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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey therein

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm

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Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech are you?

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Speaker 1: It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, September twelfth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. So here in the United States, the

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Speaker 1: White House has proposed commitments on how to go about

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Speaker 1: developing and then deploying various artificial intelligence products. These are

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Speaker 1: voluntary commitments, so there's no law or anything here. It's

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Speaker 1: nothing holding anyone to these things. It's more like a

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Speaker 1: pledge that AI companies will promise to do their very

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Speaker 1: best not to release AI products that actively make life worse.

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Speaker 1: That kind of thing anyway. Several companies have already signed

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Speaker 1: this pledge, and some joined the group this week. The

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Speaker 1: new ones that joined include IBM and Adobe and Nvidia.

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Speaker 1: This follows other really big companies like Google and Microsoft,

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Speaker 1: along with open Ai, who signed to obey these commitments

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Speaker 1: back in July. Another one that signed this week, perhaps

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Speaker 1: a bit surprisingly, was a Palenteer. And what is it

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Speaker 1: with scary tech companies taking their names from JRR Tolkien works?

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Speaker 1: Because Pallenteer comes from Lord of the Rings, and that's

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Speaker 1: a software company that has associations with stuff like predictive policing,

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Speaker 1: think like Minority Report, but without the psychics. They also

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Speaker 1: do deep analytics to look at things like crime statistics

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Speaker 1: and potential terrorism and things like that. Then you've got

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Speaker 1: another Tolkien based defense company. This is not one that

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Speaker 1: signed the AI agreement. But there's Anderil, which is Palmer

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Speaker 1: Lucky's defense company. That one's working on military drum. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: considering Pallunteer's history, I'm a little bit skeptical regarding how

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Speaker 1: sincere their commitment to the responsible development of AI might be.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's not fair, but again, I don't think predictive

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Speaker 1: policing is fair either. So we're all in the wrong here.

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Speaker 1: But let's get back to these commitments. Generally speaking, they

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Speaker 1: are some fairly broad promises to essentially not create malicious

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Speaker 1: or dangerous AI, at least not on purpose. It's largely

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Speaker 1: being looked at as sort of a placeholder while the

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Speaker 1: US Congress debates on any actual laws that would govern

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Speaker 1: the development and deployment of AI, because you know, the

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Speaker 1: president can't just make laws. That's the that's the job

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Speaker 1: of the legislative branch. The president will then you know,

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Speaker 1: sign a bill into law. But the president cannot make

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Speaker 1: laws on their own. So that's why this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of these these wishy washy voluntary commitments. Still, I

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Speaker 1: guess it's better than nothing. Time will tell. I suppose

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Speaker 1: a big tech court case begins today in the United States.

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Speaker 1: So in this conna, we got the US Department of

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Speaker 1: Justice and their opponent from pot's unknown, well not unknown,

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Speaker 1: it was a garage in California. It's Google. So the

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Speaker 1: lawsuit in this case is a really big anti trust lawsuit.

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Speaker 1: So this has to do with monopolies, you know, not

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Speaker 1: the kind where if you rolled doubles you get to

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Speaker 1: go again. The last time the US government went after

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Speaker 1: a tech company like this was way back in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight. That's when initially US courts found Microsoft guilty

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Speaker 1: of violating the Sherman Anti Trust Act, and ultimately the

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Speaker 1: judgment was that the company would need to break up

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Speaker 1: into two different companies, one that focused on the operating

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Speaker 1: system and one that focused on software. But an appeals

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Speaker 1: court later took the teeth out of that. Microsoft was

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Speaker 1: allowed to remain a cohesive whole and continue to grow

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Speaker 1: and consolidate and such. Now Google is in the government's crosshairs.

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Speaker 1: The argument is that Google has used its dominant position

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Speaker 1: to maintain a stranglehold on the web search business. Now,

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, Google's real business is mostly about displaying ads.

