Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, October twenty, twenty twenty two, and we've
Speaker 1: got a ton to get through, So let's start off
Speaker 1: with some Apple news. Last week, I talked about how
Speaker 1: lawmakers in the EU had approved legislation that will require
Speaker 1: all smartphone manufacturers that use a physical charger to adopt
Speaker 1: the USBC standard for sales in the European Union, and
Speaker 1: that this news particularly affects Apple, as the company has
Speaker 1: relied upon its own proprietary technology called Lightning up until now.
Speaker 1: Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, has is
Speaker 1: confirmed that Apple will comply with the new laws, though
Speaker 1: he did not comment on whether or not Apple will
Speaker 1: make a global switch to the USBC standard. So it
Speaker 1: is possible that the European market will get a us
Speaker 1: b C version of the iPhone starting in late and
Speaker 1: that the rest of the world we'll stick with iPhones
Speaker 1: that have a lightning part. We don't know yet, Josiak
Speaker 1: also argued that the lightning technology actually cuts down on
Speaker 1: E waste, which is a claim I find dubious at best.
Speaker 1: So the claim says that charging bricks, you know, the
Speaker 1: actual things that you plug into a wall outlet, they
Speaker 1: frequently have ports for both USB and lightning cables, and
Speaker 1: so by switching to USBC, folks will have no choice
Speaker 1: but to toss all their old lightning cables because those
Speaker 1: won't go to anything anymore, which you know, sure, but
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I know that I have
Speaker 1: to replace my cables fairly regularly either they get wear
Speaker 1: and tear on them. I'm particularly bad about rolling my
Speaker 1: office chair over cables that honestly are just too long.
Speaker 1: I need to get shorter cables, or more likely I
Speaker 1: misplaced them during travel. And then I find that I
Speaker 1: need a cable to connect my thing to my other thing,
Speaker 1: like my phone to a charging brick or whatever. By
Speaker 1: consolidating all that into a single standard, a standard that
Speaker 1: works pretty darn well for that matter, then I'm more
Speaker 1: likely to have a backup cable than if I need
Speaker 1: to keep separate types for all my devices. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are different levels of USBC. There are like three amp
Speaker 1: and five amp versions, So there are differences, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, like you can just swap cables out,
Speaker 1: unless you're doing something like trying to power a computer
Speaker 1: or a display or something, in which case you need
Speaker 1: to make sure you have the five amp version. But otherwise, like,
Speaker 1: it's really makes it simple to to swap in and
Speaker 1: out of your cables, and I'm all for that kind
Speaker 1: of consolidation anyway, Jaws re act, you know, Apple's rep
Speaker 1: kind of made it clear that Apple is complying, but
Speaker 1: is tots not happy about doing it. At least it's
Speaker 1: going to comply in Europe. Here in the United States,
Speaker 1: there are a few lawmakers who are considering similar legislation
Speaker 1: that would standardize stuff like charging cables. But I am
Speaker 1: not particularly optimistic that such legislation will ultimately become law here.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I just don't think it's likely.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see swapping over to Alphabet, which of course
Speaker 1: is the company that's the parent company of the stuff
Speaker 1: like Google, YouTube, etcetera. It's starting to really tighten its
Speaker 1: belt across all of its subsidiaries. Over the course of
Speaker 1: the last year, Alphabet had added more than thirty six
Speaker 1: thousand new employees to the company, which is a big
Speaker 1: old yaalza. That's a lot of hires. But those days
Speaker 1: of heavy hiring appeared to be at an end, or
Speaker 1: at least to be put on pause. In an investor
Speaker 1: called this Week, Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai assured investors that
Speaker 1: the company is taking a much more critical look at
Speaker 1: projects to determine which ones are really important and to
Speaker 1: direct resources to those as well as to make quote
Speaker 1: unquote course corrections. And I think this is important for Google.
Speaker 1: The company has frequently launched projects that saw like a
Speaker 1: lackluster response sometimes because you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel like it's a boy who Cried wolf situation that
Speaker 1: Google has so frequently pulled the plug on products that
Speaker 1: there's a reluctance to get invested in a new one
Speaker 1: because you're worried that the company will stop supporting it
Speaker 1: within a year or two. That's kind of earned that reputation.
