Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and How the Tech
Speaker 1: are you Today? We're going to cover the tech news
Speaker 1: for Thursday, March nine, twenty twenty three. But before I
Speaker 1: get to that, I just want to thank bridget Todd,
Speaker 1: host of There Are No Girls on the Internet, or
Speaker 1: taking over the show yesterday. I hope you enjoyed that episode.
Speaker 1: You should definitely check out There Are No Girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet. There are three seasons of episodes. Season four
Speaker 1: is around the corner, and she does really great work
Speaker 1: and talks with some really smart and passionate people, and
Speaker 1: if you are one of those folks who gets really
Speaker 1: riled up about issues in society in general and tech
Speaker 1: in particular, you'll definitely want to tune into that. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to the tech news, and we're going to
Speaker 1: start off by following up on a story I talked
Speaker 1: about earlier this week, the sad Tale of Silvergate Bank. So,
Speaker 1: before twenty fourteen, this bank was primarily focused on serving
Speaker 1: as a financial institution in the real estate market in
Speaker 1: southern California, but then it hitched its wagon to the
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency market and started to work with crypto clients. So
Speaker 1: these markets need to connect to traditional financial institutions to
Speaker 1: be useful beyond the insular ecosystem of the crypto world.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't do you much good if you had all
Speaker 1: of your money in bitcoin, if there were no way
Speaker 1: to get your money out of bitcoin. Sure, you could
Speaker 1: use bitcoin to purchase some stuff, but the vast majority
Speaker 1: of transactions that you would need to make in your
Speaker 1: day to day life would likely exist outside of the
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency ecosystem. So you need financial institutions to facilitate movement
Speaker 1: on and off that ecosystem. Plus companies dealing with crypto
Speaker 1: they need banks too, and so Silvergate began to cater
Speaker 1: to this world. But as we all know, last year
Speaker 1: saw a series of disasters hit the crypto markets. Some
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies imploded, we talked about that earlier this week. Crypto
Speaker 1: lenders and exchanges went under, and this ripple effect extended
Speaker 1: out beyond the immediate cryptocurrency ecosystem into the classic financial
Speaker 1: world in the form of Silvergate. The bank had operated
Speaker 1: its own exchange known as Silvergate exchange Network, which the
Speaker 1: company has already shut down. It held deposits for various
Speaker 1: crypto companies, but in the wake of these crypto disasters
Speaker 1: last year, particularly with FTX collapsing, customers withdrew an astonishing
Speaker 1: eight point one billion dollars from their silver Gate accounts.
Speaker 1: The company Silvergate had a billion dollar loss following this event,
Speaker 1: and now it sounds like the actual situation at Silvergate
Speaker 1: was even more dire than the PaperWorks seemed to indicate.
Speaker 1: This has led the Silvergate Capitol Corporation to announce that
Speaker 1: the bank is closing. It will return deposits to customers
Speaker 1: and then shut down, and it credited quote recent industry
Speaker 1: and regulatory developments end quote as the reason behind closing
Speaker 1: up shop. And to be fair, the US government is
Speaker 1: expected to look into Silvergate, possibly to see if there
Speaker 1: were any hinky things going on between Silvergate and FTX.
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is, even if nothing
Speaker 1: untoward was happening, even if everything was on the up
Speaker 1: and up, there was enough momentum and this collapse to
Speaker 1: lead to Silvergate's downfall. Now this news is bad for
Speaker 1: the entire crypto world. For one thing, the number of
Speaker 1: regulated financial institutions that can serve as a bridge for
Speaker 1: the crypto world has dropped by one, and there were
Speaker 1: not that many to start with. For another, we might
Speaker 1: see a rise in crypto companies being willing to make
Speaker 1: use of poorly regulated or even unregulated organizations for banking.
Speaker 1: And as we've already seen with crypto, a lack of
Speaker 1: regulation may not really be the feature, it might really
Speaker 1: be the bug. You know, we've had a lot of
Speaker 1: crypto enthusiasts say that the lack of regulation is a
Speaker 1: good thing, but twenty twenty two really showed that without
Speaker 1: regulation there's a lot of potential for things to go sideways. Now,
Speaker 1: if everyone's behaving properly, regulation wouldn't be necessary. But that's
Speaker 1: kind of true in most cases, regardless of what industry
Speaker 1: we're talking about, right, And we know that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of folks in the crypto community who are
Speaker 1: not having well. They are specifically looking for ways to
Speaker 1: take advantage of others. They are opportunists who don't mind
Speaker 1: speculating and ramping up and then rug pulling. It's clear
Speaker 1: there are plenty of folks who fall into that camp. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a third concern about Silvergate's collapse, which is that
Speaker 1: as Silvergate was in the eyes of say, regulators and governments,
Speaker 1: a quote unquote real financial institution, we're likely to see
Speaker 1: governments take a closer look and a deeper concern in
Speaker 1: the crypto market in general than we have already seen.
