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, Diamond executive producer with I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
Speaker 1: News for Thursday, July twenty twenty two, and we are
Speaker 1: going to cover a ton of news about meta slash
Speaker 1: Facebook because the company recently held an earnings call for
Speaker 1: Q two of twenty two, that's second quarter in case
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with the terminology, and it gives us
Speaker 1: more insight into the company and its priorities. Also, we've
Speaker 1: got other meta stuff that wasn't part of the earnings call,
Speaker 1: for example, and executive blogged about how the company hopes
Speaker 1: that it's totally okay to ease off on the crackdown
Speaker 1: for COVID misinformation. But we'll get to that in a bit.
Speaker 1: First up, let's talk about we learned during that earnings call,
Speaker 1: and one really big piece of news is that net
Speaker 1: income is down by thirty six percent compared to this
Speaker 1: time last year. Now that is net income, mind you.
Speaker 1: That's when you take your total revenue and you subtract
Speaker 1: costs from it. If we go by total revenue. The
Speaker 1: company is actually only down by a single percentage point
Speaker 1: compared to this time last year, so Meta brought in
Speaker 1: a little less money overall than Facebook did last year.
Speaker 1: This is fun because remember the company changed its name
Speaker 1: from Facebook to Meta in late so Q two METAe
Speaker 1: is actually Facebook. Anyway. Meta made way less profit in
Speaker 1: Q two twenty twenty two than Facebook did in Q
Speaker 1: two one, and by way less, I don't mean that
Speaker 1: Meta is, you know, strapped for cash or is in
Speaker 1: danger of going out of business. Is far from it.
Speaker 1: In Q two, the company brought in nearly seven billion
Speaker 1: dollars in profit. That is an unfathomable amount of money,
Speaker 1: at least for someone like me. I would love to
Speaker 1: fathom it, but my tax brackets like not even in
Speaker 1: the same solar system as that. Anyway. The Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal claims that this is the first time in metas
Speaker 1: history that it actually had a drop in revenue, even
Speaker 1: though again it was just a one percent drop in
Speaker 1: revenue drop in profit year over year. The company also
Speaker 1: reported it saw a modest increase in the number of
Speaker 1: users across its platforms. Facebook the platform, their average daily
Speaker 1: users increased by three percent. Users across the company's platforms
Speaker 1: overall increased by four percent, which is better news than
Speaker 1: what Facebook reported earlier this year, when the company saw
Speaker 1: a decline in users on some of its properties. Another
Speaker 1: thing that Mark Zuckerberg revealed ring that earnings call is
Speaker 1: that your experience on Instagram, if in fact you do
Speaker 1: use Instagram, is going to change. Now. Already, MENA realize
Speaker 1: on artificial intelligence to promote content to users, content from
Speaker 1: accounts that those users don't necessarily follow, and that is
Speaker 1: not going away. In fact, it's going to increase. Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: revealed that they were essentially going to double how frequently
Speaker 1: this happens. So currently AI is responsible for recommending around
Speaker 1: of the content that shows up in your feet as
Speaker 1: you're scrolling through Instagram. Soon that's going to go up
Speaker 1: to so nearly a third. So you could think of
Speaker 1: this as like every third thing you see on Instagram
Speaker 1: will be presented to you from this AI algorithm, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna see a lot more stuff from accounts that
Speaker 1: you don't actually follow. This also means that the content
Speaker 1: that is posted by your friends and the accounts that
Speaker 1: you're actually interested in is going to get more diluted
Speaker 1: by all this other stuff And you might say, why, Well,
Speaker 1: it all comes down to money. Really, Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: continuing effort to compete against TikTok. TikTok has a recommendation
Speaker 1: engine that has proven to be incredibly effective at keeping
Speaker 1: people on the platform, and Zuckerberg says that since introducing
Speaker 1: the AI recommendations on Instagram, the company has seen engagement
Speaker 1: on the rise. And by engagement, we're really just talking
Speaker 1: about the amount of time the average user spends while
Speaker 1: on the platform. That directly ends up translating into how
Speaker 1: much AD revenue Metic can generate off each user. So
Speaker 1: Meta's goal is to coerce users into spending as much
Speaker 1: time on their platforms as is possible, and according to Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: AI recommended content gets the job done. Oh brave new
