Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jothan 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 Tuesday, June seven, t d two, and I
Speaker 1: am back after a short vacation. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: news and we'll start off with an Elon update. We
Speaker 1: should probably get a little jingle for that, and of
Speaker 1: course I'm talking about Elon Musk, the world's richest man
Speaker 1: who has mastered the art of staying in the headlines,
Speaker 1: usually by being a borish jerk. First, an update on
Speaker 1: the Twitter situation. In case you weren't aware, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: announced his intention to acquire Twitter and signed a deal
Speaker 1: valued that around forty four bill million dollars and has
Speaker 1: been kind of weird about it ever since. So he's
Speaker 1: been showing signs they wants to back out of this
Speaker 1: deal to acquire Twitter. In fact, he's been doing that
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks now, but it's been getting
Speaker 1: more dramatic with Ellen demanding that Twitter handover data proving
Speaker 1: the company's assertion that fewer than five percent of all
Speaker 1: monetize able accounts on the platform are actually boughts. Ellen
Speaker 1: says it's much much higher, maybe as high as ninety
Speaker 1: or ninety five percent, but come on, that just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem possible. Though it's also admittedly hard for me to
Speaker 1: believe the five percent number. I think it's probably somewhere
Speaker 1: in between. Anyway, His legal team sent a letter to Twitter,
Speaker 1: essentially saying that Ellen is prepared to drop the deal
Speaker 1: because Twitter has not complied with his requests. Twitter has
Speaker 1: stated repeatedly that it has handed Elan the data. Also,
Speaker 1: the deal included Elon waving due diligence. Plus from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, he said that one of his goals was
Speaker 1: to weed out bots, so this argument seems off right, Like,
Speaker 1: if one of the things Ellen wanted to do was
Speaker 1: clean Twitter of bots, then it seems odd that he's
Speaker 1: hung up on the number of bots. And a lot
Speaker 1: of armchair analysts have suggested that Ellen has been having
Speaker 1: lots of second thoughts about this deal and that the
Speaker 1: forty four billion dollar price tag is way too high,
Speaker 1: particularly since Twitter's stock prices dipped a couple of times
Speaker 1: since the deal was announced, and moreover, Elon's own stock
Speaker 1: in Tesla, where a lot of his wealth is has
Speaker 1: been affected by another very dramatic drop in stock price.
Speaker 1: Twitter appears to be set on this deal, however, and
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to see Twitter's own legal
Speaker 1: team enter into litigation in an effort to force Ellen
Speaker 1: to see it through. Right now, it sounds like the
Speaker 1: deal is more likely to happen than not, despite the
Speaker 1: appearance that Ellen wants out, because it's not that easy
Speaker 1: to back out of these kinds of deals. We'll have
Speaker 1: to see where this goes next. In related news, the
Speaker 1: attorney general for the state of Texas has launched an
Speaker 1: investigation into Twitter to look into the bought account issue.
Speaker 1: Now you might wonder why the heck is the attorney
Speaker 1: general of Texas doing this? What what is he doing?
Speaker 1: Is it illegal to have bots on your platform? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer to that second question is no, it's not
Speaker 1: illegal to have bots in your platform. But Texas is
Speaker 1: an attorney general whom I should point out faces charges
Speaker 1: of securities fraud from seven years ago and has yet
Speaker 1: to stand trial for that. He says that bots could
Speaker 1: inflate Twitter's value, which could affect quote the costs of
Speaker 1: doing business with it, thus directly harming consumers and businesses.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now you might wonder if all this is
Speaker 1: worth spending taxpayer money on an investigation, and I would
Speaker 1: say I don't think so. But maybe Ellen is friendly
Speaker 1: with the Attorney General's office. I just don't know. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over at Tesla, there's been some confusion as to whether
Speaker 1: or not the company is going to make some big
Speaker 1: cuts in its employees. Reuters reported that Musk sent out
Speaker 1: an email last week indicating that Tesla was instituting a
Speaker 1: hiring freeze and that there would be a move to
Speaker 1: cut staff by ten percent. A second email apparently indicated
Speaker 1: that that ten percent cut would really just affect salaried employees,
Speaker 1: not hourly workers. Then Musk tweeted that total head count
Speaker 1: at Tesla would actually increase, but salaried employee numbers would
Speaker 1: stay quote fairly flat end quote. So does that mean
Speaker 1: there will not be a ten percent cut of salaried employees,
Speaker 1: I honestly have no clue. Musk indicated that he felt
Speaker 1: some areas of the company were overstaffed, which suggests that
Speaker 1: he is going to make cuts and maybe cutting one
Speaker 1: tenth of your salaried employees seems fairly flat to him,
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Also, this comes on the tail
Speaker 1: of numerous messages from Musk indicating that he wants folks
Speaker 1: back in the office full time and that people should
Speaker 1: expect to work from home only after they've put in
Speaker 1: forty hours of work at the office. And for those
Speaker 1: of you who are unaware, forty hours is considered a
Speaker 1: normal workload for a week in the United States. Anyway.
