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? It is time for the tech news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: August first, twenty twenty three. So let's start out with
Speaker 1: the news that kind of happened and then unhappened. Since
Speaker 1: the last time I did one of these episodes, and
Speaker 1: that means starting with X you know, the service formerly
Speaker 1: known as Twitter. I had mentioned that the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Police had paid a little visit to x HQ when
Speaker 1: a construction crew blocked off a couple of lanes of
Speaker 1: traffic on a city street in San Francisco while removing
Speaker 1: letters from the Twitter sign that hung on the headquarters building. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the cop did not charge anyone with a crime, but
Speaker 1: it did mean that the removal process was interrupted and
Speaker 1: for a while the er stayed up there. They had
Speaker 1: removed the twit, but the er was still up. And
Speaker 1: since a lot of us typically now we'll look at
Speaker 1: the former Twitter and say er, I think it was
Speaker 1: appropriate that the er was still there. But anyway, after
Speaker 1: all that Musk's financial sinkhole of a company erected a
Speaker 1: big ol X sign, an illuminated X sign on the
Speaker 1: top of their HQ, so it lit up a lot,
Speaker 1: and it was bright enough and lighting up and like
Speaker 1: strobe effects and stuff that it prompted several people in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood to lodge complaints, saying that it was garish
Speaker 1: and disruptive and making it real difficult to get any
Speaker 1: sleep if the X was flashing lights through bedroom windows
Speaker 1: and stuff. This prompted the city to send a bill
Speaker 1: inspector around to make sure that the news sign was
Speaker 1: up to code, but the inspector says that they were
Speaker 1: denied roof access multiple times, so the city took issue
Speaker 1: with this as well as with musk erecting an quote
Speaker 1: unquote illuminated structure without first securing a permit to do it.
Speaker 1: There were also concerns that the sign itself was not
Speaker 1: properly secured to the roof, which could be a truly
Speaker 1: dangerous situation in the event of something like high winds
Speaker 1: for example. Now the company is likely to face some
Speaker 1: fines from the city. I haven't seen how much those
Speaker 1: fines might be, But then if San Francisco wants to
Speaker 1: get money out of x it's gonna probably have to
Speaker 1: get in line behind the various landlords, vendors, and former
Speaker 1: employees who are also awaiting payment. So I suppose one
Speaker 1: of the big secrets to being rich is that you know,
Speaker 1: you just don't pay your bills, then you get to
Speaker 1: keep your money. It's genius. According to Casey Newton's Excellent
Speaker 1: Tech newsletter, today marks a big day inside X SO.
Speaker 1: Back when Musk bought Twitter, he famously did so at
Speaker 1: fifty four dollars twenty cents per share. That's why I
Speaker 1: ended up being more than forty billion dollars overall. And
Speaker 1: a lot of Twitter employees had guaranteed stock grants, meaning
Speaker 1: that they had vested shares with the company or shares
Speaker 1: that were in the process of vesting, and that they
Speaker 1: would then receive a payout for those shares that's part
Speaker 1: of their compensation. They would get fifty four dollars twenty
Speaker 1: cents per share vested with the company. According to Newton,
Speaker 1: today marks the day when the remaining employees who were
Speaker 1: still receiving stock grants will then be paid out. And
Speaker 1: if that happens, it might mean we could see another
Speaker 1: wave of resignations out of the company, because it's possible
Speaker 1: that some folks at X stayed on really just so
Speaker 1: that they could reach this moment to get that final payout,
Speaker 1: and then potentially they could go skip off to find
Speaker 1: greener or at least less chaotic pastures, though there is
Speaker 1: still a concern that a lot of people would not
Speaker 1: be able to find a job that pays, you know,
Speaker 1: at the same level as what they're getting over at X.