Speaker 1: world to have such algorithms in it. Getting back to
Speaker 1: that earnings call, one thing that factored into the thirty
Speaker 1: six percent drop in net income was the cost of
Speaker 1: operating the Reality Labs division. Now that's the division within
Speaker 1: Meta that's responsible for stuff like mixed reality hardware like
Speaker 1: the the stuff that used to be Oculus essentially, and
Speaker 1: also the Metaverse R and D department. Reality Labs generated
Speaker 1: four hundred fifty two million dollars in revenue in Q
Speaker 1: two of twenty twenty two. That's actually up from the
Speaker 1: previous year. So Q two one the division brought in
Speaker 1: three hundred five million dollars, so four fifty two million
Speaker 1: dollars good, we get to see an increase. But the
Speaker 1: division overall lost two point eight billion dollars. That's up
Speaker 1: from two point four billion this time last year. That
Speaker 1: being said, in Q one of this year, the division
Speaker 1: actually lost two point nine six billion. Now last year overall,
Speaker 1: that division lost ten billion dollars for for Meta. Essentially
Speaker 1: they said they spent ten billion UM. By the way
Speaker 1: this is going, we might be looking at between eleven
Speaker 1: and twelve billion for this year. We'll have to see
Speaker 1: unless things dramatically change in the second half of the year.
Speaker 1: Uh and Meta is trying to bring the concept of
Speaker 1: the metaverse into reality, so that does require a lot
Speaker 1: of money in order to make it happen. We're also
Speaker 1: about to see some changes in Meta strategy with this division.
Speaker 1: The company is about to hike prices on the Meta
Speaker 1: quest to VR headsets, so each of those models of
Speaker 1: those headsets is about to become a hundred dollars more expensive,
Speaker 1: the prices going up by a hundred bucks for each
Speaker 1: of them. Other peripherals will also get a price hike,
Speaker 1: and you might wonder why a company is increasing prices
Speaker 1: on hardware that's it's been selling for quite some time now.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is brand new, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a new generation. It's the hardware that the company
Speaker 1: has been selling. It's just now going to be a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars more expensive. And one reason for this is that,
Speaker 1: like much of the industry, Meta was selling hardware at
Speaker 1: a loss, or at least at a much lower price
Speaker 1: than what it could have demanded. This was in an
Speaker 1: effort to create a large install base. You want to
Speaker 1: get as many people out there as possible using the product,
Speaker 1: and we see this with video game consoles all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, video game companies like you know, Microsoft and
Speaker 1: Sony will sell their consoles for less than what it
Speaker 1: cost to make the consoles because they know they're gonna
Speaker 1: make their money back in game sales and subscription services,
Speaker 1: specifically the subscription services. That's gonna be like an ongoing
Speaker 1: theme throughout this episode, even when we get away from Meta.
Speaker 1: So you could see this as a move that Meta
Speaker 1: is going to ease off on, you know, subsidizing it's
Speaker 1: VR hardware at least to the extent that it had
Speaker 1: been uh and that some more of that expense is
Speaker 1: going to fall on customers. Related to this, the US
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has sued Meta in an
Speaker 1: effort to block a planned acquisition of a company called Within. Now.
Speaker 1: Within makes a v our workout app called Supernatural, which
Speaker 1: has a subscription revenue model, so you pay an ongoing
Speaker 1: monthly fee in order to keep using this this particular app.
Speaker 1: The FDC argues that the reportedly four million dollar deal
Speaker 1: would reduce competition in the VR fitness space, which would
Speaker 1: potentially make Meta a monopoly for that specific market. Now
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty niche to me, right. It's it sounds
Speaker 1: really kind of laser focused in a way. So I
Speaker 1: find it an interesting approach. And while I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: disagree with the FTC on this, I'm actually left to
Speaker 1: wonder if maybe this is a case where a regulatory
Speaker 1: agency is looking for footholds in order to grab opportunities
Speaker 1: to reduce the company's influence. I have no way of
Speaker 1: knowing that all of that is just wild speculation on
Speaker 1: my part, and that could be totally the furthest from
Speaker 1: the truth. But one thing that might have set off
Speaker 1: FTC is that Meta has been acquiring various VR software
Speaker 1: developer over the last few years. That includes the company
Speaker 1: Beat Games, which makes the popular VR title Beat Saber.