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Speaker 1: It's just that web search results are the vehicle through

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Speaker 1: which Google serves ads, So the search part is kind

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Speaker 1: of like, it's sort of beside the point. The whole

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Speaker 1: business for Google is the ad business. But most analyzes

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Speaker 1: are suggesting that Google commands more than ninety percent of

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Speaker 1: the market share for web searches, So it definitely seems

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Speaker 1: like we're talking monopoly territory here. I mean, if more

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Speaker 1: than nine out of ten web searches are using your product,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you can argue you don't hold

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Speaker 1: a monopoly. Google's lawyers argue that the company actually has

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Speaker 1: plenty of competition. I mean, you know, first of all,

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Speaker 1: you got bing. Everybody knows bing, right, But beyond that,

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Speaker 1: they argue that there are other services that serve a

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Speaker 1: similar purpose as web searches. It's just they're not obviously

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Speaker 1: web searches. So maybe it's a service like Yelp, where

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Speaker 1: you're using Yelp to figure out where you're going to

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Speaker 1: go eat out at night, or maybe it's a service

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Speaker 1: like Amazon where you're searching for a specific product to purchase.

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Speaker 1: And so Google's argument is like, that's our competition, right,

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Speaker 1: so therefore we're not a monopoly. There's all these other

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Speaker 1: services that are doing similar things. I don't think those

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Speaker 1: arguments are terribly convincing personally, but then I'm not a judge,

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Speaker 1: so maybe I would be persuaded if I were. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: this case is really just a determine if Google has

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Speaker 1: done anything that could be considered illegal, like if they

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Speaker 1: have broken the Sherman Antitrust Act or something like that.

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Speaker 1: If the trial determines that Google has done that, then

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Speaker 1: there will have to be another trial to figure out

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Speaker 1: what to do about Google. Also, I've said that name

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Speaker 1: so many times that my smart speaker is now listening

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Speaker 1: to me because I heard it chime a second ago.

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Speaker 1: So if you heard that, it's just a hazard of

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Speaker 1: the business. Now. Google is not the only big tech

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Speaker 1: company facing some legal scrutiny recently. Ashley Giovic, whose name

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Speaker 1: I know I'm butchering and I will continue to do so.

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Speaker 1: She was once an employee of Apple, and she has

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Speaker 1: brought several civil cases against Apple over the last couple

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Speaker 1: of years. So, in twenty twenty one, Apple fired her

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Speaker 1: and said that she had violated the company's intellectual property

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Speaker 1: policies and the company accused her of leaking proprietary information

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Speaker 1: to the public. However, before she was fired, she had

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Speaker 1: come forward as a whistleblower and she had complaints about

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Speaker 1: Apple's effects on the environment, saying that their environmental policy

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Speaker 1: was not reflective of what the company was actually doing.

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Speaker 1: She also argued that the company had severe problems of

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Speaker 1: harassment and discrimination within corporate culture. And so she says

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Speaker 1: that she was fired not because of supposedly leaking proprietary information,

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Speaker 1: but rather this was a retaliatory strike against her to

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Speaker 1: silence her after she came forward with these whistleblower complaints. Now,

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Speaker 1: retaliatory action is a pretty big no no for companies.

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Speaker 1: She then brought some civil cases against Apple. They have

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Speaker 1: slowly made their way through the system. She actually won

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Speaker 1: one of those cases and got a preliminary win in

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Speaker 1: another one. However, the state has been very slow, or

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Speaker 1: the courts, I should say, not just the state. The

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Speaker 1: court systems have been very slow, and there is a

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Speaker 1: statute of limitations on these civil cases, so that means

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Speaker 1: that her cases are actually going to expire, they will

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Speaker 1: no longer be viable. And it's not her fault because

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Speaker 1: she can't just make the investigations pick up the pace.

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Speaker 1: So she has now filed a civil lawsuit against Apple

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Speaker 1: to keep her efforts alive as she awaits the results

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Speaker 1: of various investigations looking into the claims of retaliation. The

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Speaker 1: lawsuit she has filed is a RICO lawsuit. RICO stands

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Speaker 1: for Racketeering, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, So there are

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Speaker 1: federal RICO laws and there are state RICO laws here

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Speaker 1: in the United States. RICO laws add in some pretty

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Speaker 1: hefty penalties, but they only cover charges that are part

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Speaker 1: of the operations of a criminal organization. So it's for

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Speaker 1: very specific circumstances. You can't just use racketeering charges for anything.