Speaker 1: So there really is a need to focus on specific
Speaker 1: projects to make sure that those are adding value to
Speaker 1: the company. I get that, But the company has also
Speaker 1: had to cut way back on a lot of employee
Speaker 1: travel and related expenses. At the same time, the advertising
Speaker 1: business is taking a pretty big hit that is not
Speaker 1: unusual in times of economic crisis or economic distress or recession,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. I'll spare you an
Speaker 1: actual rant, but just in your head. Insert at this
Speaker 1: point in the episode, a rant where I yell about
Speaker 1: the fact that avoiding naming something like the reluctance to
Speaker 1: name whatever economic situation we're in, does not at all
Speaker 1: change the nature of that situation. It's still bad even
Speaker 1: if we refuse to name it something specific. Anyway. All
Speaker 1: this means that Alphabet's chief source of revenue the advertising business.
Speaker 1: That's where I remind you Google is not really a
Speaker 1: search company. It's an advertising company anyway, that's taken a
Speaker 1: big hit. It also means that other entities that depend
Speaker 1: upon ad revenue are hurting, So that would include folks
Speaker 1: like YouTube creators, for example. So this is a pretty
Speaker 1: big ripple effect. The Chi's call with investors does not
Speaker 1: signal like a massive catastrophe or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: you could say that this is another kind of red
Speaker 1: flag that we're in a period where tech companies in particular,
Speaker 1: and the people looking for work within the tech industry
Speaker 1: are encountering some pretty tough challenges. Okay, let's switch over
Speaker 1: to our favorite punching bag that is Meta Yesterday. Yesterday
Speaker 1: being Wednesday, October twenty two for any of y'all from
Speaker 1: the future who are listening back on old tech news
Speaker 1: episodes for some reason. Anyway, yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and his
Speaker 1: team held an earnings call that delivered some bad news
Speaker 1: to investors, who have more than responded in kind, as
Speaker 1: we will soon learn. So in that call, we learned
Speaker 1: that Meta's revenue dropped four percent compared to this time
Speaker 1: last year, that net income was down a whopping fifty
Speaker 1: two from this time last year, and that spending is
Speaker 1: up by nine So Meta is bringing in less money overall.
Speaker 1: That would be the revenue bit. It's bringing in way
Speaker 1: less of what we will generously refer to as profit.
Speaker 1: That would be the income bit. That's the drop off
Speaker 1: from a year ago. And this is all following on
Speaker 1: the heels of other bad news like the fact that
Speaker 1: EU regulators have forced Meta to divest itself of Giffee,
Speaker 1: the animated gift platform it had purchased in twenty So
Speaker 1: that's something that the company is going to have to
Speaker 1: do in the near future, and considering that there's also
Speaker 1: this growing skepticism around the concept of the metaverse, and
Speaker 1: that Mark Zuckerberg appears fully dedicated to pursuing his version,
Speaker 1: version his vision, I guess I could say of the metaverse,
Speaker 1: it has some folks, like some investors, extremely displeased with
Speaker 1: the company direction. This lack of confidence in in Meta
Speaker 1: and Meta strategy is reflected in the company's stock price,
Speaker 1: which dropped nearly twenty percent and after hours trading following
Speaker 1: this earnings call. That drop in stock price meant that
Speaker 1: Meta saw a rapid loss of around sixty five billion
Speaker 1: dollars in its market capitalization. Market Cap is essentially the
Speaker 1: what you get when you take the value of a
Speaker 1: share of stock in a company multiplied by the numbers
Speaker 1: of shares of that stock, and then it gives a
Speaker 1: kind of general indication of the company's value. Right you
Speaker 1: take like, if if you've got ten dollar stock and
Speaker 1: there are ten shares out there, you multiplied ten by ten,
Speaker 1: you get a hundred. That's how much market cap your
Speaker 1: little your little approach has. So Meta saw a drop
Speaker 1: of sixty billion dollars in its market cap because of
Speaker 1: that stock price drop. By the way, that doesn't have
Speaker 1: any real direct impact on how much cash the company
Speaker 1: may or may not have on hand at that moment.
Speaker 1: They can have an impact on a company if it
Speaker 1: wants to, you know, borrow money or whatever for an acquisition,
Speaker 1: then the market cap change can make a big difference.
Speaker 1: But it's really just to show that there's this drop
Speaker 1: in confidence in Meta in general. Zuckerberg said on the
Speaker 1: call that if Meta wasn't pursuing the development of a metaverse,
Speaker 1: it might be the case that no one else would
Speaker 1: have stepped up and no work would be done on it.