Speaker 1: And as we've already said, Musk has racked up a
Speaker 1: pretty big history of refusing to pay bills, including to
Speaker 1: former employees, So there is a fear that those who
Speaker 1: should be receiving this compensation may be left waiting around
Speaker 1: indefinitely and that worst case scenario, the payout might not
Speaker 1: ever come. So maybe by the end of the day
Speaker 1: we'll have more news about that, but that's how it
Speaker 1: stands as I record the episode. In other awful news,
Speaker 1: the Center for Countering Digital Hate or CCDA, which is
Speaker 1: now in Elon Musk's crosshairs for daring to you know,
Speaker 1: chronicle the rise of hate speech on X now. Musk
Speaker 1: has claimed that hate speech impressions are actually on the
Speaker 1: decline on X, but the CCdh argue that the opposite
Speaker 1: is true, that there's been an increase across the board
Speaker 1: in hate speech as well as in disinformation. And if
Speaker 1: you've been following the news, you know that Musk has
Speaker 1: reinstated the Twitter accounts for people who previously had received
Speaker 1: bans for spreading things like hate speech on the platform.
Speaker 1: So at least you know, from that perspective, you could say, well,
Speaker 1: it seems to be logical that you would find an
Speaker 1: increase in hate speech. They are re platforming people who
Speaker 1: were banned for spreading hate speech. So anyway, the CCdh
Speaker 1: says that they found a two hundred to two percent
Speaker 1: increase in messages on the platform that contain slurs. They
Speaker 1: also said that Twitter Blue subscribers, which maybe they're called
Speaker 1: X blue subscribers. Now the X makes everything really confusing
Speaker 1: because you think that it means former as opposed to
Speaker 1: subscribed to X. Anyway, people who have subscribed to the
Speaker 1: platform and who have subsequently posted messages that violate the
Speaker 1: platform's policies seem to suffer no consequences. Their messages don't
Speaker 1: appear to be removed or anything like that. The company's
Speaker 1: own Trust and Safety Council resigned ages ago, right, the
Speaker 1: people who were actually in charge of formulating those policies
Speaker 1: and to make sure that the platform was doing well
Speaker 1: to adhere to them, they left, and the department as
Speaker 1: a whole is reportedly in a bit of the shambles.
Speaker 1: And now Musk is sending legal threats and is arguing
Speaker 1: that the CCdh has an agenda, that the cs intent
Speaker 1: is to hurt X by spreading falsehoods in an attempt
Speaker 1: to scare off advertisers. The CCDCH refutes those claims and
Speaker 1: points out that the organization is neither government funded, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't receive money from the government, nor is it
Speaker 1: connected to any other competing social network, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it's you know, conspiring with Meta to take down X.
Speaker 1: In fact, the CDCH has also reported on issues like
Speaker 1: hate speech and disinformation on other platforms besides X. The
Speaker 1: CCDCH released a statement indicating that should X and Musk
Speaker 1: actually pursue a legal case against the organization, because so
Speaker 1: far it's just been threats about doing that, the organization
Speaker 1: will fight back. So I'm sure we will have more
Speaker 1: on this as it continues. And on a less dramatic
Speaker 1: and less important side, of the whole x Twitter story,
Speaker 1: one of the few remaining holdovers from the Twitter days
Speaker 1: has actually changed. So it used to be that if
Speaker 1: you wanted to post something on Twitter, you would hit
Speaker 1: a little, you know, button that says tweet on there
Speaker 1: after you've written your message, right, you would tweet and
Speaker 1: that would post it. And now that icon no longer
Speaker 1: says tweet. It now says host. It's changed back and
Speaker 1: forth a couple of times over the last two days.
Speaker 1: But as I record this, at least in my own
Speaker 1: instance on the web based version of Twitter, I checked
Speaker 1: and it says post now, not tweet. I guess we
Speaker 1: should be thankful it's not X seat or you know,
Speaker 1: because it's X is the name of the company. And
Speaker 1: Musk said that tweets would now be called x eats
Speaker 1: or zeats or skeets if you're pronouncing X like if
Speaker 1: it were, you know, an anglicized Chinese word, then it
Speaker 1: would mean we'd be using the sound, so it'd be
Speaker 1: sheets then. But I'm guessing Musk doesn't like that because
Speaker 1: if you're using the X sound as sh then Twitter
Speaker 1: would become well, I won't say it. Over in the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: a court has ruled that Meta Ireland must reveal the
Speaker 1: identity of an anonymous user as part of a defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 1: This one gets really ugly, y'all. So the plaintiff in
Speaker 1: this case is a man who says he has been
Speaker 1: defamed by this anonymous user who has posted in a
Speaker 1: couple of different Facebook groups that are dedicated to people
Speaker 1: talking about their dating experiences and kind of like horror
Speaker 1: stories with dating experiences in general, and that this anonymous
Speaker 1: user has said that this man has done stuff like
Speaker 1: secretly recorded the women he was dating, which would definitely
Speaker 1: be a red flag if that's true. But the man
Speaker 1: denies these charges and he wants to sue this anonymous
Speaker 1: user for defamation. He says his reputation has been harmed
Speaker 1: as a result of these posts. But here's the rub.