Speaker 1: That led many of those same armchair analysts that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier suggests that maybe Musk is trying to convince
Speaker 1: salaried folks to quit, but possibly because maybe if they quit,
Speaker 1: they won't get the same sort of severance deal that
Speaker 1: they would be entitled to if they were instead laid off.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That sounds pretty cynical to me, but
Speaker 1: I mean it could be true. Yesterday, Apple held its
Speaker 1: Worldwide Developers Conference, or w w d C. This event is,
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, primarily directed towards app developers so
Speaker 1: that they can see the sort of support and features
Speaker 1: that they can expect while they're eating the next generation
Speaker 1: of computer and mobile apps. But there's usually some nuggets
Speaker 1: in there that are of interest to the end consumer
Speaker 1: as well. This year we got to see a redesigned
Speaker 1: MacBook Air, which features Apple's mto processor chip. The MacBook
Speaker 1: Air weighs in at just two point seven pounds or
Speaker 1: one point two kims, and it measures just eleven millimeters thick.
Speaker 1: It's also cut some other nifty features, so folks who
Speaker 1: won a super thin, super light Mac should be happy,
Speaker 1: assuming they can shell out the twelve hundred bucks it'll
Speaker 1: take to secure the base model. Other models are more expensive.
Speaker 1: The company also introduced the MacBook Pro thirteen, also with
Speaker 1: the M two chip and a new active cooling system.
Speaker 1: The MacBook Pro their team starts at about hundred bucks
Speaker 1: and to run on top of those computers. Apple showed
Speaker 1: off the new Mac OS build called Ventura. So app
Speaker 1: always names its OS builds off California landmarks anyway. Ventura
Speaker 1: adds some new features, like an improved search function, which
Speaker 1: can search not just the macs contents but also the web.
Speaker 1: The OS also supports face i D and touch i D,
Speaker 1: allowing users to create biometric logins rather than past words,
Speaker 1: and there's also a feature called Continuity Camera that will
Speaker 1: let Mac users with iPhones turn their iPhone into a
Speaker 1: webcam while chatting on their Mac. iOS also got an update,
Speaker 1: so we're up to iOS sixteen now. Apple showed off
Speaker 1: an updated customizable lock screen for iPhones, which users can
Speaker 1: tweak by changing up fonts and colors, And I wonder
Speaker 1: how Sir Johnny Ives feels about all that. Folks who
Speaker 1: use Apple's Messages app will be glad to see that
Speaker 1: they can now edit messages that they've sent so they
Speaker 1: can fix irritating typos or un send a message if
Speaker 1: they like. Oh and Apple also added new safety check
Speaker 1: features that lets users revoke data access from other people
Speaker 1: so that those other people cannot snoop or stalk you,
Speaker 1: which is a darn good edition in my mind. Likewise,
Speaker 1: the iPad got some similar updates, plus a new app
Speaker 1: for weather data, and the watch os is up to
Speaker 1: version nine now and has more watch phases. You can
Speaker 1: pen apps that you use a lot on the watches
Speaker 1: face and things like that. There's a lot more than
Speaker 1: they announced, but I figure anyone's super interested in Apple
Speaker 1: announcements is either already well aware of this or is
Speaker 1: going to look into it into further detail, so we'll
Speaker 1: just move on. Earlier today, the EU gave Apple a
Speaker 1: bit of a setback when it adopted a provisional agreement
Speaker 1: that would require all smartphones and tablets to be compatible
Speaker 1: with us b C chargers by late twenty four in
Speaker 1: the EU. Now, this is not yet set in stone.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven EU countries are going to have to agree
Speaker 1: to this and the EU Parliament will have to pass
Speaker 1: it into law. But if it does become law, Apple
Speaker 1: will have no option but to include USB Sports on
Speaker 1: its devices sold in the EU. So why is the
Speaker 1: EU doing this? Well, having a common standard for chargers
