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 I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and it is time
Speaker 1: for the tech news for Tuesday, April six, twenty one.
Speaker 1: Let's get at it. In the ongoing story about Amazon
Speaker 1: and the company's efforts to fight against unionization, the US
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Board ruled against Amazon in a recent claim,
Speaker 1: stating that the company illegally fired two employees who had
Speaker 1: advocated for workers rights and to call the company to
Speaker 1: account for its environmental impact. Marin Costa and Emily Cunningham
Speaker 1: had both criticized their employer publicly before the company fired
Speaker 1: both women, a move that the Labor Board identified as retaliatory.
Speaker 1: Amazon representative J. C. Anderson said that the reason the
Speaker 1: company handed the employees their walking papers wasn't to punish
Speaker 1: them for criticizing Amazon, but rather for a quote, repeatedly
Speaker 1: violating internal policies end quote. However, since at least one
Speaker 1: of those policies seems to be about speaking publicly about
Speaker 1: the business, according to The New York Times, this seems
Speaker 1: like circular logic to me almost like a catch twenty two.
Speaker 1: Sure you can criticize Amazon, it seems to say, but
Speaker 1: if you speak publicly about the business, you've violated an
Speaker 1: internal policy. Criticizing is not against the rules. It's then
Speaker 1: that speaking about the business that is. But that internal
Speaker 1: policy sounds like it is partly designed to protect the
Speaker 1: company from employees criticizing it publicly, at least in any detail. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I admit as always that I am biased when it
Speaker 1: comes to this sort of stuff, as I am pro
Speaker 1: union and in favor of protections that benefit the employee
Speaker 1: over those that cater to the corporation. A couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago we saw reports about LG getting out of
Speaker 1: the phone business. Now it's official. The company is shutting
Speaker 1: down its smartphone division worldwide. It will continue to sell
Speaker 1: off the inventory that it does have, so all those
Speaker 1: phones made for this year will have to go. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like we are never going to see production
Speaker 1: models of phones like the rollable that was the c
Speaker 1: e s reveal of a smartphone that had a flexible
Speaker 1: oh lad screen, and the rollable could change size. It
Speaker 1: could extend the width of the phone and go from
Speaker 1: a sort of smartphone form factor to fablet sized or
Speaker 1: tablet if you prefer, I definitely prefer The screen could
Speaker 1: actually expand by unrolling from underneath the display you're looking at,
Speaker 1: as these different sides would extend. It was a nifty design,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure that it was terribly practical. Moving
Speaker 1: parts always represent a potential failure point, and for phones
Speaker 1: which occasionally suffer bumps and falls, I think it would
Speaker 1: have been a bit risky. Plus, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: use the shape changing feature, you presumably wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to put your phone in a case because the case
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to change shape. But it was still
Speaker 1: a very neat innovation in the phone space. And now
Speaker 1: we're not really going to see it, but if you
Speaker 1: are in the market for an LG phone, you should
Speaker 1: keep your eyes peeled because we could see some pretty
Speaker 1: aggressive sales in the very near future as they try
Speaker 1: to get rid of that inventory. The Mars Perseverance rover
Speaker 1: has dropped off the Ingenuity copter on the surface of
Speaker 1: the Red planet. You might remember that Ingenuity piggybacked or
Speaker 1: I guess really piggy bellied on the Perseverance and it
Speaker 1: represents a high risk, high reward experiment. Mars is a
Speaker 1: tough neighborhood. The atmosphere is thin, which means the rotors
Speaker 1: on the Ingenuity will have to rotate at a rate
Speaker 1: much higher than would be necessary here on Earth in
Speaker 1: order to generate sufficient lift to get the copter off
Speaker 1: the surface. It will also need to continue to charge
Speaker 1: its batteries. The Perseverance had been providing juice to Ingenuity
Speaker 1: since the Perseverance first touchdown, but now Ingenuity is gonna
Speaker 1: have to use its own solar panels to do the same.
