Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I happened to be an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, and I also happened to love all
Speaker 1: things tech. And this is the tech news for Tuesday, April. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is four twenty, a number that has significance for
Speaker 1: some reason. I wouldn't know, as I am a boring
Speaker 1: old person. No, I mean I know why the number
Speaker 1: has significance. I just you know, again, the boring old
Speaker 1: person is absolutely true. I will also say, though, that
Speaker 1: I have enjoyed a dose of something recently, that being
Speaker 1: the second dose of the Fiser vaccine. I got the
Speaker 1: first dose a few weeks ago. Turned out that that's
Speaker 1: the only way they would give it to me. I
Speaker 1: had to take the first dose and then the second dose.
Speaker 1: I tried to convince some to reverse that, and they
Speaker 1: said it doesn't work that way. I will say also
Speaker 1: that the shot itself wasn't bad at all. It did
Speaker 1: make my arm really sore both times, and the second
Speaker 1: time I felt a little icky the evening after I
Speaker 1: got my shot. I got my shot in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: By that evening, I wasn't feeling so great. Next day
Speaker 1: I felt great. The next day I did not feel great.
Speaker 1: So it was a real up and down. But I
Speaker 1: have received both of those shots, and a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks I should be fully vaccinated. I'll still be wearing
Speaker 1: a mask. I'll still be socially distancing, because I want
Speaker 1: to be as safe as possible, not just for myself,
Speaker 1: but for others in my community and their loved ones.
Speaker 1: And I urge all of those listening who have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to get vaccinated to do so. I realized it
Speaker 1: can be difficult depending on where you are. It was
Speaker 1: a bit of a challenge here in Georgia. If I'm
Speaker 1: being honest, we are a state that is still ruggling
Speaker 1: to get up to speed with the rest of the US.
Speaker 1: But I like being able to see light at the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel stay safe. The more we do that,
Speaker 1: the fewer variants we will see, and the better chance
Speaker 1: we'll have of establishing a normal that doesn't involve everybody
Speaker 1: staying at home all the time. All right, got all
Speaker 1: that all the way, Let's move on to some tech news.
Speaker 1: My top story is that ingenuity a k a. The
Speaker 1: little experimental drone helicopter that could has taken its first
Speaker 1: flight on Mars. This was the high risk experiment, meaning
Speaker 1: that there was never any guarantee of success. The engineers
Speaker 1: here on Earth could only try and design an autonomous
Speaker 1: flying vehicle and hope that it would work in Mars'
Speaker 1: thin atmosphere. And it did work. This is incredibly exciting news,
Speaker 1: at least to me, and I assume for at least
Speaker 1: some of you out there as well. Because of the
Speaker 1: distance between Earth and Mars, Ingenuity had actually made its
Speaker 1: flight and landed several minutes before we knew about it.
Speaker 1: It takes time for signals to travel that much distance
Speaker 1: between Earth and Mars, and so Earth celebrated hearing about
Speaker 1: it around sixty six in the morning Eastern Time, but
Speaker 1: Ingenuity had technically set its feet down on the soil
Speaker 1: for more than ten minutes. The delay in signals means
Speaker 1: that it is impossible for a human pilot to guide Ingenuity.
Speaker 1: There's just a ten minute lag is just way too much,
Speaker 1: and that's why it has to be an autonomous device.
Speaker 1: Ingenuity spun its rotors at around revolutions per minute. Helicopters
Speaker 1: back here on Earth average out at around four hundred
Speaker 1: to five d rpm, and that was just to generate
Speaker 1: enough lift to carry this very light device through the
Speaker 1: thin Martian atmosphere. The flight lasted about thirty nine point
Speaker 1: one seconds. It re an altitude of around ten feet
Speaker 1: or three meters, and NASA may conduct as many as
Speaker 1: four additional test flights if Ingenuity is up for it.
Speaker 1: The little chopper hitched a ride with the rover Perseverance,
Speaker 1: but unlike the rover, Ingenuity isn't carrying any scientific equipment.
