Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, April twenty one. Let's get started.
Speaker 1: The Guardian has a pretty incredible piece about a former
Speaker 1: Facebook data scientist named Sophie Jong and her attempts to
Speaker 1: bring attention to state backed misinformation campaigns that used Facebook
Speaker 1: as a platform. She was fired from Facebook allegedly due
Speaker 1: to poor performance, though Young says that it was because
Speaker 1: she was spending so much time trying to show how
Speaker 1: organized groups were creating propaganda campaigns on Facebook, so she
Speaker 1: wasn't able to spend as much time on her normal duties.
Speaker 1: However you want to frame that that was why she
Speaker 1: was fired. And she wrote a farewell post, which is
Speaker 1: common practice at Facebook, and it was nearly eight thousand
Speaker 1: words long, which is not common practice at Facebook, and
Speaker 1: it was sort of to make her case. She created
Speaker 1: a separate website as well and published her farewell post
Speaker 1: there because the original one was on an internal Facebook forum.
Speaker 1: She wanted to make sure it existed in a separate
Speaker 1: location because she suspected that perhaps the company would delete
Speaker 1: her post. It did, in fact deleted the post, at
Speaker 1: least temporarily, and then allegedly Facebook pressured the hosting service
Speaker 1: that Jong was using for her website to take that
Speaker 1: post offline too, which is a big yikes from me.
Speaker 1: But now Jong is coming forward and supplying various news
Speaker 1: organizations with information about how state backed efforts pushing propaganda
Speaker 1: were relying on Facebook and how Facebook leadership kind of
Speaker 1: allowed it to have open and did not make any
Speaker 1: significant moves to stop it until it became, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of politically necessary. Her argument is that these actions
Speaker 1: or in actions from you know, Facebook management, strengthened authoritarianism
Speaker 1: in multiple parts of the globe. Jong says that the
Speaker 1: incident that kind of started this all off and alerted
Speaker 1: her to the problem was with Facebook pages that were
Speaker 1: supporting the President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez. She said
Speaker 1: that over the course of six months, his posts had
Speaker 1: received more than fifty nine thousand likes, but upon closer inspection,
Speaker 1: she saw that nearly eighty percent of those likes were
Speaker 1: from accounts that didn't represent real people. Instead, somebody presumably
Speaker 1: on her. Nandez's team had created hundreds of Facebook page accounts.
Speaker 1: So Facebook pages are meant for organizations and businesses, right,
Speaker 1: They don't represent a person so much as an entity,
Speaker 1: and a single administrator was overseeing hundreds of these pages
Speaker 1: and use them to boost likes on posts because Facebook
Speaker 1: pages can interact with posts the same way that normal
Speaker 1: Facebook accounts can. And then they also would post things
Speaker 1: that were praising her Nandez on that Facebook page and
Speaker 1: have other Facebook pages within that big network boost that
Speaker 1: particular post, giving it lots of likes and thus elevating it.
Speaker 1: And the effect was kind of a rising tide. It
Speaker 1: lifts all disinformation as Facebook's algorithm concludes that this is
Speaker 1: material that's driving engagement. You see a lot of likes
Speaker 1: and shares and stuff that shows engagement. Now, granted that
Speaker 1: engagement is coming from a bunch of Facebook pages that
Speaker 1: are run by the same person, but on surface, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's leget That meant that Facebook would then
Speaker 1: serve that up to an even wider audience. While she
Speaker 1: initially faced relucts from Facebook's management regarding taking any action
Speaker 1: towards this, ultimately the company would remove lots of accounts
Speaker 1: and admitted that Joan was correct to push for it.
Speaker 1: But despite that progress, she discovered that she often encountered
Speaker 1: opposition or at the very least, apathy when it came
Speaker 1: to addressing similar problems in lots of other countries. She
Speaker 1: saw that this was not unique to Honduras. It was
Speaker 1: happening in lots of places, particularly places with more authoritarian
Speaker 1: leaders in power. So she found instances in which these
Speaker 1: various regimes were using Facebook pages to heap criticism and
Speaker 1: abuse on political opponents, not just boost their own message,
Speaker 1: but to degrade anyone who opposed them. She advocated a
Speaker 1: change in the company's rules to close this sort of
Speaker 1: loophole that Facebook pages created for these different people. And
Speaker 1: as it stands, you can still make as many Facebook
Speaker 1: pages as you'll like, and they still interact with other posts,
Speaker 1: just like a normal Facebook account would. She noted that
Speaker 1: for poorer countries with smaller numbers of Facebook users, she
Speaker 1: rarely got very much support in doing anything about the problem.