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Speaker 1: It has to be this case within the realm of

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Speaker 1: operations of a criminal organization. And usually we see RICO

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Speaker 1: apply to stuff like gang's an organized crime. Famously, here

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Speaker 1: in Georgia we are seeing RICO charges applied to the

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Speaker 1: alleged conspiracy to overturn the results of the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: election here in my home state. So her lawsuit against

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Speaker 1: Apple is essentially saying Apple is effectively operating like a

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Speaker 1: criminal organization. She posted a lengthy blog entry on this,

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Speaker 1: and I will quote the relevant RICO passage here. It's

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Speaker 1: a long quote, but it's a very long piece. So

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Speaker 1: here we go. Quote. If an employer terminates an employee

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Speaker 1: in a way that constitutes an indictable criminal act that

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Speaker 1: is on the enumerated list of predicate acts for RICO,

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Speaker 1: it can then establish a RICO case with additional related

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Speaker 1: predicate acts. Apple fired me in an egregious violation of

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Speaker 1: eighteen USC. Section fifteen twelve and fifteen thirteen, with me

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Speaker 1: me even complaining of witness intimidation. As they did the

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Speaker 1: deed with that predicate act, I was able to weave

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Speaker 1: in their additional violations of fifteen twelve and fifteen thirteen,

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Speaker 1: their wire fraud and mail fraud, my complaints about securities fraud,

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Speaker 1: and my complaints about state criminal bribery and extortion. This

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Speaker 1: also opened the door to include predicate acts of Tom

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Speaker 1: Moyer's criminal bribery charge, Nancy Heinen's securities fraud charges, and

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Speaker 1: gene Levoff's securities fraud convictions. I also found a surprising

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Speaker 1: doorway into integrating my toxic torte claims at Apple's many

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Speaker 1: environmental law violations, which I will write about in detail later.

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Speaker 1: End quote. And again, like I said, that's a very

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Speaker 1: long quote, but it's part of a much much longer

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Speaker 1: piece where she explains her process. No word yet on

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Speaker 1: how Apple will respond to this lawsuit, but yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is a This is a pretty hefty piece of lawsuit

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Speaker 1: to be brought up against Apple. Whether it goes anywhere,

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Speaker 1: who's to say, But we will see. Okay, I've got

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Speaker 1: a lot more news to cover before we get to that.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. This week, TikTok has rolled

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Speaker 1: out e commerce features on its platform in the United States,

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Speaker 1: so users in the US will now see a shop tab,

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Speaker 1: and it's so inclined they can use that to view

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Speaker 1: and purchase items, and it gives brands more incentives to

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Speaker 1: work with TikTok and to seek out influencers in the

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Speaker 1: space and to form strategic partnerships. And for folks who

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Speaker 1: are using TikTok, it means they can shop, shop, shop

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Speaker 1: till they tick TikTok or something. This is nothing new

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Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. TikTok has had similar

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Speaker 1: e commerce features live in places like the UK, Singapore, Malaysia,

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Speaker 1: the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam for a while now. So

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Speaker 1: it's interesting to me because business is clearly going on

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Speaker 1: for TikTok here in the US, even as we still

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Speaker 1: occasionally see various US government officials make efforts to shut

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Speaker 1: TikTok down or force it to be divested from its

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Speaker 1: parent company, byte Edance. So yeah, interesting stuff if you're

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Speaker 1: a TikTok user, now, y'all. I'm headed off to Vegas

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Speaker 1: in a little bit more than a week for a

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Speaker 1: work trip. Actually it's technically for two work trips, but

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Speaker 1: those work trips are back to back, so I just

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Speaker 1: made it one big one. So for one week, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to be recording in a hotel room in Las Vegas.

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Speaker 1: It's really living the lush life anyway. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be staying at a place that is owned by MGM Resorts,

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Speaker 1: and that has me a little bit concerned because this

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Speaker 1: week the company experienced some sort of undefined quote unquote

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Speaker 1: cybersecurity issue. The issue has already been a pretty serious one.