Speaker 1: Because it's one thing for these ephemeral ecosystems to crash
Speaker 1: in on themselves, right, that's a problem. People lose money,
Speaker 1: real people lose real money in the process. So governments
Speaker 1: are already concerned about that. But now we have an
Speaker 1: example of an established quote unquote real world bank also
Speaker 1: having to shut down as a result of the crypto
Speaker 1: market involvement. And when the consequences of the crypto world
Speaker 1: spill over into the traditional financial world, things can look
Speaker 1: really scary for governments and regulators. So, if anything, I
Speaker 1: imagine this is going to escalate efforts to regulate the
Speaker 1: crypto market, and in the meantime, I suspect we're going
Speaker 1: to see more volatility in the crypto world, which I mean,
Speaker 1: that's nothing, right, That's like throwing a dart and then
Speaker 1: drawing the dartboard around it, So you get a bullseye
Speaker 1: to say that there's going to be volatility in the
Speaker 1: crypto market. US Senator Ed Margie has promised to reintroduce
Speaker 1: a proposed ban for the federal government making use of
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology. Now, this comes in the wake of
Speaker 1: the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU, publishing a piece
Speaker 1: that says the FBI and the Pentagon are both developing
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology, and as we have mentioned dozens of
Speaker 1: times on this show, this technology is inherently dangerous. Not
Speaker 1: only have we seen multiple instances in which a bias
Speaker 1: in the facial recognition model leads to misidentification, particularly for
Speaker 1: people of color. This in turns makes these people of
Speaker 1: color disproportionately affected by this technology's performance and leads to
Speaker 1: all sorts of terrible outcomes. But also, as Ed Markey
Speaker 1: points out, the use of such technology implies that all
Speaker 1: of us are being treated as if we are already
Speaker 1: suspects of a crime. From square one, everyone is being
Speaker 1: surveiled as if they are under suspicion. Everyone is being
Speaker 1: identified so that they can be tracked, so that when
Speaker 1: they do something wrong, we can be taken in. So,
Speaker 1: Marky argues that surveillance technology and facial recognition combined have
Speaker 1: served as a threat to individual citizens privacy and security.
Speaker 1: I find it really hard to find any fault in
Speaker 1: that argument. I agree with it. And here in the US,
Speaker 1: it's not just that the FBI wants to know who
Speaker 1: you are, it's also that it wants to know where
Speaker 1: you've been wired. Has a report that the FBI has
Speaker 1: been found to circumvent the normal legal process, and in
Speaker 1: fact has admitted to this. So normally the FBI would
Speaker 1: have to secure some sort of permission in order to
Speaker 1: get a look at someone's location data. Typically you're talking
Speaker 1: about a warrant process where you have to go to
Speaker 1: a court, submit your request, have a judge look it
Speaker 1: over and approve it, and then you could go and
Speaker 1: get hold of geolocation data. Instead, the FBI has admitted
Speaker 1: that in the past it has purchased US location data
Speaker 1: just like an advertising company would. In fact, Chris Ferray,
Speaker 1: the director of the FBI, said that that's essentially what
Speaker 1: the FBI did. It bought data from a broker, just
Speaker 1: like it had been an advertising company. And privacy advocates
Speaker 1: argue that all data being scooped up online is potentially harmful.
Speaker 1: They've been saying this for years, and this is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that they're talking about as being one
Speaker 1: of the worst case scenarios, right, not just that private
Speaker 1: companies or even publicly traded companies have data about you,
Speaker 1: but that you start to see governments take advantage of
Speaker 1: loopholes and instead of going through due process in order
Speaker 1: to gain permission and have everything be documented when it
Speaker 1: comes to tracking people, it just sidesteps that and just
Speaker 1: buys the information outright instead of going through what it
Speaker 1: should be doing, because there aren't any specific rules or
Speaker 1: regulations to stop that from happening. Now, there are some
Speaker 1: rules in place that are meant to stop it, but
Speaker 1: federally speaking, it's not really been the highest of priorities,
Speaker 1: especially for US government agencies. Right. A lot of privacy
Speaker 1: laws specifically exclude government agency when it comes to the
Speaker 1: protection of private citizen data because here in the US
Speaker 1: we tend to favor the law enforcement over the citizens
Speaker 1: in some cases. So for the FBI to sidestep a
Speaker 1: legal process in order to get desired data that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff should concern everybody, regardless of how squeaky clean
Speaker 1: you are. The processes are there for a reason, and
Speaker 1: it's really to ensure that the government doesn't overstep and
Speaker 1: violate a citizen's rights. So when a law enforcement agency
Speaker 1: finds a loophole, that's a bad thing. The FBI admitted
Speaker 1: this particular instance during a Senate hearing on Global Threats.