Speaker 1: You can't sue someone if you don't know who they are.
Speaker 1: So the man has brought this lawsuit to the Court
Speaker 1: of the Hague in the Netherlands, and the court considered
Speaker 1: the case and has now sent an order to Meta
Speaker 1: Ireland to cough up the identity of the anonymous poster
Speaker 1: who was behind these messages in these Facebook groups, and
Speaker 1: Meta Ireland is going to comply because it's a legal
Speaker 1: court order. And you might think, huh, that sounds like
Speaker 1: a precedent that could potentially set the stage for a
Speaker 1: lot of abuse and discourage people from coming forward as
Speaker 1: whistleblowers and such. In this case, the argument is that
Speaker 1: the posts could be illegal if in fact they are
Speaker 1: defamatory and untrue. But the court also went beyond this.
Speaker 1: The court said, quote, according to settled case law and
Speaker 1: under certain circumstances, Meta has an obligation to provide identifying
Speaker 1: data even if the content of the relevant messages is
Speaker 1: not unmistakably unlawful. So, in other words, the government in
Speaker 1: the EU, in the form of the court system, has
Speaker 1: the right to force platforms to strip away anonymity even
Speaker 1: if the posts at the center of the matter do
Speaker 1: not contain any overtly illegal content within them, which is
Speaker 1: a big ol' yikes, right, Like that is stripping away
Speaker 1: security and privacy. Now, on the flip side, you could say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but if this is a real case of defamation, if
Speaker 1: these claims are untrue, and this person has had their
Speaker 1: reputation suffer as a result of this, and it's and
Speaker 1: through no fault of his own because he didn't do
Speaker 1: the things that were claimed against him. There needs to
Speaker 1: be recourse. So you can see that this is a
Speaker 1: complicated issue. On the flip side, if the claims are
Speaker 1: absolutely true, then ripping the anonymity away from the person
Speaker 1: who came forward is a real potential threat to their safety.
Speaker 1: So it's a very complex situation and I can't pretend
Speaker 1: like I have the answer. Okay, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, We've got some more
Speaker 1: news stories to talk about. Okay, we're back, and now
Speaker 1: let's get into the AI part of this news episode.
Speaker 1: So Meta is reportedly preparing to launch its AI powered
Speaker 1: chatbots pretty soon, perhaps as early as September, according to
Speaker 1: the Financial Times. The chatbots will have different personalities, some
Speaker 1: based off famous historical figures, others based off more stereotypes,
Speaker 1: kind of like surfer dude. According to the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: the pushes in part meant to stem the rise and
Speaker 1: then fall of participation on Threads. So when Threads first launched,
Speaker 1: it took off like a rocket, right. It hit one
Speaker 1: hundred million users in less than a week, But since then,
Speaker 1: more than half of those users haven't really been back
Speaker 1: on Threads. They dropped off super quickly, and it suggested
Speaker 1: that Threads was really more of a flash in the
Speaker 1: pan moment and not the Twitter substitute that a lot
Speaker 1: of people were kind of hoping for. Apparently, Meta is
Speaker 1: going to lean on these chatbots to help drive engagement.