Speaker 1: And to that, I say, okay, so what. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's because I remain really skeptical that a metaverse approach
Speaker 1: is really the future of connectivity, commerce, entertainment, etcetera. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it is. Maybe that is the future, and and
Speaker 1: I'm just incapable of seeing it. Maybe I am being
Speaker 1: obstinate in my reluctance to buy into the metaverse vision,
Speaker 1: but it just it just seems unrealistic to me because
Speaker 1: of a lot of different factors. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of investors feel in a similar way. Right They
Speaker 1: also feel feel uncertain. They certainly see how the metaverse
Speaker 1: project is requiring enormous UH costs in Meta, and that
Speaker 1: this is in fact impacting the company's performance. Maybe we're
Speaker 1: all wrong. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is right on the money.
Speaker 1: That is possible. But whether we're right, or Zuckerberg's right,
Speaker 1: or there's no one who's right, Zuckerberg has indicated that
Speaker 1: we're likely to see future quarters with similar tough results
Speaker 1: moving forward, that Meta remains committed to this metaverse pursuit
Speaker 1: and will continue to spend money and perhaps in increasing quantities,
Speaker 1: in an effort to see it to fruition. Meanwhile, companies
Speaker 1: like TikTok continue to attract the younger users that Meta
Speaker 1: desperately wants to hook into its own ecosystem. So it
Speaker 1: may be that Meta's future is really just meant for
Speaker 1: a group of folks who are steadily aging out of
Speaker 1: the platform with no replenishment in sight. Okay, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot more tech news to go through, including some
Speaker 1: more from Meta, but first let's take this quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back. The Association for Computer Machineries Journal published a
Speaker 1: study that has some disturbing findings, namely that Facebook ads
Speaker 1: appear to target people not just on their interests, and
Speaker 1: their likes and their dislikes, and their browsing activity, and
Speaker 1: sometimes their app activity, unless it's an Apple iPhone, in
Speaker 1: which case I got kind of eliminated once Apple gave
Speaker 1: users the option to opt out of that, but also
Speaker 1: on things like their race, their gender, and their age,
Speaker 1: even if the user isn't sharing that info with the
Speaker 1: platform itself. The study says that Facebook is using image
Speaker 1: recognition software to draw conclusions about users and then serve
Speaker 1: up ads based on those conclusions. For example, the study
Speaker 1: found that white users were far less likely to encounter
Speaker 1: ads that feature black people in them. The researchers actually
Speaker 1: created ads for job listings to post on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: these job listings featured AI generated images of people. Some
Speaker 1: of the ads had white people in them, some had
Speaker 1: black people in them, and by tracking the ads, the
Speaker 1: research group saw that black users made up of the
Speaker 1: audience that saw ads that had black people in them.
Speaker 1: With ads that had white people in them, black users
Speaker 1: made up fifty of that audience. Ads with teenage girls
Speaker 1: featured in them went on to an audience that was
Speaker 1: fifty seven percent mail, and many of them over the
Speaker 1: age of fifty five, which creepy I mean, that's not
Speaker 1: a good look for a platform that's often associated with
Speaker 1: an aging user base. If it was an AD that
Speaker 1: featured an older woman inside the image, well, the audience
Speaker 1: for those ads ended up being women. So the researchers
Speaker 1: indicate that for some uses, this kind of targeting might
Speaker 1: feel like like it's a little suss, but it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a bad thing. I mean, let's face it, you
Speaker 1: are more likely to respond to an AD if the
Speaker 1: person or person's appearing in the ad kind of look
Speaker 1: like you do right, like you. There's just this this tendency.