Speaker 1: That's when Christopher Ray said that it was something that
Speaker 1: the FBI had done in the past, but that to
Speaker 1: his knowledge, the FBI was not currently doing it at
Speaker 1: this very moment. The admission raised concern the Senate, But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is that the US has
Speaker 1: been really lousy when it comes to protecting citizen data.
Speaker 1: So I don't know why anyone is surprised by this
Speaker 1: or shocked by it. They should be concerned about it,
Speaker 1: But to hear people express surprise that this has happened
Speaker 1: seems disingenuous to me. But then again, it's also to
Speaker 1: be fair, a lot of people who are in politics
Speaker 1: in the United States are so out of touch when
Speaker 1: it comes to technology, and especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: things like data collection and data analysis. Maybe they're genuinely
Speaker 1: surprised because of a large blind spot in their knowledge base.
Speaker 1: Not that same hearing, FBI's director Ray told the Senate
Speaker 1: that TikTok is a potential national security threat, which echoes
Speaker 1: the concerns of lawmakers around the world. So Ray claimed
Speaker 1: that TikTok could potentially give parent company byte Dance the
Speaker 1: ability to quote control data and software on millions of
Speaker 1: devices in the US and drive narratives to divide Americans.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying Ray
Speaker 1: said that specifically. That's how it was worded by Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: They did not use quotations, so this is not Ray
Speaker 1: saying it, but it's what Bloomberg said Ray said, I
Speaker 1: honestly don't know about this claim. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if Ray actually said that TikTok could potentially control software
Speaker 1: on millions of devices. I haven't seen any security experts
Speaker 1: suggest that TikTok has that ability, and I think that
Speaker 1: would be a massive headline. I mean, if someone found
Speaker 1: that a single app on a device had the capability
Speaker 1: to potentially control other software to any real degree, that
Speaker 1: would be huge news. And I don't know that Ray
Speaker 1: said anything close to that. This could just be Bloomberg
Speaker 1: mischaracterizing what Ray was saying. Anyway, I'm not surprised by
Speaker 1: this take. Right It's a pretty popular view in the
Speaker 1: government right now that TikTok is potentially a surveillance tool
Speaker 1: for the Chinese state, and if it isn't right now,
Speaker 1: it has that ability in the future. So this kind
Speaker 1: of goes along with other things we've been hearing recently
Speaker 1: in those circles. Okay, let's get back to geolocation data
Speaker 1: tracking before we take our first break. Google has agreed
Speaker 1: to pay out a nearly three hundred ninety two million
Speaker 1: dollars settlement to end a massive lawsuit involving the state
Speaker 1: attorneys general for forty out of the fifty US states.
Speaker 1: So the core issue is that these state attorneys general
Speaker 1: had argued Google had misled users when they chose to
Speaker 1: turn off location data tracking because Google was still collecting
Speaker 1: location information about these users. And yeah, that does seem
Speaker 1: like there might be a bit of a disconnect, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you've turned off location tracking, but don't worry, we're still
Speaker 1: keeping track of where you are. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: seem to understand what location tracking means and what it
Speaker 1: means to turn it off. So Google said that this
Speaker 1: issue was related to quote, outdated product policies that we
Speaker 1: changed years ago end quote. So they're not denying that
Speaker 1: they did this, they're saying they don't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: So according to Google, now when you turn off location tracking,
Speaker 1: then it for reels would turn it off, at least
Speaker 1: for Google anyway. The details of the settlement include requirements
Speaker 1: that Google has to meet in order to institute some changes,
Speaker 1: such as introducing more alerts whenever a user activates a feature,
Speaker 1: whether an app or otherwise that would turn on or
Speaker 1: off a location related data tracking component. So that's good,
Speaker 1: all right, We're gonna take a quick break. When we
Speaker 1: come back, We've got some more tech news to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're back. Not that long ago, I talked about Anonymous,
Speaker 1: the loosely organized activist group, and according to Taiwan News,
Speaker 1: this group has claimed responsibility for hacking into a Chinese
Speaker 1: weather balloon that flew over India twice. And then they
Speaker 1: hacked into a Chinese website that actually related to a
Speaker 1: study abroad program, and there they posted not a manifesto
Speaker 1: but are really kind of rambling list of complaints and allegations,
Speaker 1: as well as screenshots of the hacked control panel of
Speaker 1: the weather balloon. Now, presumably Anonymous decided to target this
Speaker 1: balloon after the recent discovery of surveillance balloons of Chinese
Speaker 1: origin that flew over North America and eventually the US
Speaker 1: shot him down. Anonymous but also throw in some other
Speaker 1: reasons on this website, so it starts to almost feel
Speaker 1: like a laundry list of unconnected complaints. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that they cited was China's response to COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and how the government has treated that over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, So that was part of the
Speaker 1: stuff that was included in there, but also there were
Speaker 1: bits praising Taiwan. Taiwan and China have a contentious relationship,
Speaker 1: to say the least, technically both sides lay claim to
Speaker 1: the other. On the web page, Anonymous also railed against
Speaker 1: some unrelated stuff that has nothing to do with China,
Speaker 1: like Wikipedia and its policies. Anonymous said that women are
Speaker 1: underrepresented in Wikipedia articles and that there might be an
Speaker 1: issue with bias within Wikipedia, and that the articles occasionally
Speaker 1: engage in outright trying to manipulate perspectives in points of view.