Speaker 1: I guess I can see the logic behind that, because
Speaker 1: if you're on a social platform and you're posting stuff
Speaker 1: but no one ever engages with anything you post, then
Speaker 1: really you just end up keeping a journal, and that
Speaker 1: might be enough for some folks. There's nothing wrong with that,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people feel that they
Speaker 1: want others to treat the stuff they say as if
Speaker 1: it matters, right, The reason you're on social is to
Speaker 1: stay in touch with other people and to get some
Speaker 1: validation that the stuff you're posting is interesting or funny
Speaker 1: or relevant. You know that people care about what you
Speaker 1: have to say, and if you're not getting that, you're
Speaker 1: not likely to be very satisfied with your experience on
Speaker 1: the social platform. Maybe an artificial reaction provided by a
Speaker 1: chatbot that's imitating Abraham Lincoln is the answer. Though it
Speaker 1: should point out that the official explanation for these chatbots
Speaker 1: is that they're going to serve as a way to
Speaker 1: answer things like search queries and to give recommendations for stuff,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily to stand in as some sort of
Speaker 1: surrogate follower or friend. So we'll see. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this will actually be a useful tool, or you
Speaker 1: can count on Abraham Lincoln to be your plastic pal
Speaker 1: who's fun to be with. Shout out if you've got
Speaker 1: that reference. Anyway, Meta isn't the only company putting AI
Speaker 1: to a new use. According to The Verge, YouTube is
Speaker 1: testing AI for the purposes of summarizing video content, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, telling you what a video actually is
Speaker 1: about before you click in on the video. So the
Speaker 1: test only cover a quote limited number of English language
Speaker 1: videos and will only be viewable by a limited number
Speaker 1: of users end quote. That's according to John Porter of
Speaker 1: The Verge. Porter also writes that while the intent is
Speaker 1: to create a quick summary that ideally helps users decide
Speaker 1: which videos to watch, those summaries are not going to
Speaker 1: replace the human written video descriptions. Personally, I'm having a
Speaker 1: bit of trouble imagining what this actually looks like in
Speaker 1: practice when you're on YouTube. I mean, do the videos
Speaker 1: have two separate descriptions one that was written by AI.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it shows how companies are looking at this
Speaker 1: crazy tool called artificial intelligence, and now they're scrambling to
Speaker 1: find quote unquote problems that this tool can quote unquote fix. Obviously,
Speaker 1: anything that leads to greater engagement on one of Alphabet's
Speaker 1: many platforms is going to be counted as a win.
Speaker 1: So I can understand the whole throw noodles at the
Speaker 1: wall and see what sticks aproach that they're taking here.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see one of these summaries myself. I
Speaker 1: want to see what it looks like. But as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, I haven't come across anything like
Speaker 1: that yet. But it is in a limited test run,
Speaker 1: so it is far more likely that I am just
Speaker 1: not in the pool of folks who are included in
Speaker 1: that test. I hold out hope that we'll get at
Speaker 1: least a few hilariously weird video summaries out of this
Speaker 1: that we're clearly written by a robot. So I'll just
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. NewsCorp, the giant media company,
Speaker 1: has been using artificial intelligence to generate news articles that
Speaker 1: are publishing across seventy five hyper local publications across Australia. So,
Speaker 1: according to the Guardian, the AI, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like chat gpt, is writing around three thousand pieces a
Speaker 1: week and the topics range from stuff like weather reports
Speaker 1: to giving updates on fuel prices and specific cities and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. The company says that the articles
Speaker 1: are written by AI, but they're overseen by journalists, which
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of what how stuffworks dot Com
Speaker 1: said about its recent embrace of artificial intelligence generated articles.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, the editorial staff was let go at
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com and that means that folks that
Speaker 1: I used to work with found themselves out of a job.
Speaker 1: So I am definitely biased on this topic. I'm saying
Speaker 1: that so that you understand that I have a very
Speaker 1: particular point of view on this that is pretty darn negative,
Speaker 1: but that I completely admit this is my own bias. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I think you can make an argument that the types
Speaker 1: of pieces the AI is said to be tackling are
Speaker 1: ones that human writers actually wouldn't find interesting or rewarding
Speaker 1: to write in the first place. They are tedious exercises
Speaker 1: at best, and goodness knows, I would occasionally get assignments
Speaker 1: at how stuff works. That definitely fell into the tedious category.