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Speaker 1: The company had to replace its homepage with a message

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Speaker 1: explaining that its websites were now offline, and instead gave

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Speaker 1: people various phone numbers if they needed to talk with

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Speaker 1: someone at one of the MGM resorts to do things like,

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Speaker 1: you know, make a reservation or whatever. And while I'm

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Speaker 1: familiar with the Vegas properties under MGM, it turns out

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Speaker 1: this cybersecurity issue was organizationwide. It's not just the MGM

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Speaker 1: properties in Vegas. Also the ones in Atlantic City and

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Speaker 1: Detroit have had at least some effect with this too.

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Speaker 1: So according to a couple sites I was reading, some

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Speaker 1: digital keys stopped working. The resorts rewards program went offline.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty big deal for lots of gamblers who

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Speaker 1: you know, they use those rewards programs to kind of

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Speaker 1: eke out every single potential benefit you can get from

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Speaker 1: gambling and shopping at a particular resort. And at least

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Speaker 1: some MGM operated casinos were having issues with their slot machines.

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Speaker 1: So these days, you know, most slot machines use digital

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Speaker 1: video rather than physical spools. There are some that still

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Speaker 1: use spools, but they're all commanded by a micro cheb.

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Speaker 1: But some pictures shared on X formerly known as Twitter,

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Speaker 1: showed slot machines that were offline. They had error messages

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Speaker 1: on their screens. Beyond that, apparently some ATMs were also offline,

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Speaker 1: and according to at least one X user, the cashier

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Speaker 1: window in an MGM resort had shut down as well,

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Speaker 1: which is a big ol' ouch. The rumor mill has

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Speaker 1: circulated that the issue might stem from a ransomware attack,

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Speaker 1: but no such confirmation has been made by MGM resorts itself.

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Speaker 1: Now let's pop on over to X slash Twitter for

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Speaker 1: a second. According to an analysis firm called news Whip,

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Speaker 1: it looks like X has been purposefully limiting the reach

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Speaker 1: of posts containing links to articles on the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: NewsWhip saw that starting in July, there was this precipitous

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Speaker 1: drop and how frequently New York Times articles were being

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Speaker 1: shared across X, and the engagement that New York Times

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Speaker 1: had on other social media platforms remained stable. So it

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Speaker 1: was just on X where this dip was happening. So

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Speaker 1: unless the population of X slash Twitter just started to

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Speaker 1: behave out of line with people everywhere else, it is

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Speaker 1: a somewhat understandable conclusion to assume that X has done

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Speaker 1: something behind the scenes to limit the spread of New

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Speaker 1: York Times material across the platform. If we assume that

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Speaker 1: X is intentionally limiting the reach of New York Times articles,

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Speaker 1: it does once again seem to go against Elon Musk's

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Speaker 1: claimed commitment to free speech. Now, I know I say

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Speaker 1: this a lot, but I'm going to say it again anyway.

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Speaker 1: To me, it seems that Musk's idea of free speech

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Speaker 1: is only applicable to speech that he agrees with, and

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Speaker 1: everything else is fair game. Anyway. As far as I

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Speaker 1: can tell, The Times has yet to receive an explanation

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Speaker 1: as to why there's been this big change in engagement

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Speaker 1: and traffic on X and that it quote would be

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Speaker 1: concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for

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Speaker 1: unclear reasons end quote over at a different Musk company,

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Speaker 1: that being Tesla. It appears that there was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a mutiny going on in the last few years,

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Speaker 1: kind of low key mutiny in the grand scheme of things.

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Speaker 1: Auto Blog reported on this, citing biographer Walter Isaacson, who

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Speaker 1: is releasing a biography about Musk this week. Apparently, Franz

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Speaker 1: von Holtzhausen, who serves as design chief at Tesla told

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Speaker 1: Isaacson that some engineers within Tesla really hated the design

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Speaker 1: of the cyber truck. I'll remind you the cyber truck

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Speaker 1: was announced in twenty nineteen kind of to hilarious results,

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Speaker 1: and yet has not reached a single customer, although theoretically

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Speaker 1: they could be coming out any day now. We actually

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Speaker 1: don't really have that much real information about specs and

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Speaker 1: capability of this vehicle, which is odd considering how close