Speaker 1: gives consumers the option of using the same cables from
Speaker 1: device to device, which can save them money and it
Speaker 1: can also cut back on E waste. Apple had previously
Speaker 1: argued that forcing the company to abandon its lightning port
Speaker 1: and to convert over to USBC would hurt innovation. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not. I do
Speaker 1: know it would hurt Apple's ability to make more money
Speaker 1: by selling lightning accessories. Anyway, I'll follow up on this
Speaker 1: should the provisional Agreement become EU law. We've got a
Speaker 1: few more stories to cover before we get to that.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. Mercedes Benz has issued a
Speaker 1: recall that is affecting almost a million vehicles around the world.
Speaker 1: So at issue are the break booster components in certain
Speaker 1: Mercedes vehicles. They turn out to be prone to corrosion,
Speaker 1: and that corrosion can be severe enough to cause break failure,
Speaker 1: which is obviously something you would want to avoid. The
Speaker 1: vehicles affected include the two thousand six to two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve mL class and g L class SUVs, as well
Speaker 1: as the R class minivan. The company warns that drivers
Speaker 1: may notice that their brake pedal starts to feel a
Speaker 1: bit soft, or that they might hear air noises like
Speaker 1: wheezing or or squeaking through the breaking system, and that
Speaker 1: if you do experience any of that, you should not
Speaker 1: be driving your vehicle anymore until it can be inspected
Speaker 1: and then subsequently repaired by an authorized dealership. Last week, Axon,
Speaker 1: the company behind the Taser stun gun, announced that it
Speaker 1: was developing a drone outfitted with a Taser, specifically to
Speaker 1: deploy in situations where there is an active shooter or
Speaker 1: a similar threat. However, Axon's ethics board subsequently released a
Speaker 1: statement making it clear they were vehemently opposed to this idea.
Speaker 1: The board revealed that Axon had previously suggested a more
Speaker 1: scaled back version of this drone, and they had proposed
Speaker 1: that a year ago, and the Ethics Board had even
Speaker 1: voted that down, which was you know, less robust, you
Speaker 1: might say. So it did come as quite a shock
Speaker 1: when the company announced this, you know, full on Taser drone,
Speaker 1: and that was enough to convince nine of the twelve
Speaker 1: Ethics Board members to quit. So that brought a lot
Speaker 1: more attention to the topic. ACS and then released a
Speaker 1: subsequent statement revealing the company had decided to pause work
Speaker 1: on the project and refocus quote to further engage with
Speaker 1: key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward end quote, which,
Speaker 1: uh is kind of a fancy way of saying, we
Speaker 1: need to rethink this. Spiegel reports that Telegram, the messaging app,
Speaker 1: has been sharing user data with the Federal Criminal Police
Speaker 1: Office and Harmony in several cases. Now this is noteworthy
Speaker 1: mainly because Telegram has long claimed that it would never
Speaker 1: share user data with any third party, including governments. That
Speaker 1: appears to no longer be the case. As for why
Speaker 1: Telegrams shared this data in the first place, While the
Speaker 1: cases in question were very serious ones, they ranged from
Speaker 1: terrorism to child abuse. Now complicating matters is that far
Speaker 1: right extremists have been taken to using Telegram precisely because
Speaker 1: the service has said it will not hand data over
Speaker 1: to authorities. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, did announce
Speaker 1: back in ten that the company would start to hand
Speaker 1: over information like phone numbers and I P addresses if
Speaker 1: it were so ordered by a court, but otherwise would
Speaker 1: not share data, and the company added that at least
Speaker 1: as of the last time it updated the information on
Speaker 1: this web page, that it had never received any request
Speaker 1: from a court like that, like an actual court order.