Speaker 1: There's also some stuff about people who have been killed
Speaker 1: by US police and various police incidents, so kind of
Speaker 1: a related to Black Lives Matter. There were also parts
Speaker 1: arguing that the Soviet Union which hasn't been a thing
Speaker 1: for decades now, But how the USS are endangered human
Speaker 1: lives and outright killed animals as part of the space race.
Speaker 1: So again, it's like this mishmash hodgepodge of complaints that
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have a centralized theme that appeared on this
Speaker 1: web page. It almost seemed like, well, we've got the opportunity,
Speaker 1: let's take it. I don't pretend to understand it, but
Speaker 1: it's not a huge surprise, right, if you know anything
Speaker 1: about Anonymous, it should not be surprising that it would
Speaker 1: be a little disjointed, because Anonymous is such a loose organization,
Speaker 1: and it's filled with people who have overlapping but not
Speaker 1: necessarily identical motivations and priorities. So you could say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems a bit a bit chaotic, but then so
Speaker 1: is the very nature of Anonymous itself. That's part of
Speaker 1: its its structure. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the
Speaker 1: German government is considering a ban on Huawei components in
Speaker 1: its five G networks, along with components from some other
Speaker 1: Chinese companies as well. Now, as I've talked about before,
Speaker 1: the US instituted such a ban out of concern that
Speaker 1: Huawei could essentially tap into, you know, the communications infrastructure
Speaker 1: and then spy on communications within the US. The UK
Speaker 1: has taken similar measures now. Huawei has repeatedly denied these
Speaker 1: allegations and suspicions, saying that the company has never done
Speaker 1: such a thing, that there aren't any backdoors or anything
Speaker 1: built into the technology that would allow for it in
Speaker 1: the first place. A spokesperson for China's embassy in Germany said,
Speaker 1: whahwe follows EU and German laws and there's no reason
Speaker 1: to suspect that the company would undermine those laws, and
Speaker 1: that China is just very disappointed in Germany right now
Speaker 1: and expected better. So this decision hasn't yet been finalized.
Speaker 1: Its possible that Germany will not pursue this route. Even
Speaker 1: if it does, it would probably take years to fully
Speaker 1: decouple Germany's telecommunications infrastructure from Chinese components. But it does
Speaker 1: show that there is this growing concern about how technology.
Speaker 1: You know, more and more of our technology is ultimately
Speaker 1: just meant to direct information somewhere, and that if you
Speaker 1: could end up directing that information in a way that
Speaker 1: benefits one country at the expense of others, that ends
Speaker 1: up being a big concern. Whether or not that's actually
Speaker 1: happening is still at question, but even just the potential
Speaker 1: for it is enough to give companies pause. And to
Speaker 1: be clear, I don't know if Huawei has actively participated
Speaker 1: in surveillance on behalf of China, but I do know
Speaker 1: that there is a very large concern for that. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't help that the Chinese government has essentially given
Speaker 1: a directive to citizens and companies that they are to
Speaker 1: participate in information gathering activities would benefit China. So whether
Speaker 1: it's happening or not, I can't say. I can just
Speaker 1: say that there are enough pieces in place that I
Speaker 1: can understand the concern. Toward the end of last year,
Speaker 1: YouTube changed some rules that ended up having a massive
Speaker 1: impact on YouTubers. If you follow any particular channels, you've
Speaker 1: probably noticed this, either explicitly as people have actually addressed
Speaker 1: this in their videos, or just through the process of
Speaker 1: watching it and thinking, huh, something's changed here. So late
Speaker 1: last year, YouTube started to really crack down on stuff
Speaker 1: like profanity, and any video that included profanity within the
Speaker 1: first fifteen seconds of the video starting was automatically made
Speaker 1: ineligible for monetization. Didn't matter how severe it was. It
Speaker 1: just meant that, you know, if you had a profanity
Speaker 1: incident within those first fifteen seconds, boom monetization switched off
Speaker 1: for that video. And if you were a YouTuber with
Speaker 1: an intro like what the beep is up? This is
Speaker 1: your beep, Homeboy, Beep Smith, Beep the beep like that, well,
Speaker 1: then you'd be looking at all those videos that start
Speaker 1: that way getting demonetized. Because this change wasn't just for
Speaker 1: all videos moving forward, it was a retroactive change. YouTube
Speaker 1: would scan the content of all videos posted, and if
Speaker 1: any of them were detected to include profanity within the
Speaker 1: verse fifteen seconds, boom shut off. And a video on
Speaker 1: YouTube can have a really long life. You know. Typically
Speaker 1: you see your biggest amount of engagement shortly after a
Speaker 1: video publishes, but some videos have a really long tail,
Speaker 1: especially if something relevant happens in the world that brings
Speaker 1: back a video that was recorded a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of a video I did years ago at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works about the Transatlantic accent. You know that
Speaker 1: old timey radio voice. I did a video about at
Speaker 1: and every few years it seems to bubble back up
Speaker 1: and get popular again. So while it did pretty well
Speaker 1: when it launched. In subsequent years, it would get tons
Speaker 1: more views. Well, if I were depending upon monetization of
Speaker 1: videos like that, I don't own those videos that belongs
Speaker 1: to how stuff works. But if I did, and if
Speaker 1: those videos violated a brand new rule from the platform,
Speaker 1: well that would have an enormous impact on my ability
Speaker 1: to make a living. Right, And because I don't control
Speaker 1: the platform, I'm at the whim of that platform. This
Speaker 1: is why it's risky to depend upon a third party
Speaker 1: in order to reach your audience. If the platform makes
Speaker 1: a change to its business model, you end up being affected.