Speaker 1: That electricity isn't just going to power the rotors motor,
Speaker 1: which is a fun thing to say, rotors motor. We
Speaker 1: go ahead, try it anyway. The electricity will also go
Speaker 1: to powering Ingenuitys onboard heater as the temperature on Mars
Speaker 1: plummets at night, it dips down to negative nineties celsius
Speaker 1: or negative one thirty fahrenheit, whichever is greater. I kid,
Speaker 1: they're the same thing. The heater ensures that Ingenuity's mechanical
Speaker 1: parts don't freeze tight, which, as I understand it would
Speaker 1: be somewhat you know, impede flight soon, but no sooner
Speaker 1: than in April eleven, the Ingenuity will attempt its first flight.
Speaker 1: This is really a proof of concept experiment with no
Speaker 1: guarantee of success, but if that first flight does succeed,
Speaker 1: NASA hopes to do a few more, as many as
Speaker 1: four more before ingenuityes batteries are drained to the point
Speaker 1: that it will just need to settle down on Mars
Speaker 1: make a life for itself however it can, or rather
Speaker 1: it'll sit on Mars and rest in a job well
Speaker 1: done and collect dust for the rest of Eternity. Will
Speaker 1: follow up on this once we hear about the first
Speaker 1: attempts and how they panned out. Sticking with space, a
Speaker 1: farmer in the United States and fact in the state
Speaker 1: of Washington got a surprise last week when a piece
Speaker 1: of a rocket ship landed on their farm. Last Thursday,
Speaker 1: the second stage from a SpaceX Falcon nine entered into
Speaker 1: an uncontrolled descent into the Earth's atmosphere after an otherwise
Speaker 1: successful launch. The Falcon nine is a two stage launch vehicle,
Speaker 1: and the first stage, the lower stage, is the one
Speaker 1: that is supposed to return to Earth in a controlled
Speaker 1: landing procedure, so that the stage can then be refurbished
Speaker 1: and reused, which cuts way down on launch costs, But
Speaker 1: the upper stage, the second stage, isn't so lucky. Typically
Speaker 1: it has one of two fates. It's either pushed into
Speaker 1: an orbit where it's going to stick around in orbit
Speaker 1: for a while before eventually falling to Earth, or more frequently,
Speaker 1: it is pushed so it de orbits in a controlled
Speaker 1: manner and breaks up over the ocean. But this time
Speaker 1: the second stage lacked enough fuel to do the ocean thing,
Speaker 1: so instead it fell a bit short and broke up
Speaker 1: over the Pacific Northwest. In the US. It was quite
Speaker 1: the display, and people all in the northwestern part of
Speaker 1: North America reported seeing multiple shooting stars. These were pieces
Speaker 1: of the second stage glowing as they fell back to Earth,
Speaker 1: and one such piece made it intact all the way
Speaker 1: down to the ground on this farm in Washington. While
Speaker 1: we knew about the re entry from last week, this
Speaker 1: bit about the piece making it down to the surface
Speaker 1: of Earth is new now. Apparently it's part of a
Speaker 1: pressurized tank which is no longer pressurized. I guess I
Speaker 1: should add it landed in Grant County, Washington, and that
Speaker 1: is as specific as we can get about it. Because
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office wisely decided to leave out more details
Speaker 1: in order to spare the farmer from locky lose. Google
Speaker 1: has made a big change to its policy regarding Android apps,
Speaker 1: but it might surprise some folks like like me to
Speaker 1: learn about the implications of it. So there's a command
Speaker 1: called query all packages, and this allows an app that's
Speaker 1: installed on an Android device to get a list of
Speaker 1: all the other apps that are installed on that device.