Speaker 1: You know, we want to see ourselves reflected in the
Speaker 1: things that we see. But when it comes to stuff
Speaker 1: like job listings and housing and education, the targeting can
Speaker 1: reinforce social problems. In fact, Facebook has been in trouble
Speaker 1: for that in the past. Back in there was a
Speaker 1: massive lawsuit that focused on this. Also, you know, we're
Speaker 1: looking at a system that's using machine learning and AI
Speaker 1: and machine learning by relying upon strategies that worked in
Speaker 1: the past, could end up perpetuating discriminatory practices that disproportionately
Speaker 1: hurt certain populations, namely people of color. The study also
Speaker 1: indicates that Facebook's approach could be antithetical to the desires
Speaker 1: of their clients, like the companies that are actually paying
Speaker 1: for the ads, because a lot of these companies want
Speaker 1: to project an image that values diversity. But if the
Speaker 1: diversity reflected in the ads means that those ads aren't
Speaker 1: being shown to all populations, that might mean that the
Speaker 1: ad isn't getting the effect that the base company wanted
Speaker 1: in the first place. Now, Meta reps say that Meta
Speaker 1: is dedicated to preventing discrimination on its platforms and that
Speaker 1: the company continues to develop its technologies with that goal
Speaker 1: in mind. Further, we should be hearing more about Meta's
Speaker 1: pushes to to fix these kinds of problems in the
Speaker 1: months ahead. But this is a good example of how
Speaker 1: machine learning and how AI can have a bias built
Speaker 1: into it, and how that bias can have a negative impact.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that all biases necessarily bad
Speaker 1: or that all bias has to be avoided, but there
Speaker 1: are definite areas where you could say, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a problem, and this kind of constitutes that and some
Speaker 1: more Meta bad news. In Washington State here in the
Speaker 1: United States, a judge has issued a twenty four point
Speaker 1: seven million dollar fine for failing to comply with a
Speaker 1: state campaign finance disclosure law. So the court found Facebook
Speaker 1: guilty of violating the state's Fair Campaign Practices Act more
Speaker 1: than eight hundred times eight hundred twenty two times in fact,
Speaker 1: and this is not the first time this has happened.
Speaker 1: The company came up for the same sort of problem
Speaker 1: back in two thousand eighteen. So that law says that
Speaker 1: any platform that airs or displays political advertising has to
Speaker 1: maintain a publicly accessible database of who purchased the ads,
Speaker 1: including their names and addresses. Plus the information has to
Speaker 1: include whom the ads were targeting, how many views the
Speaker 1: ads received, how the ads were paid for, and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So anyone who asks for this information
Speaker 1: has the right to it, and the platforms are compelled
Speaker 1: by law to comply and hand over that precious information.
Speaker 1: But Facebook has declined to acquiesce to that request for
Speaker 1: quite some time, has not followed the rules according to
Speaker 1: the the case, and it has argued that the law
Speaker 1: quote burdens political speech end quote. Though that's kind of
Speaker 1: a tough thing to argue considering that, you know, platforms
Speaker 1: like television, radio, and newspapers have all been complying with
Speaker 1: this law since it was passed in nine two. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that's a really valid argument. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that Facebook has access to the information
Speaker 1: that's required. The company has just repeatedly failed to hand
Speaker 1: that information over. The law allow the judge to find
Speaker 1: an entity up to ten thousand dollars per violation. And
Speaker 1: as I said, there were eight hundred twenty two violations,
Speaker 1: And you might say, huh, e d two times ten
Speaker 1: thousand does not equal twenty four point seven million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's that's way more than what you should expect. Well,
Speaker 1: that same law also allows a judge to triple the
Speaker 1: penalty per violation if the judge determines that the violations
Speaker 1: were intentional in nature. And since Facebook went through this
Speaker 1: same process back in two thousand eighteen, it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to argue that the company wasn't intentionally violating that law.
Speaker 1: Thus we get the twenty four point seven million dollar
Speaker 1: fine that might be the largest campaign finance penalty ever
Speaker 1: issued here in the United States. Of course, compared to
Speaker 1: Facebook's revenues, which even in the downturn it's experiencing right now,
Speaker 1: or you know, measured in the billions of dollars. This
Speaker 1: is small change, but then no company really wants to
Speaker 1: just hand over twenty five million bucks, so it's not
Speaker 1: exactly a slap on the wrist either. It's you know,
Speaker 1: literally the largest penalty that the judge was allowed to
Speaker 1: pass by law. Now let's hop on over to Twitter
Speaker 1: to find out what's going on with Elon Musk's on again,
Speaker 1: off again, on again again acquisition deal. So as it stands,
Speaker 1: Musk has until the close of business tomorrow, Friday, October
Speaker 1: to finalize his acquisition of Twitter. If you recall, Musk
Speaker 1: initially agreed to buy Twitter at fifty four dollars twenty
Speaker 1: cents per share back in the spring of this year.