Speaker 1: You still had to do your best on those articles,
Speaker 1: but you questioned the value of writing them in the
Speaker 1: first place. You're like, this is a garbage article. Even
Speaker 1: if I do my best work on it, it's just
Speaker 1: the article itself is not very interesting. There is still
Speaker 1: a need for a human person to oversee the work
Speaker 1: that the AI is doing, because, as we know, AI
Speaker 1: can sometimes get real loosey goosey with reality. And it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how much the companies and staff are
Speaker 1: actually saving on time and effort, because if there's a
Speaker 1: frequent enough need to do revisions and rewrites, really all
Speaker 1: you're doing is just making more work for fewer people.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to say, I bet there's a human
Speaker 1: writer out there who really wants to essentially rewrite the
Speaker 1: same article every day for the rest of their careers,
Speaker 1: because if it's something like what are the current fuel
Speaker 1: prices in your city, well, that's something you would have
Speaker 1: to research and write every single day. That's probably not
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to do. So maybe that is
Speaker 1: a good use for AI. Right If the AI is
Speaker 1: reasonably accurate and reliable, then it could mean that human
Speaker 1: writer ideally could get a different assignment that's more interesting
Speaker 1: and rewarding to work on. So I can see the
Speaker 1: use for AI for specific versions of writing for stuff
Speaker 1: that people genuinely need to know but is genuinely tedious
Speaker 1: to research and write. The problem is I worry about
Speaker 1: companies overstepping that and just saying, oh, wow, AI is
Speaker 1: way cheaper than having humans, right, Let's just have them
Speaker 1: write everything, and then we get an even bigger decline
Speaker 1: in journalistic integrity and quality. California here in the United States,
Speaker 1: has a new Department of Privacy regulators who are actually
Speaker 1: authorized with power now, and this week they are hearing
Speaker 1: their first case. They are looking at how auto manufacturers
Speaker 1: are incorporating data gathering technology within the vehicles that they
Speaker 1: make and sell, and how those companies then collect, use,
Speaker 1: and protect that information because there are really no rules
Speaker 1: in place to serve as a parameters for that. So
Speaker 1: the agency is looking at the types of information that
Speaker 1: are collected, which can include everything from geolocation data to
Speaker 1: camera images depending on the vehicle. There's a concern that
Speaker 1: data collection has become an important component in cars, but
Speaker 1: there's such a lack of regulations and rules. Now companies
Speaker 1: can use that information that it could lead to real problems. Now,
Speaker 1: ideally manufacturers use this info to keep eyes on things
Speaker 1: like vehicle performance and maybe even detect issues before they
Speaker 1: become huge problems, and that could lead to a much
Speaker 1: more effective method of dealing with stuff like recalls. For example,
Speaker 1: maybe a company sees, oh, this isn't a critical problem yet,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be if we don't do anything
Speaker 1: about it, So let's do the recall earlier and save
Speaker 1: ourselves a lot of green from the long run. That's
Speaker 1: a legitimate use for that kind of data collection. But
Speaker 1: if you go a step outside of the actual vehicle
Speaker 1: and you think about what does the data say about
Speaker 1: the driver who's inside that vehicle, that's where concerns start
Speaker 1: to pop up. I mean that vehicle data could be
Speaker 1: used to do a lot of things, like you might
Speaker 1: be able to draw conclusions about the actual driver's life.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you are having to seek regular medical
Speaker 1: treatments for some condition you have, and that the car
Speaker 1: is essentially gathering information about the fact that you're going
Speaker 1: to a medical facility on a regular basis. That's information
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't just freely share with a car company
Speaker 1: for no reason, right, I mean, that's private healthcare information.
Speaker 1: And so this is really this regulation agency's first step
Speaker 1: to get a full understanding of the scope and depth
Speaker 1: of data collection in the auto industry. And I hope
Speaker 1: it's an indication of a seed change shift in how
Speaker 1: the United States in particular approaches data collection and use,
Speaker 1: because for too long it's just been open season for
Speaker 1: information out there. Okay, I've got a few more stories
Speaker 1: to cover before we get to those. Let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're back, and hey, let's head
Speaker 1: back down to Australia. I got some bad news. So
Speaker 1: Disney announced that after Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three
Speaker 1: hits store shelves in DVD and Blu Ray formats this month,
Speaker 1: the company is done producing physical media for the Australian market.