Speaker 1: I'm minded of When I talked to Bernie Burns, one
Speaker 1: of the founders of Rooster Teeth, this was one of
Speaker 1: his big concerns. He said, you don't want to put
Speaker 1: all your eggs in the basket that belongs to someone else,
Speaker 1: because if they change their mind on how stuff works,
Speaker 1: you end up being hit by that. Well, now YouTube
Speaker 1: is relaxing some of those rules. They're not getting rhythm,
Speaker 1: but they are relaxing them a little bit. Videos that
Speaker 1: include moderate profanity within the first fifteen seconds can get
Speaker 1: some limited monetization. Videos that don't involve a ton of
Speaker 1: profanity and they avoid it within the first seven seconds
Speaker 1: are eligible for full monetization. And YouTube is also introducing
Speaker 1: a review process to look into creators who have been
Speaker 1: hit hard by this change in monetization, where like they
Speaker 1: may have seen their income go close to zilch after
Speaker 1: the results. The new adjustments went into effect this week,
Speaker 1: so hopefully creators who are hit really hard we'll see
Speaker 1: some relief. I will admit there's some channels I watch
Speaker 1: where there were people who would occasionally use profanity, and
Speaker 1: they now tend to beat that stuff out rather than
Speaker 1: actually say the words, which they used to do. And
Speaker 1: I think the reason for it is because they don't
Speaker 1: want to see those monetization switches get hit and then
Speaker 1: they take a massive revenue loss. Over at Meta, there's
Speaker 1: been a leak. Meta introduced its own large language model
Speaker 1: aka Lama, and they opened it up to a very
Speaker 1: small group of people. It's like invitation only, case by
Speaker 1: case basis and includes like academics and researchers, a few companies,
Speaker 1: and they're essentially asking these folks to test the language model,
Speaker 1: to provide feedback let Meta help improve it over time.
Speaker 1: The company did not release it to the general public,
Speaker 1: probably because like all other generative AI models, Meta's approach
Speaker 1: is prone to doing stuff that isn't always appropriate. Generative
Speaker 1: AI can sometimes spout out misinformation. They compare it speech,
Speaker 1: It could call for violence, like it can generally behave
Speaker 1: in ways that are not a good look for the
Speaker 1: company that spawned it, particularly a large, public facing, publicly
Speaker 1: traded company. So Meta did a limited release because this
Speaker 1: model is still under development. It is not ready to
Speaker 1: be deployed. It's still being built. But someone went and
Speaker 1: leaked the model. Word popped up on four Chan, and
Speaker 1: initially you started to see torrents and peer to peer
Speaker 1: network sharing kind of spread this around, and eventually somebody
Speaker 1: put it up on GitHub and people have included instructions
Speaker 1: on how to download and access the language model. I'm
Speaker 1: sure folks at Meta are stressed out about this, but
Speaker 1: some people in the AI industry argue that the tool
Speaker 1: is far more likely to improve quickly if it's in
Speaker 1: a wide release as opposed to trusting a relatively small
Speaker 1: base of researchers kind of the open source approach. And
Speaker 1: that is true, but it also you know, you can
Speaker 1: understand the concern on Meta's part, right, like if it
Speaker 1: were to get out that a tool made by Meta
Speaker 1: was used to generate AI created misinformation in order to
Speaker 1: polarize people against one another. That wouldn't look good. Even
Speaker 1: though you could argue that's not really Meta's fault because
Speaker 1: they never intended that tool to get released out to
Speaker 1: the public, you can understand where there'd be the resistance there.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of Tesla stories today. Safety regulators
Speaker 1: in the United States are once again scrutinizing Tesla in
Speaker 1: the wake of reports that for a couple of suv
Speaker 1: drivers there's this doozy of an issue that sometimes crops up,
Speaker 1: namely that the steering wheel reportedly just plane comes off sometimes.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or in HTSA,
Speaker 1: released documents about investigation into the model Y Tesla suv
Speaker 1: and how the steering wheel reportedly can detach from the
Speaker 1: steering column. This, as I understand it, is considered a
Speaker 1: bad thing. It's not that these steering wheels are just
Speaker 1: inherently flimsy, but that in at least two cases, a
Speaker 1: bolt that is meant to hold the steering wheel to
Speaker 1: the column just wasn't there. It didn't get installed so
Speaker 1: the wheel was just attached to the column through a
Speaker 1: friction fit. But it's a steering wheel. That means you
Speaker 1: turn the wheel and all that turning is like, you know,
Speaker 1: wiggling something loose, and over time the wheel does come
Speaker 1: loose and ultimately can come off, and that's really scary obviously. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the NHTSA, both cases in which a steering
Speaker 1: wheel came off happened while the vehicles were still relatively
Speaker 1: low in mileage, so it doesn't take very long for
Speaker 1: this to manifest. It is hard to say if this
Speaker 1: issue has affected a large number of vehicles or if
Speaker 1: these two cases that the NHTSA has reported our outliers.