Speaker 1: And that seems like that could be a little excessive
Speaker 1: at least in some cases, right I mean, for example,
Speaker 1: if you have an app that gives you a weather report,
Speaker 1: should that weather report app also see which games you
Speaker 1: have on your phone? Or if your apps related to
Speaker 1: stuff like banking or your personal health or a real
Speaker 1: estate app or whatever are also on that phone? Because
Speaker 1: that that seems like that that's probably not necessary, right Well, Google,
Speaker 1: after more than a decade, seems to have reached the
Speaker 1: same conclusion. Now for devices running on Android eleven or later,
Speaker 1: and all apps coming out from this point forward half
Speaker 1: to target Android eleven or later. These apps can't just
Speaker 1: have blanket access to the query all packages command. Developers
Speaker 1: will have to defend why their app would need that
Speaker 1: level of access, and in some cases you can make
Speaker 1: an argument for it. For example, I have a password
Speaker 1: vault app on my phone, and if I want that
Speaker 1: app to work alongside other apps so that when I
Speaker 1: open up some other app that requires a pass I
Speaker 1: can use this little option to just fill it out automatically,
Speaker 1: like say a banking app. Well, then the password vault
Speaker 1: is going to need to know what other apps are
Speaker 1: running on my device so that that interoperability will work.
Speaker 1: But I probably don't need a food delivery service app
Speaker 1: and a podcatching app to know about each other. That's
Speaker 1: probably not necessary. So this change means that developers will
Speaker 1: no longer know quite as much about the apps that
Speaker 1: their users have on their phones, which isn't necessarily a
Speaker 1: bad thing for the users. It cuts down opportunities for
Speaker 1: developers to target people directly without their permission, or sell
Speaker 1: information about them, and so forth. I think it's a
Speaker 1: long overdue move on Google's part, and I am glad
Speaker 1: that it's finally happening. I'm just surprised it took this
Speaker 1: long to happen. Kara Swisher conducted an interview with Apple
Speaker 1: CEO Tim Cook for The New York Times recently, and
Speaker 1: in that interview, Cook talked a bit about how Apple
Speaker 1: used the proces spect of augmented reality. He said that
Speaker 1: a R could enhance conversations and give people the chance
Speaker 1: to integrate other stuff into live conversation. For example, maybe
Speaker 1: you're arguing with that friend of yours who just refuses
Speaker 1: to admit that they are totally full of crap, and
Speaker 1: you could pull up charts and graphs to back up
Speaker 1: your point showing that they are in fact full of crap.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a lot of fun to me that
Speaker 1: conversations will be way better in the future. I also
Speaker 1: don't anticipate a ARE applications being a threat to security
Speaker 1: or privacy at all. I'm sure they're perfectly safe. Now.
Speaker 1: I've been on the record as being pro a R,
Speaker 1: but it's within specific contexts. I actually get a bit
Speaker 1: squeamish when we talk about a R as a component
Speaker 1: in person to person interactions. Sure, it could be helpful
Speaker 1: if while chatting with a friend, I get a little
Speaker 1: digital reminder in my view that says that this friend's
Speaker 1: birthday is coming up, or maybe they've got a dietary sensitivity,
Speaker 1: and since we're talking about restaurants, it's just reminding me
Speaker 1: of that, so I don't end up making, you know,
Speaker 1: suggestions that wouldn't apply or whatever. But you could see
Speaker 1: where that stuff could actually really go wrong very quickly. Granted,
Speaker 1: this is not the use case that Cook was making
Speaker 1: to care Swisher, and you can make a very valid
Speaker 1: argument that I am creating a sort of straw man argument.
Speaker 1: I just see it as a potential slippery slope. And
Speaker 1: let's face it, having a conversation with me is already
Speaker 1: boring enough without me bringing charts and a bibliography into it.
Speaker 1: I just think of all those online message boards that
Speaker 1: are full of people demanding that other folks cite their
Speaker 1: sources and stuff like that, and how that could become
Speaker 1: a part of conversations moving forward, and that all of
Speaker 1: that just makes me want to go back to bed.
Speaker 1: A blind woman will receive one point one million dollars
Speaker 1: in damages after having Uber driver's ditcher and her service
Speaker 1: dog on fourteen different occasions, leaving her stranded and preventing
Speaker 1: her from getting to important events and destinations, including just
Speaker 1: getting to her office to do work. In sixteen, Uber
Speaker 1: reached a two point six million dollar settlement for a
Speaker 1: similar legal case, but some of the incidents that this
Speaker 1: particular woman, Lisa Irving experienced happened after that settlement was reached,
Speaker 1: which showed that Uber hadn't actually addressed the underlying problem.