Speaker 1: Right now, that's actually just a hair over what Twitter
Speaker 1: is currently trading at. Like when I went to record,
Speaker 1: Twitter is trading at just under fifty four dollars per share,
Speaker 1: so it's really close to what that deal was proposed at.
Speaker 1: I suspect that the current share price reflects people anticipating
Speaker 1: that this deal is going to go through by the
Speaker 1: end of tomorrow, So even a small gain is a game.
Speaker 1: So I think that has driven up interest in the stock,
Speaker 1: and thus we see it really close to what Musk
Speaker 1: was um agreeing to buy it for. Of course, Musk
Speaker 1: famously attempted to back out of the deal, which then
Speaker 1: prompted a court case to force Musk to go through
Speaker 1: with the deal. Twitter brought that against Musk. Uh That
Speaker 1: court case is currently on hold unless the deal does
Speaker 1: not complete by the end of day tomorrow, in which
Speaker 1: case the case is back on. So Musk himself arrived
Speaker 1: at Twitter HQ yesterday. On Wednesday, he carried a bathroom
Speaker 1: sink as a kind of publicity stunt. Uh. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what the message was, because typically we talked about
Speaker 1: kitchen sink deals, not bathroom sinc ones. According to Gizmoto,
Speaker 1: Musk said it was a visual pun on let that
Speaker 1: sink in. But you know, I don't know. Maybe he's
Speaker 1: just very particular about where he washes his hands. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Anyway. Musk also published an open letter to
Speaker 1: Twitter employees to address some fears and concerns people have
Speaker 1: had about this acquisition. For example, he denied that he
Speaker 1: plans to eliminate up to the workforce at the company.
Speaker 1: That was something that had been reported in the past
Speaker 1: by The Washington Post. Uh, there is an indication that
Speaker 1: he expects there to be some downsizing, and in fact
Speaker 1: had received previous advice from Jason callicannacas out of old
Speaker 1: people to require people to come into the office, because
Speaker 1: that's going to weed people out, like people will self
Speaker 1: select for leaving the company. But then that tends to
Speaker 1: be like your best people too, So that's not the
Speaker 1: best advice I've ever heard, But you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: very possible that Busk will attempt to downsize Twitter simply
Speaker 1: by being unpleasant, something that I am told he has
Speaker 1: a modicum of experience at doing. Anyway, Moscostle said has
Speaker 1: no intention to allow Twitter to become a quote free
Speaker 1: for all hell scape where anything can be said with
Speaker 1: no consequences end quote. That also conflicts a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier with reports that must believe Twitter should be kind
Speaker 1: of an unfettered platform for free speech. But to be fair,
Speaker 1: Musk has pretty much always maintained that this should actually
Speaker 1: fall within the legal parameters of the various countries within
Speaker 1: which Twitter operates. So, in other words, you can't say
Speaker 1: absolutely anything if the country where you are operating has
Speaker 1: limits on free speech, like you have to you have
Speaker 1: to operate within the boundaries of the law. Uh, he
Speaker 1: has at least made that concession. He has also indicated
Speaker 1: that he intends for Twitter to ease off on content moderation,
Speaker 1: which could allow for even more misinformation to proliferate across
Speaker 1: the platform, and that he would reverse the permanent bands
Speaker 1: of several prominent accounts, most notably that of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who has seen his own truth social platform struggle to
Speaker 1: find significant traction. Anyway, we'll have to wait until tomorrow
Speaker 1: to see if the deal actually does go through for real,
Speaker 1: which I mean, I'm there's like a seventy chance in
Speaker 1: my mind that's going to happen, or if Musk will
Speaker 1: pull some other maneuver in an attempt to get out
Speaker 1: of the deal. I'm not sure that there is an
Speaker 1: exit strategy that wouldn't also put the court case back
Speaker 1: on track to continue. So I think there's a more
Speaker 1: than decent chance that by the end of tomorrow, Twitter
Speaker 1: will be a privately held company owned by Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: CNBC another outlets report that Tesla, another Elon Musk company,
Speaker 1: is currently under investigation by the U. S Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: This is with regards to Tesla's driver assist systems, and
Speaker 1: whether or not the company misled consumers with exaggerated claims
Speaker 1: about those systems and their capabilities, namely that they essentially
Speaker 1: constituted self driving. Now, at the very least, there appears
Speaker 1: to be two distinct storylines coming out of Tesla. So
Speaker 1: on the marketing side, the company seems to indicate that
Speaker 1: Tesla vehicles, when they're in full self driving mode, are
Speaker 1: you know, to any practical consideration, an autonomous vehicle. They
Speaker 1: don't go quite that far to say it, but one
Speaker 1: video on Tesla's site that shows a man inside a
Speaker 1: Tesla vehicle goes on to say, quote, the person in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He
Speaker 1: is not doing anything. The car is driving itself end quote.