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Speaker 1: it supposedly is to being delivered. You know, last we

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Speaker 1: heard it was going to be shipped by the end

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Speaker 1: of the month. Anyway, back to the story, So apparently

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Speaker 1: these designers took issue with the proposed cyber truck back

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Speaker 1: in the design phase and decided that they would not

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Speaker 1: be a part of it. Instead, they secretly began designing

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Speaker 1: their own electric pickup truck. Now, whatever happened to those designs,

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Speaker 1: or even whatever happened to the people who made them,

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Speaker 1: I can't say. I can't say. The cyber truck continues

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Speaker 1: to be a divisive topic in general. Some folks kind

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Speaker 1: of dig the weird angular body, others absolutely hate it.

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of indifferent with it. I'm more interested in

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Speaker 1: a company's ability to hold itself to deadlines and schedules,

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Speaker 1: which I imagine is a lot easier when the person

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Speaker 1: in charge isn't as mercurial as Musk appears to be.

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Speaker 1: The state of California has passed a bill that effectively

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Speaker 1: will ban autonomous heavy duty vehicles that operate on public

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Speaker 1: roads if those vehicles don't have a human being ready

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Speaker 1: to take over in an instant. So essentially, this bill,

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Speaker 1: if passed into law, will ban autonomous trucking at least

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Speaker 1: any autonomous trucking that doesn't also have a human driver

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Speaker 1: in addition to the autonomous systems. It passed the state

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Speaker 1: Senate thirty six to two. Now it goes to California

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Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom's desks. If he signs the bill, then

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Speaker 1: it will become law. However, Newsom has a history of

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Speaker 1: siding with tech companies. He's very tech company friendly, so

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Speaker 1: it's possible he'll choose to veto the measure. In fact,

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Speaker 1: all indications seem to suggest that's what he will do.

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Speaker 1: The bill is kind of at the center of an ongoing,

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Speaker 1: heated debate within California, So you've got people who represent

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Speaker 1: the interest of truckers, you know, like Teamster Unions who

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Speaker 1: argue that companies that are in the autonomous vehicle space,

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Speaker 1: who have been pushing for autonomous trucking are doing so

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Speaker 1: without having a proven safety record, and that it's largely

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Speaker 1: an attempt to appeal to shareholders, to appeal to investors

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Speaker 1: to say, hey, look, we're getting ready to jump into

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Speaker 1: full deployment now because it's been such a slow process

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Speaker 1: of having the technology evolve over time that this has

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Speaker 1: taken longer than these companies anticipated, and in order to

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Speaker 1: give their investors something to hold on to, they're saying,

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Speaker 1: all right, we're going to jump into operations. And so

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Speaker 1: that's why Teamster Unions say that they are behind the

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Speaker 1: bill that would ban this. They also, of course point

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Speaker 1: out that it could have a huge negative impact on

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Speaker 1: the trucking industry as far as the truckers themselves are concerned,

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Speaker 1: it could take away their livelihoods. So the bill calls

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Speaker 1: for more extensive studies on vehicle performance and safety, and

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Speaker 1: the California Department of Motor Vehicles would have to make

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Speaker 1: a determination as to how safe or unsafe the tech

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Speaker 1: was by January first, twenty twenty nine, or after five

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Speaker 1: years of testing, whichever comes first. The DMV is not

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Speaker 1: thrilled with that measure. They have argued that it would

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Speaker 1: have a chilling effect innovation. If Newsom does veto the

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Speaker 1: bill as expected, it would require a two thirds majority

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Speaker 1: in both the California Senate and the state Assembly to

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Speaker 1: override the veto and pass it into law. That hasn't

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Speaker 1: happened since nineteen seventy nine. But based on what I'm seeing,

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Speaker 1: the California Assembly voted in favor initially sixty nine to

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Speaker 1: four when they first passed this bill, and the Senate

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Speaker 1: approved it thirty six to two. So really the support

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Speaker 1: is there if they wanted to try and override a veto.

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Speaker 1: I just don't know if they would want to do that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's it for the news for Tuesday, September twelfth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three. I hope you're all well, and I'll talk

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Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. He