Speaker 1: It has a camera so it can take pictures, and
Speaker 1: it has the sensors it needs to achieve flight and
Speaker 1: maintain flight, but that's about it. So this is really
Speaker 1: the beginning of something really exciting. It means that NASA
Speaker 1: and other space agencies could potentially design other autonomous aircraft
Speaker 1: that can perform actual scientific observations in Martian atmosphere down
Speaker 1: the road, which is pretty darn neat if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, a couple of cryptocurrency stories lead to
Speaker 1: Bitcoin's value dropping fairly quickly, almost like I picked the
Speaker 1: wrong week to invest in cryptocurrencies now. For one, the
Speaker 1: Nation of turn Key has banned crypto payments arguing that
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency represents possible transaction risks and could lead to irreparable damage.
Speaker 1: As such, the country's government forbids the use of cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: to pay for goods or services in the country of Turkey.
Speaker 1: The lack of regulation was really the big sticking factor apparently,
Speaker 1: and I have some thoughts on this now. It's no
Speaker 1: secret that I think bitcoin is a pretty lousy currency
Speaker 1: because the value of the coin is so volatile. It
Speaker 1: would be like waking up to find that one day
Speaker 1: a dollar bill could buy you a candy bar, and
Speaker 1: the next day you find out that dollar bill could
Speaker 1: buy you a dozen candy bars, and maybe in a
Speaker 1: year or two, that dollar bill would be able to
Speaker 1: buy you an entire candy store, all with just one dollar.
Speaker 1: The dollar didn't change, it's it's purchasing value changed. But
Speaker 1: this is an issue that could potentially work out much
Speaker 1: further down the road and the future, should the value
Speaker 1: of bitcoin stabilize. And there's no reason that you'd ever
Speaker 1: use a single bitcoin for purchase. You're far more likely
Speaker 1: to use just a tiny fraction of a bitcoin to
Speaker 1: do it. In fact, the vast majority of bitcoin owners
Speaker 1: don't own a whole bitcoin anyway. That's a different matter
Speaker 1: than to suggest that the transactions themselves are risky. And
Speaker 1: I know I've talked about bitcoin exclusively, but this really
Speaker 1: applies to all cryptocurrencies. They just aren't all as volatile
Speaker 1: or valued as Bitcoin happens to be. I would say
Speaker 1: that the blockchain approach is actually very much not risky.
Speaker 1: I would argue it's incredibly stable and visible. I suppose
Speaker 1: you could argue that it would be risky if, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason the value of the coin drops drastically, but
Speaker 1: that can happen with fiat currencies, that can happen with anything,
Speaker 1: So this move seems a bit disingenuous to me. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's more that if it's outside the control of the government,
Speaker 1: it's scary that kind of thing. After the announcement, Bitcoin's
Speaker 1: value took a hit and it dropped about four percent
Speaker 1: in value. However, it was still above sixty tho dollars
Speaker 1: for the moment. Now that leads to the next story,
Speaker 1: because I mean it got worse for bitcoin. On Saturday.
Speaker 1: It dropped again in value. A massive amount of bitcoin
Speaker 1: was sold off, and that meant that there was a
Speaker 1: flood of bitcoins into the market. And that dropped the
Speaker 1: value of bitcoin compared to the US dollar. And it's
Speaker 1: a basic supply and demand thing. When supply ends up
Speaker 1: suddenly increasing, then you typically see the price dropped because
Speaker 1: the demand is now overshadowed by supply. So now that
Speaker 1: sixty five thousand dollar bitcoin is down to about fifty
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars, it's a nine thousand dollar drop. Amusing
Speaker 1: estimates because the value change just so much, and a
Speaker 1: nine thousand dollar drop is a lot of money, but
Speaker 1: fifty six thousand dollars is a lot of money. However,
Speaker 1: it means that if you were someone who had been
Speaker 1: investing in bitcoin just as it was hitting sixty dollars,
Speaker 1: now you would see the value of that investment has
Speaker 1: just dropped a pretty significant amount. Some outlets have used
Speaker 1: the word plunge to describe bitcoin's value, but I think
Speaker 1: that's a bit too alarmist and extreme. So you might ask,
Speaker 1: why was there this big flood of bitcoins sold back
Speaker 1: into the market, why were they converted over? Well, the
Speaker 1: the answer for that is not entirely clear, but there
Speaker 1: are a few theories, and one is that investors who
Speaker 1: were attempting to buy bitcoin on margin had their margin.
