hundred twenty five subreddits for excessive copyright infringement into
Speaker 1: in D twent d one, which details how Reddit is
Speaker 1: taking d m c A takedown notices. Seriously, that's the
Speaker 1: Digital Millennial Copyright Act. Maxwell points out that Reddit reviews
Speaker 1: these takedown notices and only takes further steps if the
Speaker 1: notification follows redd It's rules. So if someone sends in
Speaker 1: a copyright notice but they don't completely or correctly fill
Speaker 1: out Reddit's forms, then that notice doesn't count. Reddit will
Speaker 1: take no action on it because the person did not
Speaker 1: bother to actually properly fill out the notice in the
Speaker 1: first place. Then if the notice is filled up properly,
Speaker 1: Reddit examines the case to see if perhaps it's an
Speaker 1: example of fair use. So as a reminder, fair use
Speaker 1: covers exceptions to copyright exclusivity. Now, fair use is usually
Speaker 1: a matter that gets decided within a court of law.
Speaker 1: Arguing fair use on the outset isn't really a force
Speaker 1: field against d m C A action, But in limited cases,
Speaker 1: someone can use part of a copyrighted work without getting
Speaker 1: permission to do so. Anyway, Maxwell mentions that in one
Speaker 1: read it received copyright notices regarding more than nine twenty
Speaker 1: thousand pieces of content. Read It subsequently removed around six
Speaker 1: sixty five thousand of those pieces, So again, it's not
Speaker 1: a guarantee that once read It gets a copyright notice
Speaker 1: that it will strike content. It did so more frequently
Speaker 1: than it didn't, but like a third of almost a
Speaker 1: third of the complaints were dismissed. But Maxwell points out
Speaker 1: that folks really do need to take copyright more seriously
Speaker 1: on the platform because repeated violations can result not just
Speaker 1: in user bands, but even bands of entire sub credits.
Speaker 1: And imagine being part of a community that gets shut
Speaker 1: down because too many other folks in that community we're
Speaker 1: posting copyrighted material without permission. That would stink. Anyway, The
Speaker 1: article is a good read. I recommend checking it out again.
Speaker 1: It is titled Reddit banned two thousand, six d twenty
Speaker 1: five subreddits for excessive copyright infringement in one and it's
Speaker 1: on torrent Freak. Okay, we've got a few more stories
Speaker 1: before we close out today, but first let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break. Meta, the company that was formerly known as Facebook,
Speaker 1: has announced that it is developing AI tools dedicated to
Speaker 1: translating languages in real time any language to any other language.
Speaker 1: And right now, we do have tools that can cater
Speaker 1: to some of the major languages in the world, like Mandarin, English,
Speaker 1: and Spanish, but a lot of other languages have little
Speaker 1: to no support in those tools, and Meta says that
Speaker 1: the company wishes to build out a universal translator like programs,
Speaker 1: something that could let any two people from any two
Speaker 1: places in the world have a conversation in real time
Speaker 1: with each other, no matter what languages each person was speaking.
Speaker 1: So if you had one person speaking Portuguese and another
Speaker 1: speaking Hindi, they could communicate easily with one another through
Speaker 1: this AI application. And you can immediately understand how this
Speaker 1: would be a really important component in Meta's vision of
Speaker 1: its own future, primarily the metaverse. If there is to
Speaker 1: be a persistent global virtual world. It would be beneficial
Speaker 1: if there were no communication barriers between people visiting that world.
Speaker 1: I should add, however, that while Meta's goal is pretty
Speaker 1: easy to understand, like we we see what they're aiming for,
Speaker 1: Meta has not yet shared any information on how it
Speaker 1: plans to get to that goal, like how long is
Speaker 1: it going to take, what are the milestones to achieving
Speaker 1: that goal? None of that has been shared publicly. At
Speaker 1: least if I replacing a BET, I would aima oult
Speaker 1: several years, maybe as many as ten to get a
Speaker 1: really good handle on this. The tools we have today
Speaker 1: are pretty amazing, um, at least for the limited contexts
Speaker 1: in which they work. But they still have a lot
Speaker 1: of flaws and shortcomings. They're far from perfect. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of bias in there. There's still a lot of
Speaker 1: error in there um And a lot of this is
Speaker 1: because translation is hard. Interpretation is part of translation, and
Speaker 1: that is hard. So it's gonna take some time to
Speaker 1: develop something that can work with low latency and high
Speaker 1: reliability across all languages. The Center for Countering Digital Hate
Speaker 1: released research saying that Facebook is falling well short of
Speaker 1: its responsibility to flag climate misinformation. UH, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: it's supposed to tag UH posts that contain our links
Speaker 1: to articles that are are deemed to be misinformation. But
Speaker 1: the research states that ten publishers nicknamed the Toxic Ten,
Speaker 1: are responsible for nearly sevent of all climate change denial
Speaker 1: posts on Facebook, and that Facebook had only tagged about
Speaker 1: half of those as containing misinformation. The research sites examples
Speaker 1: of posts that clearly contained misinformation in the headlines alone,
Speaker 1: let alone inside the articles themselves, and yet did not
Speaker 1: get that climate denial misinformation tag on them. But a
Speaker 1: Facebook rep addressed the findings and said that part of
Speaker 1: the problem was that the company was actually in the
Speaker 1: process of rolling out its labeling platform when this research
Speaker 1: came out and when it was conducted, suggesting that it
Speaker 1: was just a matter of timing that the company was