Speaker 1: She said it was pretty clear that if the country
Speaker 1: were wealthy, then the company was more likely to do
Speaker 1: something about it. If the country had a larger number
Speaker 1: of people using Facebook, then it was more likely to
Speaker 1: do something about it, but it wasn't the same across
Speaker 1: the board. I really recommend reading the article. It is
Speaker 1: titled How Facebook let Fake Engagement Distort Global Politics? A
Speaker 1: whistleblowers account. It's by Julia Carey Wong, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it's at the Guardian. It's a very good read. I've
Speaker 1: only given a tiny summation of some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that's in that article, and it is fascinating and infuriating.
Speaker 1: In similar news, the Guardian also reports that Facebook, after
Speaker 1: a great deal of pressure and more than a year
Speaker 1: of delays, removed more than sixteen thousand groups that were
Speaker 1: posting fake reviews for products and services. Essentially, what it
Speaker 1: sounds like is that these groups were outright buying positive
Speaker 1: reviews for their own products and sometimes buying negative reviews
Speaker 1: for competitors, so paying someone to leave various reviews to
Speaker 1: try and boost numbers. It's pretty schevy stuff. This all
Speaker 1: came out of the UK. I mean that should be
Speaker 1: obviously with the Guardian, but the UK's Competition and Market
Speaker 1: authority pushed Facebook to act on this way back in January.
Speaker 1: But clearly since I reporting on it, and we're now
Speaker 1: in April of one, you could say that Facebook failed
Speaker 1: to act in a timely manner. The CMA released a
Speaker 1: statement that said, quote after we intervened again, the company
Speaker 1: made significant changes, but it is disappointing it has taken
Speaker 1: them over a year to fix these issues. End quote.
Speaker 1: I might have to do a full episode of out
Speaker 1: fake reviews and followers and such in a future tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that. You know. Back in two
Speaker 1: the Natan's nuclear reactor facility in Iran was hit with
Speaker 1: a specific type of malware called stucks net. We actually
Speaker 1: did a tech Stuff episode about it. So this malware
Speaker 1: had a very specific goal. It was to change the
Speaker 1: rotational speeds of centrifuges at the nuclear power plant, and
Speaker 1: the purpose of those centrifuges was to refine uranium. Refined
Speaker 1: uranium is the fuel for nuclear power plants, but if
Speaker 1: you refine it enough, you could potentially use that uranium
Speaker 1: to make a nuclear weapon. And it turned out that
Speaker 1: the CIA and Israel had collaborated on creating and deploying
Speaker 1: this malware, finding a way to get installed in the
Speaker 1: facility despite the fact that the facility had an air gap,
Speaker 1: that is the facilities, critical systems did not connect out
Speaker 1: to the internet. Stucks net would spread far beyond Iran though.