Speaker 1: So moving forward, fans in Australia will have to use
Speaker 1: stuff like streaming services or cable or satellite or whatever
Speaker 1: in order to watch future Disney properties. So there will
Speaker 1: be no more Marvel, Star Wars, or Disney DVDs or
Speaker 1: Blu Rays. So why is that, Well, Disney says it's
Speaker 1: because the home media market in Australia has slowed to
Speaker 1: a point where it's just no longer profitable to produce
Speaker 1: physical copies of stuff. And I get that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have moved away from physical media, but personally,
Speaker 1: as someone who has recently gotten back into that, I
Speaker 1: am bummed by this news. For one thing, we are
Speaker 1: now all aware that just because something is currently available
Speaker 1: on a streaming service today, it doesn't mean it's going
Speaker 1: to still be there tomorrow. We have seen dozens hundreds
Speaker 1: of titles disappear off of streaming services, including Disney Plus,
Speaker 1: and then become unavailable. A lot of streaming exclusive content
Speaker 1: never even makes it to physical home media at all,
Speaker 1: so once it goes, it just becomes inaccessible. It still exists,
Speaker 1: but there's no way for you to watch it. Well.
Speaker 1: With Disney making this move, it means for Australians everything
Speaker 1: Disney makes is potentially in that category of stuff that
Speaker 1: one day could just disappear. And there's an understandable concern
Speaker 1: that other studios are going to follow Disney's lead. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'd be shocked if that doesn't happen. But from a
Speaker 1: business perspective, it's hard to fault the decision. You don't
Speaker 1: get into the business to not make money. From a
Speaker 1: fan perspective or from an archives perspective, this is a
Speaker 1: huge blow, and I wouldn't be surprised to see similar
Speaker 1: stories play out in other regions as more people migrate
Speaker 1: away from physical media. Personally, I'm going to be buying
Speaker 1: Blu ray and DVD copies of the stuff I love
Speaker 1: while I still can, because I've had plenty of experiences
Speaker 1: where something I really enjoyed was on a platform and
Speaker 1: then an agreement expires and it's gone and there becomes
Speaker 1: no legal way for me to access it anymore. And
Speaker 1: I'm not the type of person to lean on illegal
Speaker 1: MEAs means to get access to content if there are
Speaker 1: legal alternatives. But when there are no legal alternatives, that
Speaker 1: really I mean, you either do without or you break
Speaker 1: the law. Those are really your only options. I guess
Speaker 1: the responsible thing is I guess to do without. But
Speaker 1: it just to get so frustrating when you think I
Speaker 1: want to see this, I am happy to pay for
Speaker 1: the ability to see it. There just isn't that option.
Speaker 1: Video Game Chronicle reports that Nintendo is preparing to launch
Speaker 1: its next console sometime next year, likely in the fall.
Speaker 1: In time for the holiday season. Nintendo launched the Switch
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, and while titles like Tears of
Speaker 1: the Kingdom show that this portable system, or at least
Speaker 1: system capable of going into portable mode, can still pack
Speaker 1: a surprising amount of punch, it is safe to say
Speaker 1: that the hardware is now kind of pushing against its
Speaker 1: upper limits. The VGC says that Nintendo has already started
Speaker 1: to ship development kits to various partner studios in anticipation
Speaker 1: of this launch next year. Details are understandably scarce, but
Speaker 1: it sounds like the next console will again be capable
Speaker 1: of being used in a portable method, you know, like
Speaker 1: a handheld system similar to what Switch can do, and
Speaker 1: that the company is choosing to use LCD screens instead
Speaker 1: of o LED screens, likely in an effort to keep
Speaker 1: manufacturing costs down. Hopefully that will also mean it will
Speaker 1: help keep consumer prices down that they won't be too
Speaker 1: expensive either. VGC also says that the system will include
Speaker 1: a cartridge slot for physical media, so we're not going
Speaker 1: all digital with this one. Not a big surprise, then.