Speaker 1: failing to tag of misinformation incidents. The c C d
Speaker 1: H report included several examples of posts that were made
Speaker 1: after September of last year, which is when Meta announced
Speaker 1: it was labeling climate change misinformation posts. So I guess
Speaker 1: it all just depends on which party you believe. Hopefully
Speaker 1: it will mean that we will see more accurate tagging
Speaker 1: in the future and potentially less bultification of misinformation across
Speaker 1: Facebook's platform. I know a guy can dream. U S
Speaker 1: Senator Tammy Baldwin sent a message to Activision Blizzards CEO
Speaker 1: at least for now, Bobby Codeck, and in that message,
Speaker 1: Baldwin told Codeck he should quote negotiate in good faith
Speaker 1: with the workers and suspend any efforts to undermine your
Speaker 1: employees legal rights to form a union and collectively bargain
Speaker 1: end quote. Among the many issues plaguing the company, one
Speaker 1: is that quality assurance testers working at Raven Software, which
Speaker 1: is owned by Activision Blizzard, have been attempting to unionize.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've seen several tech companies face unionization
Speaker 1: efforts in what I think we can generously refer to
Speaker 1: as an adversarial response. Of course, Microsoft is on track
Speaker 1: to acquire Activision Blizzard and a deal that will not
Speaker 1: finalize until the by the end of fiscal year three,
Speaker 1: which doesn't start until this July UM, so that is
Speaker 1: probably going to complicate matters. However, it does mean that
Speaker 1: Baldwin decided to copy Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadela on this
Speaker 1: letter as well, so you know she saw to it
Speaker 1: that that Nadela also got this notification to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're directing this at CODEC, but we really mean that
Speaker 1: you should allow your employees to unionize if they want to.
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard refused to voluntarily recognize the union, which means
Speaker 1: that now there are necessary further steps that must be taken,
Speaker 1: including a formal vote. UH side note I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: our our parent company, voluntarily recognize the Heart podcast union,
Speaker 1: so there are cases where companies will voluntarily recognize unions,
Speaker 1: but Activision Blizzard did not go that route. So assuming
Speaker 1: that the QA testers hold such a vote and the
Speaker 1: vote passes, then the National Labor Relations Board or in
Speaker 1: l r B would step in an Activision Blizzard would
Speaker 1: really have no choice but to recognize the union. Microsoft,
Speaker 1: i should add, is another company that is not particularly
Speaker 1: known to be super gung ho on unions. In fact,
Speaker 1: the acquisition agreement includes a clause that prevents Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: from voluntarily recognizing unions without first consulting with Microsoft executives, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, they have to ask their parents for
Speaker 1: permission first. There are also reports that Activision Blizzard was
Speaker 1: looking to redistribute the QA testers throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: activision Blizzard perhaps in an effort to head off this
Speaker 1: unionization effort, if they were incorporate into other teams, than
Speaker 1: you can make the argument, well, you don't have a
Speaker 1: high enough concentration of people who are trying to unionize
Speaker 1: because you have to read a reach a certain threshold
Speaker 1: in order to start this process. And if you dilute
Speaker 1: that by spreading out the employees into other divisions, that
Speaker 1: could be a way to try and avoid, uh, the
Speaker 1: whole issue. It's not common for U S. Senators to
Speaker 1: wait into matters like these, and they don't actually hold
Speaker 1: any legal authority to change the course of matters, but
Speaker 1: it could certainly help shape public opinion on the subject.
Speaker 1: And finally, on a related activision Blizzard note, Bloomberg reports
Speaker 1: that the company will delay what was to be the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three release in the Call of Duty franchise
Speaker 1: see activision. Blizzard has put out a new main title
Speaker 1: in that franchise every year since two thousand five, but
Speaker 1: now it sounds like the twenty twenty three release will
Speaker 1: take a little bit longer before players get a chance
Speaker 1: to play it. It will not come out in and
Speaker 1: it seems like part of this reason is that the
Speaker 1: most recent release, Call of Duty Vanguard, didn't meet company expectations,
Speaker 1: and that executives were blaming the fact that players were
Speaker 1: still playing earlier Call of Duty releases and that perhaps
Speaker 1: they were coming out a little too close together and
Speaker 1: not offering enough to players to necessitate them moving to
Speaker 1: the latest title, and so they want to take a
Speaker 1: little more time both to develop stronger games as well
Speaker 1: as to give the market a little time to create demand. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you can have too much of a
Speaker 1: good thing. Of course, some players would argue that good
Speaker 1: is not the word they would use for certain Call
Speaker 1: of Duty releases, not all of them have received universal acclaim. Also,
Speaker 1: there will still be plenty of cod content out there
Speaker 1: to play before the next major release, because they'll be
Speaker 1: various expansions. There's the free to play war Zone game mode.
Speaker 1: There's war Zone two that's supposed to be coming out
Speaker 1: in the future. So there just won't be another major
Speaker 1: release in the franchise in three but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: there won't be any Call of Duty content out there.
Speaker 1: All right. That wraps up this Tech News episode. If
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