Speaker 1: It kind of just that dormant everywhere else because it
Speaker 1: had that specific purpose, and it set the Iranian nuclear
Speaker 1: program back a few years. Okay, but what does this
Speaker 1: have to do with today? Well, if you flash forward,
Speaker 1: it sounds like Israel has had a hand in another
Speaker 1: tech attack designed to disrupt the Natan's nuclear reactor. This time,
Speaker 1: the Iranians report that someone carried out a cyber attack
Speaker 1: that sent the Natan's facility into a blackout, and it's
Speaker 1: a move that the Iranian officials say also caused extensive
Speaker 1: damage to the electricity grid. As I record this, Israel
Speaker 1: hasn't denied involvement in what Iranians are calling sabotage. Israel
Speaker 1: and Iran have been hostile to one another for a
Speaker 1: very long time, with both countries striking out against the
Speaker 1: other for several years. Speaking of nuclear power, the Natan's plant,
Speaker 1: like all practical nuclear plants that are commercial facilities today,
Speaker 1: runs on nuclear fission. That is the process that we
Speaker 1: rely on to generate electricity. Boils down to heavy atoms
Speaker 1: get split apart and they release a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: which is then used to generate electricity. I won't go
Speaker 1: into the full detail that it's an episode all by itself,
Speaker 1: but there are scientists working hard to create practical nuclear
Speaker 1: fusion reactors which would take to light atoms like as
Speaker 1: in lighter ones on the lighter into the elemental table
Speaker 1: and then fuse those two light atoms together, which also
Speaker 1: releases a lot of energy. And what's more, you're not
Speaker 1: talking about the dangerous radiation that you would get with
Speaker 1: fusion reactors, Like the material you're using isn't radioactive in
Speaker 1: that sense, then you're not generating radioactive waste. It could
Speaker 1: lead to some transformational changes in the way that countries
Speaker 1: meet their energy requirements. With working fusion reactors, a country
Speaker 1: could conceivably go entirely independent for its energy needs, which
Speaker 1: in turn really boosts national security. You're not dependent upon
Speaker 1: on some other nation for say oil. But fusion reactors
Speaker 1: require a lot of energy just to get started, and
Speaker 1: you're typically talking about pumping in energy that is equivalent
Speaker 1: to millions of degrees of heat. And that means that
Speaker 1: while scientists have created fusion reactors that can produce energy
Speaker 1: from fusion reactions, the big barrier is that it took
Speaker 1: as much or nearly as much energy to start the
Speaker 1: reaction as you get out of that reaction. Now, that
Speaker 1: sort of ratio clearly doesn't work, and it doesn't work
Speaker 1: if you want to produce electricity at any real scale.
Speaker 1: If you're pouring in as much energy as you're getting out,
Speaker 1: then you're not really achieving anything. But a company called
Speaker 1: t A E Technologies says that it anticipates a working
Speaker 1: commercial fusion reactor by the end of the decade. That
Speaker 1: is exciting stuff. And yeah, it's still several years away,
Speaker 1: but considering the amount of energy and computing power needed
Speaker 1: to get this just right, it's still really impressive. My
Speaker 1: hope is that T A E. Technologies is absolutely right
Speaker 1: about this, and that by we see fusion reactors transform
Speaker 1: how we get our electricity, it could really make an
Speaker 1: enormous contribution to countries that are trying to leave fossil
Speaker 1: fuels behind, and it could power all those companies that
Speaker 1: it plans to go carbon neutral or carbon negative in
Speaker 1: the near future. Microsoft is buying a company called Nuance,
Speaker 1: which is in the AI and speech recognition industry. Nuance
Speaker 1: produces a type of software called Dragon, which uses machine
Speaker 1: learning to tweak itself as it interacts with a particular
Speaker 1: speaker as a person who is speaking. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: this is a speech recognition approach that improves the more
Speaker 1: someone works with it. The system comes to recognize that
Speaker 1: person's accent, their speech patterns, pronunciation, etcetera. Apple's serri relies
Speaker 1: in part on the Dragon software, though to what degree
Speaker 1: remains Apple's secret sauce or secret Apple sauce, Secret Apple Sauce.
Speaker 1: I'm getting off track, sorry. Microsoft is paying nearly twenty
Speaker 1: billion dollars princely some for Nuance. The only acquisition Microsoft
Speaker 1: has paid more for was linked In back in that
Speaker 1: set them back around twenty six billion bucks or so.
Speaker 1: What does Microsoft plan to do with Nuance? Well, I
Speaker 1: imagine we'll see some tight integrations of Dragon software with
Speaker 1: other Microsoft products such as Office three. Perhaps will see
Speaker 1: more speech to text applications. If those are good enough,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll just dictate my notes to my computer instead
Speaker 1: of you know, typing them all out. But then I'll
Speaker 1: have to say the same stuff twice, with the second
Speaker 1: time being you know, on Mike for recording. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should think that through again. But seriously, this could be
Speaker 1: an evolutionary step in accessibility, and it could really bolster
Speaker 1: the features found in other Microsoft products. So I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to see how it gets integrated moving forward. Mark
Speaker 1: German of Bloomberg reports that Apple is working on a
Speaker 1: smart speaker product that will have an iPad as a display.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's a home pod with a view.
Speaker 1: Home Pod, in case you don't know, is Apple's smart
Speaker 1: speaker they launched that they have since discontinued the original
Speaker 1: home pod, that the HomePod many still exists, I think.