Speaker 1: Called buying on margin is when an investor puts up
Speaker 1: some money as collateral for a loan of more money
Speaker 1: in order to make an investment. So, for example, let's
Speaker 1: say I wanted to invest ten thousand dollars in bitcoin,
Speaker 1: but I've only scraped together five thousand dollars. Well, I
Speaker 1: could buy on margin by putting up my five grand
Speaker 1: as collateral and then getting a loan for the ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which then I put into bitcoin. But the
Speaker 1: lender at any time could end up calling my margin
Speaker 1: and they demand I repay their loan of ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Now that five thousand dollar collateral will go to some
Speaker 1: of that, but I have to cover the rest. And
Speaker 1: if the price of bitcoin has dropped significantly, it would
Speaker 1: mean that I'm out a good deal of money. So
Speaker 1: sometimes people who lend on margin are asking for the
Speaker 1: payment back if they perceive a drop in value. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, Turkey says, we don't want to use
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency in our country. Bitcoin's value takes a hit, the
Speaker 1: lenders say, I don't want to lose money on this,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna call in my margins now. And then
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of investors who are selling off
Speaker 1: bitcoin in order to cover their margin, uh and not
Speaker 1: to lose too much money. That would in turn mean
Speaker 1: that you get this flood of bitcoins, saying the market
Speaker 1: and the value could take another hit, dropping like fi
Speaker 1: Insto just four. But that's just one possible theory. Another
Speaker 1: is that it may be that a couple of major
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency owners, which the current the community tends to refer
Speaker 1: to as whales, sold off a lot of coin in
Speaker 1: the hope of making that price drop. And here's the
Speaker 1: logic behind that. Okay, you are a fat cat whale,
Speaker 1: which I realized is combining a lot of animals. But
Speaker 1: you've got a ton of bitcoin, is what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say. And for the scenario, let's say that the
Speaker 1: bitcoin is valued at sixty five thousand U S dollars
Speaker 1: per bitcoin. You've got tons of these things, so you decide, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna really make some money, and you convert your
Speaker 1: bitcoins into US dollars. You're effectively selling your bitcoins back
Speaker 1: into the market. You make billions of dollars because you've
Speaker 1: got so many bitcoins. But by offloading all those bitcoins,
Speaker 1: it causes the value of bitcoin itself to drop down
Speaker 1: and it ends up settling around fifty six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per bitcoin. Now you buy back all those bitcoins you sold,
Speaker 1: plus some extra because you've made a lot of US dollars,
Speaker 1: and now the bitcoin compared to the US dollar is
Speaker 1: worth slightly less than it was before, so you can
Speaker 1: actually buy more of it, and then you just wait
Speaker 1: for the bitcoin value to grow again. So occasionally you
Speaker 1: might dump a ton of cryptocurrency, dropping the value of
Speaker 1: the currency as the in the process, then buy it
Speaker 1: back and make it into a long term investment. That
Speaker 1: means like you'd be safe from stuff. I mean, if
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, you you just get out of the market,
Speaker 1: you've got billions of dollars which you can, you know,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want with, but other investors could end
Speaker 1: up suffering, at least in the short term. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a move that a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency community considered to be um dirty pool, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say. Meanwhile, one problem that bitcoin has, whether
Speaker 1: the value is high or low, is that the process
Speaker 1: of mining bitcoins requires a lot of electricity, and this
Speaker 1: is directly tied to bitcoin's value. So we have to
Speaker 1: talk about how bitcoin mining works from a very very
Speaker 1: high level. So essentially, the way bitcoin mining works is
Speaker 1: that computers all connected to the Bitcoin network compete against
Speaker 1: each other in an effort to guess a really big number.
Speaker 1: Now I'm oversimplifying a bit here, but that's the basic idea.