Speaker 1: That is not the same thing as saying this car
Speaker 1: is autonomous, but it does seem to imply, Hey, the
Speaker 1: system can take full control of your vehicle safely and
Speaker 1: you can just sit back and relax. However, during actual operation,
Speaker 1: Tesla has messages that tell drivers they are required to
Speaker 1: keep their hands on the wheel even when using the
Speaker 1: driver assist features, and further the website. On Tesla's page,
Speaker 1: it actually says the systems quote do not make the
Speaker 1: vehicle autonomous end quote. So it does say on the
Speaker 1: web page, this doesn't make this an autonomous vehicle, even
Speaker 1: while they also show videos where they say the only
Speaker 1: reason we have a driver in the the driver's seat
Speaker 1: is for legal reasons. So it does sound a lot
Speaker 1: like double speak, right, like the cars aren't autonomous, but
Speaker 1: you know they can drive themselves anyway. Tesla's have been
Speaker 1: involved in numerous high profile accidents, some of them involving fatalities,
Speaker 1: So the d o J is investigating the company, presumably
Speaker 1: to see if there are any criminal implications here. It's
Speaker 1: possible that Tesla's seemingly contradictory messages may keep the company
Speaker 1: legally safe in that Tesla's lawyers can truthfully point out
Speaker 1: that Tesla has denied that its vehicles are autonomous. This
Speaker 1: is not the only legal investigation into Tesla by any means,
Speaker 1: and it might be a while before we hear any
Speaker 1: potential judicial action against the company, if in fact any
Speaker 1: any are pending. Okay, we've got some more news stories
Speaker 1: to get through before we get to that. Let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break. We're back from break. We still have
Speaker 1: one more you know, tangentially Elon Musk related story because
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about SpaceX and specifically Starlink. So earlier
Speaker 1: this year, Starlink, which is the satellite Internet service provider
Speaker 1: arm of SpaceX, offered up a service for RV owners,
Speaker 1: and r V owners would pay a hundred thirty five
Speaker 1: bucks per month for Internet access through Starlink. However, it
Speaker 1: would only work for r vs that were stationary that
Speaker 1: were parked. In other words, However, later this year, in December,
Speaker 1: starlink is going to offer a plan that will allow
Speaker 1: RV owners to access the Internet even while driving the
Speaker 1: r V. Now, to do so will require the installation
Speaker 1: of a new kind of satellite dish, one that comes
Speaker 1: with a hefty two thousand five fee. If you were
Speaker 1: just getting the standard stationary access system in your r V,
Speaker 1: that one costs to install. So it's a pretty hefty upgrade.
Speaker 1: You know, it's almost two thousand dollars more expensive. The
Speaker 1: monthly cost for access will still be a hundred thirty
Speaker 1: five dollar subscription fee. Starlink has recently been targeting use
Speaker 1: cases for moving vehicles for private planes to ships at sea,
Speaker 1: and we can now add r vs on the road
Speaker 1: to that list. Earlier today, hackers got access to the
Speaker 1: New York Post's website and Twitter feed and use that
Speaker 1: access to publish some really awful headlines, mostly targeting specific politicians.