Speaker 1: Tendo has a long history of supporting physical media and
Speaker 1: to kind of kind of drag its feet on things
Speaker 1: like connected features for its consoles. But that's all that's
Speaker 1: known right now, and here's hoping that this console is
Speaker 1: another big success story like the Switch and not another
Speaker 1: misfire like the WEU. Speaking of video games, Call of
Speaker 1: Duty recently held a culling. The game targeted players who
Speaker 1: are found to have been relying on cheats and hacks
Speaker 1: in an effort to get advantages over other players. According
Speaker 1: to the game's x feed or Twitter again, this is
Speaker 1: so confusing x feed just whatever. Anyway, according to the
Speaker 1: video game, the publisher has banned more than fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: accounts for cheating and hacking within just twenty four hours now. Personally,
Speaker 1: I don't play Call of Duty, but there are a
Speaker 1: couple of British content creators I watch regularly who do
Speaker 1: play it. I hope this means that they will encounter
Speaker 1: fewer instances of people using cheats and hacks. It is
Speaker 1: frustrating enough just as a viewer to watch someone who
Speaker 1: is really good at the game they play, but then
Speaker 1: they encounter cheaters and it becomes this unfair exchange, like
Speaker 1: when they're up against genuinely skilled players. That's exciting when
Speaker 1: they're against cheaters. It's just frustrating, but I imagine it's
Speaker 1: way worse to actually experience it firsthand. I have encountered
Speaker 1: cheaters in a few games I've played. I remember a
Speaker 1: game of PUBG where the person who took me out
Speaker 1: it turned out they were using a cheat where they
Speaker 1: were just getting headshots, like they weren't even pointing at
Speaker 1: people and getting headshots, and it was such an obvious
Speaker 1: cheating mechanism. It was really frustrating. It convinced me to
Speaker 1: stop playing PUBG. So that's fun. So really, game developers
Speaker 1: have an incentive to crack down on this kind of
Speaker 1: thing because otherwise they do run the risk of players
Speaker 1: becoming frustrated with the title as a whole and just
Speaker 1: abandoning it. And finally, a weather satellite called Eolis came
Speaker 1: crashing down to Earth this week, but this was planned.
Speaker 1: The European Space Agency launched Eolis about five years ago.
Speaker 1: It carried a laser doppler tool called a Leyden or
Speaker 1: Aladdin if you prefer. It just has one D, so
Speaker 1: I called it a Leyden, and the scientist were using
Speaker 1: this to help monitor and study wind speed and direction
Speaker 1: at various elevations through the atmosphere. So this was part
Speaker 1: of a broader study on weather and climate and just
Speaker 1: gathering a lot of scientific information. But earlier this year,
Speaker 1: the ESA made plans to deorbit the satellite. It was
Speaker 1: reaching the end of its mission. It's also reaching the
Speaker 1: end of its fuel, and as it turned out, the
Speaker 1: satellite did not have enough fuel in it so that
Speaker 1: the ESA could do a fully controlled deorbit. Instead, the
Speaker 1: ESA used the remaining fuel to carry out what they
Speaker 1: called an assist, which is kind of between a controlled
Speaker 1: deorbit where you are using thrust to target a specific
Speaker 1: location for touchdown or crash down. I guess it is
Speaker 1: a better word for it, and an uncontrolled deorbit where
Speaker 1: nature just takes its course and you have no idea
Speaker 1: where that satellite's going to end up going. The ESA
Speaker 1: couldn't guide the satellite the entire time, but it could
Speaker 1: ensure that the spacecraft was able to use its fuel
Speaker 1: and thrusters to manu itself above the Atlantic Ocean in
Speaker 1: an effort to minimize any terrestrial issues, you know, like
Speaker 1: having the satellite fall in someone's house or something. Deorbiting
Speaker 1: the satellite also means that EOLIS would not become another
Speaker 1: piece of space junk serving as a potential hazard in
Speaker 1: lower orbit. So rest in pieces. Eolis, you did good
Speaker 1: work out there. That's it for today's news. Hope you
Speaker 1: are all well and I will talk to you again
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