Speaker 1: So the computer that does guess the correct really big
Speaker 1: number first effectively verifies a block of transactions for the
Speaker 1: blockchain and is rewarded in return with a certain or
Speaker 1: of bitcoins. The number of bitcoins gradually decreases over time,
Speaker 1: but right now it's at six point two five bitcoins
Speaker 1: per block, and about a hundred forty four blocks get
Speaker 1: mined every single day. And since each bitcoin is worth
Speaker 1: more than fifty thou dollars, that adds up to a
Speaker 1: lot of money. So if you buy a really fast computer,
Speaker 1: like Screaming Lee Fast, even if that means you're sinking
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars into buying that computer, you could potentially
Speaker 1: make all that back through mining, as long as your
Speaker 1: computer is faster than all the others on the Bitcoin
Speaker 1: network at guessing that really big number. Except we are
Speaker 1: well beyond talking about just fast computers. Were now up
Speaker 1: to fast computer networks and server farms running multiple graphics
Speaker 1: processing units in parallel trying to guess these numbers, and
Speaker 1: these networks require an enormous amount of like tricity as
Speaker 1: they try to be the first to get to that
Speaker 1: solution before any other computer can manage it. As the
Speaker 1: price of bitcoin goes up, the competition gets more fierce. Now,
Speaker 1: at some point we should reach a stage in which
Speaker 1: the rewards you get from mining a block will be
Speaker 1: small enough that the computer systems will drop off the
Speaker 1: network because it would actually cost more money to run
Speaker 1: the systems than you would make in mining, so you
Speaker 1: would be it would be a losing proposition. You'd be
Speaker 1: spending more money just paying for electricity. Then you would
Speaker 1: get out of the successful blocks that you mind. At
Speaker 1: that point, the number that computers have to guess will
Speaker 1: actually be easier to guess. The guessing game gets harder
Speaker 1: as more computational power is directed at getting the right answer.
Speaker 1: It's a dynamic system, which is pretty cool, But this
Speaker 1: means that more electricity goes into mining bitcoins right now
Speaker 1: than is used by some countries on a day a
Speaker 1: league basis. That blows my mind. Well, China recently responded
Speaker 1: to this problem. Inner Mongolia is the world leader when
Speaker 1: it comes to bitcoin mining. It's responsible for eight percent
Speaker 1: of all bitcoin mining, largely because Inner Mongolia is an
Speaker 1: industrial region within China. You've got a lot of fossil
Speaker 1: fuel mining and UH power companies located in Inner Mongolia.
Speaker 1: So electricity in Inner Mongolia is significantly cheaper than it
Speaker 1: is in other parts of the world. So that means
Speaker 1: that your profit margins of running a mining cryptocurrency operation
Speaker 1: in Inner Mongolia are much better. You're spending less money
Speaker 1: just to run the systems. UH. The United States, by
Speaker 1: the way, is that seven point two percent of all
Speaker 1: bitcoin mining, So that shows you Inner Mongolia, just one
Speaker 1: region in China, is responsible for more bitcoin mining than
Speaker 1: the entire United States. Well. Now, China has banned cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: mining in Inner Mongol y because the electricity requirements have
Speaker 1: led to increased fossil fuel consumption. China has also struggled
Speaker 1: between supporting cryptocurrency is a potential way for the country
Speaker 1: to generate wealth versus the fact that as a deregulated,
Speaker 1: decentralized commodity, the Chinese government doesn't really have regulatory authority
Speaker 1: over the currency itself. And man, this just shows that
Speaker 1: it's tough when your greed does battle with your authoritarian sensibilities.