Speaker 1: It is possible that this is an issue that has
Speaker 1: happened obviously more than once, but not throughout the entire
Speaker 1: fleet of SUVs. That being said, if you do own
Speaker 1: a model Y SUV and it's relatively new, you might
Speaker 1: want to check to see if that bolt is actually
Speaker 1: present to hold the steering wheel in place, which might
Speaker 1: mean having to take it to a dealership. So just
Speaker 1: good to know. The other big story about Tesla involves
Speaker 1: a fatal accident back in February. A driver and passenger
Speaker 1: in a twenty fourteen Tesla Model S crashed into a
Speaker 1: firetruck that was parked along a highway, blocking one of
Speaker 1: the lanes. It was acting as a barrier for firefighters
Speaker 1: as they will responding to a different crash. The Models
Speaker 1: crashed into the firetruck. It killed the Model s's driver,
Speaker 1: it critically injured the passenger. Firefighters had to use special
Speaker 1: tools to cut the Tesla open to get at the
Speaker 1: people inside. Four firefighters had some injuries as well as
Speaker 1: a result of this crash, and the NHTSA has launched
Speaker 1: an investigation to see if the Model S was in
Speaker 1: driver assist mode aka autopilot, or potentially even full self
Speaker 1: driving mode. This is part of a larger NHTSA investigation
Speaker 1: into accidents involving Tesla's that were in autopilot mode and
Speaker 1: then crashed into a parked emergency vehicle on a highway. Apparently,
Speaker 1: there have been at least fifteen cases of Tesla's doing
Speaker 1: this while in driver assist mode. That obviously raises questions
Speaker 1: about how Tesla detects or fails to detect parked emergency
Speaker 1: vehicles along highways. News outlets have reached out to Tesla
Speaker 1: for comment. But seeing as how Tesla has followed the
Speaker 1: Twitter model that Musk set out, namely, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a public relations department, it might be hard to get
Speaker 1: a quote. Okay, I got a couple more stories I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Before I get to that, Let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. Okay, just before the break, I
Speaker 1: was talking a little bit about Musk, and I got
Speaker 1: more to say about the Muskie billionaire. He had a
Speaker 1: pretty public situation blow up in his face this week
Speaker 1: on Twitter. It got ugly. So at the center of
Speaker 1: the issue is a well now former Twitter employee named
Speaker 1: Holly thor Leafson. Holly was trying to get confirmation on
Speaker 1: whether or not he had been fired, because it seemed
Speaker 1: like he had, but no one was telling him for sure.
Speaker 1: And you might think, Wow, things have got to be
Speaker 1: screwy at Twitter if you don't even know if you've
Speaker 1: been fired or not. But it gets worse than that.
Speaker 1: You see, Holley is not your typical Twitter employee. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, he ran a creative agency called Ueno,
Speaker 1: which Twitter subsequently acquired, and Holly joined Twitter as part
Speaker 1: of this deal, and the scuttle butt in the industry,
Speaker 1: because Holly's pretty quiet about this. He's indicated some of
Speaker 1: this is true, but hasn't given particulars. But the scuttle
Speaker 1: butt is that Holly's compensation essentially is pulling from a
Speaker 1: very large pool of money that was part of this acquisition. Then,
Speaker 1: instead of getting a lump sum for the acquisition of
Speaker 1: this company he was brought on as an employee, is
Speaker 1: being paid out on the money that would have been
Speaker 1: for the acquisition. And if he were to be fired,
Speaker 1: Twitter would owe him the rest of that money, unless
Speaker 1: it was like a four cause reason, like if Hallie
Speaker 1: had done embezzelment or something, then obviously he would not
Speaker 1: be contractually obligated that money. But if he was fired
Speaker 1: without cause, then he would be due this massive amount
Speaker 1: of money that was part of the acquisition. Now let
Speaker 1: me give you a little bit more information on this guy.