Speaker 1: It represents discrimination against Irving because of her blindness, which
Speaker 1: is against the law. Irving will receive around three twenty
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars. The rest of that one point one
Speaker 1: million is going to cover legal fees. This illustrates why
Speaker 1: the system in America is kind of screwy, because big
Speaker 1: companies can afford to go through this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot for a private citizen to take
Speaker 1: on a big company a lawsuit. Uber has since created
Speaker 1: a support form that customers can fill out should they
Speaker 1: experience similar issues in the future. Doesn't prevent it from happening,
Speaker 1: but it gives customers a chance to specifically address UH
Speaker 1: an instance of the problem. And the very first question
Speaker 1: asks if a writer was denied a ride because of
Speaker 1: a service animal. So not truly a solution, but at
Speaker 1: least a move to try and address the issue. And finally,
Speaker 1: The Independent reports that researchers at Brown University have created
Speaker 1: a brain computer interface with wireless connectivity. And what's more,
Speaker 1: they say that this interface provides quote single neuron resolution
Speaker 1: and full broadband fidelity end quote. Brain computer interfaces are
Speaker 1: fascinating devices now. As the name indicates, this is a
Speaker 1: technology that allows a person to interact with a computer
Speaker 1: system through thought alone. It's like having telepathy that works
Speaker 1: with computers. And typically this procedure includes intercranial surgery and
Speaker 1: doctors have to implant electrodes into the brain of the recipient,
Speaker 1: which is an incredibly invasive procedure obviously, and it has
Speaker 1: its own set of risks, including potential infection, which is
Speaker 1: a huge risk factor. So this process is required in
Speaker 1: order to get very precise readings on brain activity, because
Speaker 1: our skulls make it a bit tricky to detect brain
Speaker 1: waves with accuracy unless we're actively in an f M
Speaker 1: R I machine or something like that. In addition, we
Speaker 1: usually see these technologies in the form of wired connections
Speaker 1: between the interface that's attached to a patient and the
Speaker 1: related computer system they communicate with, and that creates more limitations.
Speaker 1: So this new approach removes the need for those physical wires.
Speaker 1: There could be wireless communication between patient and computer, which
Speaker 1: the researchers say opens up new possibilities and use cases.
Speaker 1: Getting a system like this to work requires a lot
Speaker 1: of adjustments because you're training a patient on how to
Speaker 1: use the technology, but you're simultaneously training the technology to
Speaker 1: learn how the patient thinks. The interface software has to
Speaker 1: learn how to interpret brain waves and map those brain
Speaker 1: waves to specific outcomes. It's a fascinating area of research
Speaker 1: and development, and the researchers hope that by removing these
Speaker 1: tethers they will be able to create more scenarios in
Speaker 1: which they can have more examples and gather more data
Speaker 1: and learn more about brain computer interactions and thus designed
Speaker 1: better algorithms to create more seamless connectivity, ultimately giving paralyzed
Speaker 1: patients more agency and communication capabilities. By the way, there
Speaker 1: are also private companies and a lot of business folks
Speaker 1: who are also researching this technology, though arguably for less
Speaker 1: noble reasons. I personally remain convinced that Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: mostly looking to find some sort of electronic means to
Speaker 1: preserve his consciousness indefinitely. For example, it's just a feeling
Speaker 1: I get and again, I have a bias, and it
Speaker 1: really comes out in these New News episodes, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I make no apologies for it. It's who I am,
Speaker 1: but draw your own conclusions. I'm not saying that I
Speaker 1: am correct in this, It's just the feeling I get,
Speaker 1: and I fully admit I could be wrong. But that
Speaker 1: wraps up the news for April six one, and I
Speaker 1: hope you are all doing well. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for things I should cover on future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: we use is text stuff H s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an
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