Speaker 1: Those headlines included racist, misogynists, and other disgusting language. The
Speaker 1: Post regained control of its accounts not too long after
Speaker 1: they had been seized, and was able to remove the
Speaker 1: offending material. This marks the second time during the current
Speaker 1: election season here in the United States that a publication
Speaker 1: found itself hacked. Fast Company was a target of such
Speaker 1: a hack in late September actually took its websites down
Speaker 1: for a full week to deal with that. Both Fast
Speaker 1: Company and The New York Post rely upon WordPress as
Speaker 1: a content management system, but as of this recording, there's
Speaker 1: been no further information about how the hackers got access
Speaker 1: to the New York Post website. Anyway, it's yet another
Speaker 1: fun example of how political events can drive terrible things
Speaker 1: in technology. Sigh. This past August, US House Speaker Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi visited Taiwan to meet with Morris Cheng, the founder
Speaker 1: of semiconductor company t s MC. And you might remember
Speaker 1: that t SMC is responsible for the production of much
Speaker 1: of the chips we rely upon in our electronics and
Speaker 1: most of the higher end chips. The US has recently
Speaker 1: passed legislation aimed at bootstrapping the semiconductor industry here in
Speaker 1: the United States, and so it aims to shift some
Speaker 1: of the dependence on Taiwan to US based facilities. And now,
Speaker 1: the Financial Times in Taiwan reports that during the visit
Speaker 1: back in August, Cheng told Pelosi that the United States
Speaker 1: efforts are quote doomed to fail end quote. Now that
Speaker 1: might be the case, but there are some other factors
Speaker 1: that may have influenced Chang when he made such a proclamation,
Speaker 1: assuming that the reporting is accurate. For example, Taiwan currently
Speaker 1: enjoys a not entirely stable independence from mainland China, and
Speaker 1: the Western world's reliance on semiconductors means that countries like
Speaker 1: the United States have a vested interest in keeping Taiwan
Speaker 1: free from Chinese interference. Therefore, if China were to make
Speaker 1: any kind of aggressive moves towards Taiwan, that would likely
Speaker 1: pull the US into what could become a dangerous conflict.
Speaker 1: So it's the threat of the US is involvement that
Speaker 1: keeps Taiwan temporarily safe. But if the West were to
Speaker 1: reduce its reliance on Taiwan when it comes to semi conductors,
Speaker 1: then this silicon shield around Taiwan will weaken. Therefore, Jang
Speaker 1: has an existential motivation to dismiss the US's efforts to
Speaker 1: become independent with semi conductors. Now that doesn't mean he's wrong.
Speaker 1: He might be right. We're very early in the United
Speaker 1: States effort to revitalize the semiconductor industry here in the States,
Speaker 1: and it could turn into a total fiasco. It is
Speaker 1: sure to have some bumpy spots along the road. That's
Speaker 1: just the nature of reality. We just don't know where
Speaker 1: that road ultimately is going to lead. We know the
Speaker 1: intended destination is greater independence when it comes to producing semiconductors. Now,
Speaker 1: considering Taiwan situation, I think it's safe to say we
Speaker 1: cannot assume Chang's projections on the matter are free from bias.
Speaker 1: They're certainly not free from personal interest. Well, it's almost Halloween,
Speaker 1: so how about some terrifying news. A video from the
Speaker 1: official Kestral Defense page on the Chinese micro blogging site
Speaker 1: way Bow shows a large drone dropping off a four
Speaker 1: legged robot similar to the kinds of robots you've seen
Speaker 1: from Boston Dynamics, only this robot also happens to have
Speaker 1: a machine gun. Ho ho ho, Sorry I'm mixing up
Speaker 1: my holidays here. Anyway, the video demonstrates that this technology
Speaker 1: is ready to go, at least according to the defense
Speaker 1: company behind it. The robot and the gun would be
Speaker 1: under human control, so this would be a remotely controlled robot,
Speaker 1: not an autonomous one. You would have an operator capable
Speaker 1: of maneuvering the robot and firing its weapon. And this
Speaker 1: tech could potentially be used in battlefield situations where you
Speaker 1: want to draw off robotic soldiers, say behind enemy lines
Speaker 1: to attack in a different direction, or you know, in
Speaker 1: other locations that are all intended to put pressure on
Speaker 1: the enemy on multiple fronts. This is exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of use the companies like Boston Dynamics recently pledged they
Speaker 1: would not pursue the weaponization of robotic platforms. Of course,
Speaker 1: the U. S Military is certainly hard at work of
Speaker 1: building these kinds of things itself, So this is something
Speaker 1: that looks like it's going to be on the horizon
Speaker 1: no matter what. And yes, this is terrifying because there's
Speaker 1: really a worry that robotic forces are going to reduce
Speaker 1: barriers that countries face before they engage at armed conflict. Right,
Speaker 1: it might remove certain concerns and make it more likely
Speaker 1: that will see more war. It's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: sell your invasion to your population if that population isn't,
Speaker 1: you know, seeing its own soldiers being put in harm's way.