Speaker 1: He has muscular dystrophy and he uses a wheelchair. He's
Speaker 1: from Iceland and he has long campaign the land government
Speaker 1: and the people for better wheelchair access throughout the country.
Speaker 1: He even negotiated his Twitter compensation package so that he
Speaker 1: actually pays more taxes to Iceland. As I said, he
Speaker 1: pays more in taxes because he believes in the change
Speaker 1: he's asking for and he's willing to help pay for it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Holly ended up tweeting to Elon Musk to ask for
Speaker 1: clarification because he was frankly getting nowhere through other channels.
Speaker 1: Though throughout the process of that back and forth, he
Speaker 1: did get confirmation that he had been fired, and Musk,
Speaker 1: in his trademarked way, responded poorly. So first he clearly
Speaker 1: didn't know who how he was, and he asked what
Speaker 1: work how he had been doing. So he responds with that,
Speaker 1: and then Elon responded in a response that has subsequently
Speaker 1: been deleted in little laughing emojis, as if saying ha,
Speaker 1: as if this is anything worth even talking about how
Speaker 1: he actually initially didn't even tell him what it was,
Speaker 1: because he said, if I talk about it, then I'm
Speaker 1: breaking confidentiality agreements. I need to see that those confidentiality
Speaker 1: agreements are waved before I talk about what I've been
Speaker 1: working on. And Elon then cavalierly waves those agreements. They
Speaker 1: consider them put aside. So Hollie then said, and then
Speaker 1: this goes back and forth a bit, and then the
Speaker 1: next day after it came out, that how he said
Speaker 1: he had in fact been fired. Elon must tweeted about
Speaker 1: Hallie and said that quote, He's the worst. Sorry, and
Speaker 1: he then later would delete that quote or that tweet.
Speaker 1: But you know, just because something's been deleted doesn't mean
Speaker 1: the internet forgets. The Internet never forgets. Musk also posted quote,
Speaker 1: the reality is that this guy, who is independently wealthy,
Speaker 1: did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he
Speaker 1: had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was
Speaker 1: simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can't say I have a
Speaker 1: lot of respect for that now, Halle. He has had
Speaker 1: an incredible reputation in the tech field, like the people
Speaker 1: who have worked with him have nothing but great things
Speaker 1: to say about him. To say that he is highly
Speaker 1: admired is putting it lightly, and Musk got considerable pushback
Speaker 1: after doing his typical billionaire idiot approach into waiting into
Speaker 1: something he doesn't know anything about, and so ultimately he
Speaker 1: goes and has a conversation with Halle over the phone
Speaker 1: to get a better understanding, and then he tweets a
Speaker 1: non apology, essentially as an apology of I was misled.
Speaker 1: I heard things that ended up not being true. So
Speaker 1: it's not my fault that I said all these stupid
Speaker 1: things on Twitter that I've deleted so can't see him anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my opinion of Musk is obviously low, and it always
Speaker 1: has been, but it just keeps going down, and I
Speaker 1: admit that that's my own bias. If you love Musk,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you have your reasons. I'm just
Speaker 1: I can't communicate this without bringing my own personal opinion
Speaker 1: into it. Anyway. What Musk also said was quote better
Speaker 1: to talk to people than communicate via tweet end quote,
Speaker 1: because he was backpedaling right. He was saying, Oh, turns
Speaker 1: out I didn't really understand the situation. I was told
Speaker 1: wrong things or things that were true but don't really matter,
Speaker 1: like it was all non apology stuff, and then he
Speaker 1: says better to talk to people than communicate via tweet.
Speaker 1: This is insane, folks, because he's the fricking CEO of Twitter.