Speaker 1: My heart goes out to China. Over in the UK,
Speaker 1: a regulatory body called the c m A, which focuses
Speaker 1: on preventing, you know, anti competitive practices, raised concerns about
Speaker 1: in Vidio's acquisition of microchip designer ARM. Now. According to
Speaker 1: c m A, the concern is that the sale of
Speaker 1: ARM could potentially create national security issues for the United Kingdom. Arm,
Speaker 1: I should point out, originated in the UK, and the
Speaker 1: Digital Secretary Oliver Dalton has issued an intervention notice, essentially
Speaker 1: putting the acquisition on hold, so that the c m
Speaker 1: A might ponder whether there would be any national security
Speaker 1: issues should the sale go through. But and Video was
Speaker 1: to purchase ARM from the Japanese mega company soft Bank,
Speaker 1: which first acquired ARM back in so I guess the
Speaker 1: concern is that a non UK company might purchase a
Speaker 1: UK based company from a different non UK company. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if soft Bank could acquire ARM and there were
Speaker 1: no national security issues stopping that acquisition, why does that
Speaker 1: potentially change when the company doing the acquisition is in Video. Still,
Speaker 1: I think it's appropriate to scrutinize big acquisition deals because
Speaker 1: there's always a chance that such a deal will reduce
Speaker 1: competition in the market, which gives consumers fewer choices. It
Speaker 1: leads to some pretty lousy consequences for everybody apart from
Speaker 1: whatever company holds the monopoly. I just didn't anticipate the
Speaker 1: national security angle. I think there's a good reason to
Speaker 1: look into it. I just I mean, I don't see
Speaker 1: where national security comes in. However, I also admit I
Speaker 1: am not an expert on these matters, and I could
Speaker 1: really be missing something really obvious. Finally, starting today, certain
Speaker 1: Xbox Cloud Ultimate subscribers who have a Windows ten PC
Speaker 1: or an Apple phone or tablet will be able to
Speaker 1: stream a selection of about a hundred Xbox games to
Speaker 1: those devices over browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, or of course,
Speaker 1: Microsoft Edge. The company is opening this up gradually, and
Speaker 1: so the first folks who will get a chance to
Speaker 1: test this out will be a limited selection of Xbox
Speaker 1: Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, who should be on the lookout
Speaker 1: for an email notification from Microsoft. Players will need a
Speaker 1: game controller that can connect to their computer via USB
Speaker 1: or lue tooth. Fun fact that includes PlayStation four controllers,
Speaker 1: so you can finally play Xbox games on the inferior
Speaker 1: PlayStation game controller. Yeah. I know that's an opinion, it's
Speaker 1: not a fact. A lot of folks probably disagree. They
Speaker 1: love the PS four controller. But while I felt the
Speaker 1: PS four was an improvement over earlier PlayStation controllers, I
Speaker 1: still don't like those controllers very much. I find them
Speaker 1: really cramped. Anyway, It's been a couple of years since
Speaker 1: Microsoft really invested heavily in game streaming with the Xbox
Speaker 1: Cloud service, which was previously called Project x Cloud. Uh,
Speaker 1: subscription models bring in a guaranteed revenue month after month.
Speaker 1: I mean, typically you can only sell a video game
Speaker 1: once to each customer, unless you're me and you happen
Speaker 1: to be one of those people who buys the same
Speaker 1: game multiple times for different platforms. I have done that,
Speaker 1: but most of the time you can only sell a
Speaker 1: game once. If you do have a game that has
Speaker 1: a subscription model, you know, like some online games, is
Speaker 1: a little bit different, but this is a way for
Speaker 1: Microsoft to generate an enormous amount of revenue month after month.
Speaker 1: It becomes a kind of guaranteed income source. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Ultimate subscription. You're looking at a
Speaker 1: fifteen dollar per month fee. I am an Xbox uh
Speaker 1: gain Pass subscriber, but I don't have the Ultimate subscription.
Speaker 1: I think I have the Basic, so I will not
Speaker 1: be part of this initial round. I will have to wait.
Speaker 1: But in return for your subscription, you do have access
Speaker 1: to a hundred titles that you can stream to your
Speaker 1: Xbox console or starting today for some of y'all just
Speaker 1: not me, a browser which is Bring nifty. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's all the news I have for you for Tuesday April.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a lie. I actually had a couple
Speaker 1: of other stories, but I didn't want to run too long.
Speaker 1: But stay tuned this week. You will get another news
Speaker 1: episode later in the week. And if you have any
Speaker 1: suggest questions for topics I should cover on tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me on Twitter. The handle is text
Speaker 1: stuff H s W and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.