Speaker 1: See also Russia. There's also an additional fear that we
Speaker 1: could see future technologies progress toward automation for navigation and combat.
Speaker 1: That's something that's particularly scary when you keep in mind
Speaker 1: that computer vision is by no means incapable of making mistakes.
Speaker 1: So not only is it already scary to think of
Speaker 1: a robot with a gun, it's even scarier to think
Speaker 1: it's a robot with a gun that might think that
Speaker 1: you're not on its side. Not great. Recently, in Video
Speaker 1: unveiled its forty series of graphics cards, the new flagship
Speaker 1: cards that set the company's standard for performance, but problems
Speaker 1: have already popped up with the r t X from
Speaker 1: Nvidio itself, as there have been a few reports of
Speaker 1: users discovering that a sixteen pen adapter used to connect
Speaker 1: the card to the computer's power supply can overheat, which
Speaker 1: can cause the adapter to melt or even catch fire.
Speaker 1: Now IGOR Labs has released an article that reveals that
Speaker 1: these adapters were poorly made in the first place, with
Speaker 1: substandard soldering that can lead to these issues. Igor Labs
Speaker 1: has alerted in Video to the problem, which was likely
Speaker 1: caused when the company relied on an assembly partner that
Speaker 1: took some shortcuts. Gamers who are eager to get in
Speaker 1: Video's new chips may want to hold off. There is
Speaker 1: the distinct possibility that in Video will hold a recall
Speaker 1: and and correct this issue before sending out new cards,
Speaker 1: so it might be better to just wait, or you
Speaker 1: might want to wait for a third party manufacturers to
Speaker 1: offer their own forty cards because in Video's business strategy
Speaker 1: is not just to manufacture the cards itself, but it
Speaker 1: also licenses the design and the tech out to other manufacturers,
Speaker 1: and if those manufacturers actually replace the adapter that in
Speaker 1: Vidia includes in its kits, then it might solve the
Speaker 1: problem as well, and thus you could end up with
Speaker 1: a graphics card that is safer than the official in
Speaker 1: Video version. I do think we're probably going to see
Speaker 1: a recall and replacement process before long. But as of
Speaker 1: the time I'm recording this, that has not yet been announced.
Speaker 1: Gamers who have been anticipating the release of Call of
Speaker 1: Duty Modern Warfare two and who got their hands on
Speaker 1: a physical copy of the game might be shocked to
Speaker 1: learn that there's no game on that physical disc. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to euro Gamer, there's just seventy two megabytes of
Speaker 1: data on those discs. Now, the game, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is closer to thirty five gigabytes in size on the
Speaker 1: PS five that can actually balloon up to one fifty
Speaker 1: gigs once you install a Day one patch and you
Speaker 1: have all the packs for the game installed. So seventy
Speaker 1: two megabytes a hundred and fifty gigabytes is a huge gap.
Speaker 1: What has going on, Well, it looks like the physical
Speaker 1: disc really just directs machines to download the digital copy anyway.
Speaker 1: So yes, you'll get a physical disc. That disc will
Speaker 1: have like the logo and the art and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, but there's no game on the disc
Speaker 1: and all it will do is direct you toward a
Speaker 1: massive digital download. So if you live somewhere that has
Speaker 1: lousy internet connectivity, or maybe your data plan has a
Speaker 1: data cap to it, you might be shocked to learn
Speaker 1: that your physical copy doesn't actually, you know, let you
Speaker 1: experience the game. You still have to go through the
Speaker 1: same steps that you would have had to go through
Speaker 1: if you just purchased it digitally in the first place.
Speaker 1: And that leads to the question why even have a
Speaker 1: physical option that this is going to be the way
Speaker 1: it works. That reminds me of a time when you
Speaker 1: could find box copies of computer games and inside was
Speaker 1: just a code where you could download the digital copy.
Speaker 1: And I guess you bought the box so that you
Speaker 1: would have something to put up on a shelf. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe for collectors, but I don't know. It's it
Speaker 1: hits me the wrong way to have a disc for
Speaker 1: a game and the game is not on the disk.
Speaker 1: That just bugs me. Anyway. That's it for today's news
Speaker 1: episode of text Stuff. Hope you are all well. If
Speaker 1: you have suggestions or any questions or anything like that,
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with me, there are
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Speaker 1: if Elon Musk closes the steal, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: But the handle on Twitter is tech stuff hs W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
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