Speaker 1: He spent billions of dollars to buy Twitter. Twitter is
Speaker 1: a communications platform and he's saying it's not good for
Speaker 1: communication Asians. What Elon must have just said is Twitter
Speaker 1: is not a good choice for doing what Twitter is
Speaker 1: supposed to do. This is if you're trying to lead
Speaker 1: your company which is already in like dire straits and
Speaker 1: trying to lead it to climb out of that, Saying
Speaker 1: that it's not good for communicating with people is probably
Speaker 1: a bad move anyway. He then said that Hollie is
Speaker 1: reconsidering working with Twitter, that the whole firing thing was
Speaker 1: a big misunderstanding. It shouldn't have happened. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: Holly has said that he suspects that this is because again,
Speaker 1: if he were to be fired, he would be owed
Speaker 1: this huge amount of money. He has essentially said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to walk away from Twitter. You owe me,
Speaker 1: So are you gonna pay me? Are you gonna pay
Speaker 1: the money though you owe me? That's actually a really
Speaker 1: good question because Twitter is currently you know, under fire
Speaker 1: for not paying all of its bills like rent and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's not guarantee that Twitter would pay
Speaker 1: what was actually contractually owed to this guy, because Twitter
Speaker 1: has been not paying a lot of bills so far. Yeah. Terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible situation. And once again elon eliminating public relations teams
Speaker 1: means that this kind of stuff, when it happens, there's
Speaker 1: no one there to step in and handle things, handle
Speaker 1: communications in a way that doesn't escalate into a situation
Speaker 1: that could have been avoided from the very beginning. But
Speaker 1: elon being elon just meant that this got way worse anyway.
Speaker 1: I think Holley seems like a really interesting dude, like
Speaker 1: has has spent a ton of money to try and
Speaker 1: improve his home country, especially for people who are in
Speaker 1: a similar situation that he's in. So cheers to you, buddy,
Speaker 1: because man, this was just like a redeeculous, drama filled
Speaker 1: event that did not need to happen. Finally, this is
Speaker 1: a pretty cool news story. It's some science news to
Speaker 1: close out this show. Researchers in Australia have isolated an
Speaker 1: enzyme found in bacteria that live in the soil. This
Speaker 1: particular enzyme can convert hydrogen, the trace amounts of hydrogen
Speaker 1: that are in the atmosphere into electricity. That's really cool. Now,
Speaker 1: according to what I've read, this enzyme can take the
Speaker 1: trace amounts of hydrogen and the atmosphere turn it into
Speaker 1: an electrical current. The enzyme is called HUC, which I'm
Speaker 1: just going to pronounce this hook And I'm already seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of predictions that this enzyme could be the
Speaker 1: cornerstone for future technologies that harvest electricity from the air itself.
Speaker 1: A lot of headlines talk about making electricity from thin air.
Speaker 1: That would be super cool. However, before we just start
Speaker 1: imagining Tesla esque future in which we're pulling electricity from
Speaker 1: the air itself, we should remember hydrogen does not make
Speaker 1: up very much of our atmosphere. Like, when I say
Speaker 1: not very much, I'm talking about like point zero zero
Speaker 1: zero zero five percent of our atmosphere is hydrogen. And
Speaker 1: when you have such tiny amounts present, there's just not
Speaker 1: enough fuel there to generate electricity to do anything beyond
Speaker 1: powering perhaps very very basic, very low power components. Even
Speaker 1: a simple watch would require way more power than what
Speaker 1: this enzyme could produce, not because the enzyme isn't impressive,
Speaker 1: it is, but just because there's just not enough free
Speaker 1: hydrogen in the air. Now. I've talked several times on
Speaker 1: the show about how hydrogen tends to bond with other elements,
Speaker 1: So getting pure hydrogen usually means you have to take
Speaker 1: something that's made of hydrogen bonded with other stuff, and
Speaker 1: then pour some energy into it to break those molecular bonds.
Speaker 1: The classic example is using electrolysis, where you pass an
Speaker 1: electric current through water and this helps break that molecular
Speaker 1: bond between hydrogen and oxygen so that you get oxygen
Speaker 1: and hydrogen gas. But you know, that's one way to
Speaker 1: get hydrogen, but that's not useful for this enzyme, right,
Speaker 1: Like the enzyme is meant to pull hydrogen out of
Speaker 1: the air. There's just not enough there to do anything
Speaker 1: super useful beyond like powering, like I said, extremely low
Speaker 1: power features or functions. So I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1: I think as the potential for some interesting applications, like
Speaker 1: like maybe some very low power sensor type stuff. But
Speaker 1: it's not anywhere remotely close to being able to harvest
Speaker 1: significance amount of electricity from thin air. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to say that because a lot of the headlines I'm
Speaker 1: seeing essentially say pulling electricity from thin air. And maybe
Speaker 1: in the article it goes into the qualifiers about that,
Speaker 1: but if you're just reading headlines, you might walk away
Speaker 1: with the assumption that, oh, we're gonna pull electricity out
Speaker 1: of the air itself, all of our electrical concerns are gone,
Speaker 1: Like we don't have to worry about our energy needs anymore.
Speaker 1: Stop pouring money into things like renewables because we can
Speaker 1: pull electricity from the air itself. That's not really the case.
Speaker 1: So always, always, always use critical thinking when you're looking
Speaker 1: at things like science news in particular, because a lot
Speaker 1: of science communicators are really good at expressing passion about science,
Speaker 1: but if they don't give you the full story, you
Speaker 1: might walk away with an accurate perspective on what they're
Speaker 1: actually trying to communicate. Okay, that's it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Hope you are all well. If you have suggestions for
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