Speaker 1: The German says that at least one of the concepts
Speaker 1: for the new speaker included away for the screen the
Speaker 1: little iPad on it to rotate around the top of
Speaker 1: the speaker so that the screen can always face you.
Speaker 1: So they imagine around speaker with a screen attached to it,
Speaker 1: and as you move from one side of the room
Speaker 1: to the other, the screen actually rotates around the speaker
Speaker 1: to always face you. Um. Sounds kind of creepy. Really,
Speaker 1: also sounds very similar to the Amazon Echo show Tin,
Speaker 1: which I admit was a product that I didn't even
Speaker 1: know existed until I was looking into this. German says
Speaker 1: the Apples also working on a sort of Apple TV
Speaker 1: slash soundbar type device that also has a camera incorporated
Speaker 1: in it. So it makes me think of a kind
Speaker 1: of a combination of things. Parts streaming media service, kind
Speaker 1: of like a Roku, part sound system, so like your
Speaker 1: traditional sound bar, and part video interface like the old
Speaker 1: Microsoft Connect. Though reportedly this camera would be used for
Speaker 1: stuff like making video calls, but not you know, gest
Speaker 1: your controls necessarily. I'm not super deep in the Apple ecosystem,
Speaker 1: so while I think these technologies are kind of cool,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I have a place for them
Speaker 1: in my life. But they do sound really neat. What
Speaker 1: I'm really waiting on to learn more about is Apple's
Speaker 1: augmented reality technology that's been in development for a while.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to see more about that. That's what has
Speaker 1: me excited. If you're keeping track of all the services
Speaker 1: and apps that Google has introduced and then subsequently abandoned,
Speaker 1: get ready to add another one. The company has confirmed
Speaker 1: it will shut down the Shopping app on iOS and
Speaker 1: Android devices by eight June, with much of that functionality
Speaker 1: closing down in the weeks leading up to that. If
Speaker 1: you've never used the Shopping app, it's an app that
Speaker 1: tells you where you can shop for specific products. The
Speaker 1: app leveraged Google's search to come through online stores and
Speaker 1: pulling up results that hopefully are relevant to whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're searching for. Google will continue to support the
Speaker 1: Google Shopping website, which you know does the same thing,
Speaker 1: and you could just access that using a browser on
Speaker 1: your smartphone and bypass the app entirely. We're also likely
Speaker 1: to see the shopping features included into other Google products,
Speaker 1: So if you were to just search for a specific
Speaker 1: item on a Google phone, for example, you might get
Speaker 1: a shopping link pop up as one of your potential
Speaker 1: you know, search results in that respect. But yeah, iOS
Speaker 1: and Android shopping app from Google is going out of business.
Speaker 1: If you live in Houston, Texas, and if you order
Speaker 1: a pizza from Dominoes, there's a chance your pizza will
Speaker 1: arrive at your front door courtesy of a robot. Domino's
Speaker 1: has partnered with a startup company called neuro in u
Speaker 1: r O to test this out in a pilot or
Speaker 1: I guess technically a pilot less program. The robot looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a manature van or bus. It is autonomous.
Speaker 1: It's called R two, which is cute. It has cameras, radar,
Speaker 1: and thermal imaging to help detect its environment and let
Speaker 1: it get around, and the robots precious cargo is protected
Speaker 1: by an electronic lock which can be disengaged if you
Speaker 1: type in the proper pen which is good because I
Speaker 1: know that here in America robots traveling by themselves don't
Speaker 1: always do so well. Rest in peace, Hitchbot gone, but
Speaker 1: not forgotten. And this is not going to be a
Speaker 1: citywide program either. It's not like if you live in
Speaker 1: Houston you're going to be able to access this. It's
Speaker 1: actually a very small experiment. Only the Domino's p It's
Speaker 1: a joint in Woodland Heights on Houston Avenue is participating
Speaker 1: in this experiment so far. And even then, the robot
Speaker 1: will only be delivering during certain times on certain days.
Speaker 1: But on those days and during those times, residents of
Speaker 1: Woodland Heights and Houston might be able to get up
Speaker 1: piping hot zo delivered courtesy of a robot that almost
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't wish to conquer the planet, assuming of course,
Speaker 1: that the annoid hasn't found a way to compromise the robot.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the news for Tuesday A one.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions or topics I should cover in
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, let me know. Reach out via Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is Text Stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: now I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff
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