Speaker 1: But apparently in February of this year, Durov and some
Speaker 1: of his associates held a virtual meeting with Germany's Federal
Speaker 1: Ministry of the Interior to set up a quote reliable
Speaker 1: direct channel at the working level end quote. I am
Speaker 1: actually not entirely sure what that entails. I don't know
Speaker 1: what information the authorities actually have access to. But this
Speaker 1: is another example of the very complicated dilemma of running
Speaker 1: a messaging service. So on the one hand, you want
Speaker 1: the service to be secure and private for users, so
Speaker 1: that your users trust it and they use it, and
Speaker 1: that they feel that they are safe from having authoritarian
Speaker 1: governments turned the app into a kind of surveillance. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you also want to limit the
Speaker 1: spread of extremist ideology that you don't want to enable
Speaker 1: hate groups. So it is a very complicated matter. I
Speaker 1: expect we're gonna get a well, I'm sure, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: from Canadian coffee chain Tim Horton's pretty soon. Turns out
Speaker 1: that the mobile app for tim Horton's was snoreffing up
Speaker 1: user data like location information faster than I can wolf
Speaker 1: down a whole bag of tim bits. That's pretty darn fast.
Speaker 1: According to Canadian investigators, the app was pulling down location
Speaker 1: data every few minutes of every day up to through
Speaker 1: and not only is that a massive breach of privacy,
Speaker 1: it's also illegal, but it would also make your phone
Speaker 1: work overtime and drain your battery faster. So, according to
Speaker 1: the investigators, the app would alert users that it would
Speaker 1: track their location, so it was asking permission to track location,
Speaker 1: but the implication was that it was only going to
Speaker 1: do that while the app was actively open, But in fact,
Speaker 1: the app was tracking users even when the app wasn't
Speaker 1: in use, and it would continue doing so as long
Speaker 1: as the user's device remained on the company had been
Speaker 1: planning to use the app for targeted advertising, which obviously
Speaker 1: gets more targeted the more data you have about your customer.
Speaker 1: And Tim Horton's actually stopped track users locations on a
Speaker 1: continual basis back in, but maintained a contract with a
Speaker 1: location data broker for a while and the company has
Speaker 1: agreed to now bring all apps and processes within Canadian
Speaker 1: compliance and in return it will not be punished because
Speaker 1: setting the law on a coffee shop is just playing ludicrous.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've probably seen all the cops hanging out
Speaker 1: at the coffee shop. A few years ago, I talked
Speaker 1: about how researchers were working on an autonomous ship that
Speaker 1: would cross the Atlantic Ocean. It's called the Mayflower Autonomous
Speaker 1: Ship or m AS, and it's named after the Mayflower
Speaker 1: ship that brought settlers to North America. Well, the ship
Speaker 1: has now crossed the Atlantic, but the crossing did not
Speaker 1: go completely as planned. The m a S left the
Speaker 1: UK on April nine, crewed only by its AI and
Speaker 1: all of its sensors and and actuators, and it was
Speaker 1: bound for Massachusetts, but at some point the ship began
Speaker 1: encountering technical difficulties, so the researchers decided to divert the
Speaker 1: ship so that it would instead arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1: That's a bit further north than east of Massachusetts. IBM,
Speaker 1: which developed much of the technology on board the ship,
Speaker 1: says the plan is for the m AS two later
Speaker 1: continue its journey and head from Halifax to Plymouth, Massachusetts
Speaker 1: and then on to Washington, d C. And that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the news for Tuesday, June seven two. Hope you
Speaker 1: are all well. If you would like to leave me
Speaker 1: any comments, questions, maybe you've got a suggestion for a
Speaker 1: future episode, you can reach out to me. One way
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Speaker 1: me using the audio in a future episode. The other
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