Speaker 1: The FDC also argues that Met up, you know if
Speaker 1: they own both Beat Games and Within. If they own
Speaker 1: both of those companies, those two companies will have no
Speaker 1: incentive to innovate because their main competitor is no longer
Speaker 1: a competitor. They both belong to Meta. That's the argument
Speaker 1: is that you know, identifying Beat Games and Within as
Speaker 1: being chief competitors in the space, and when you have
Speaker 1: a lack of competition, there's typically a lack of innovation.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to innovate. You don't need to because
Speaker 1: you've already got all the players. So why spend the
Speaker 1: resources to innovate if there's no competition? Uh, and that
Speaker 1: this ultimately hurts consumers, and it's an interesting take. We'll
Speaker 1: have to see if it's successful or if Meta will
Speaker 1: continue its trend of gobbling up other companies in an
Speaker 1: effort to achieve corporate goals. Meanwhile, as Meta tries to
Speaker 1: the biggest Fish is also looking to reduce employee head
Speaker 1: count so the company can buy other companies, but it
Speaker 1: can't afford to pay the folks who do its work,
Speaker 1: which is interesting, I can't afford them being snarky here,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg says he expects to do more with less, potentially
Speaker 1: reducing head count by as much as ten percent by
Speaker 1: the end of the year. According to inCider, the process
Speaker 1: has already started. The company has been slowing down headcount
Speaker 1: growth also known as hiring, across pretty much all of
Speaker 1: its departments. That's going to continue, and then some teams
Speaker 1: within the company will, in Zuckerberg's own words, quote, shrink
Speaker 1: so we can shift energy to other areas inside the
Speaker 1: company end quote. He said that work at METTA will
Speaker 1: require more intensity with fewer resources, and that he kind
Speaker 1: of sees this as a trial by fire situation in
Speaker 1: which the company will emerge stronger on the other side.
Speaker 1: This echoes things that we've heard Zuckerberg say before, like
Speaker 1: he essentially said there are people who work at Facebook
Speaker 1: who probably shouldn't be working there, and that this process
Speaker 1: is in part a way to shake the tree pretty hard.
Speaker 1: So that the folks who shouldn't be there will fall
Speaker 1: out of it. That's weird analogy for me to use,
Speaker 1: but I think it's accurate and Gali, we're still going
Speaker 1: with a meta stories here. So next up, The Verge
Speaker 1: managed to get a recording of an internal company meeting
Speaker 1: at Meta in which Zuckerberg named Apple as a top
Speaker 1: rival when it comes to developing the metaverse. Zuckerberg argued
Speaker 1: that Apple's approach would be to create a closed off ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's pretty much in line with Apple's m O.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is look at how the
Speaker 1: company has traditionally handled everything from the Macintosh platform to
Speaker 1: iOS devices to see that Apple is all about creating
Speaker 1: uh an entire ecosystem, a foundation, and then maintaining tight
Speaker 1: control and influence over whatever is built on top of
Speaker 1: that foundation. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. If
Speaker 1: it's done well. It can help ensure that the content
Speaker 1: and services that are created to be on top of
Speaker 1: that platform all meet certain standards. But this also makes
Speaker 1: Apple the final arbiter and also the fee collector. That's
Speaker 1: something that has left Apple in the target sites of
Speaker 1: various regulatory agencies around the world. So in this Meta
Speaker 1: internal meeting, Zuckerberg said that Meta's approach would be a
Speaker 1: little more open than Apple's. Uh. He also argued that
Speaker 1: Apple is a company that counts on profit from hardware sales,
Speaker 1: at least to a point. I would actually argue that
Speaker 1: Tim Cook has really been guiding Apple to lean much
Speaker 1: harder into becoming a services company and less of being
Speaker 1: a hardware company in recent years. But Zuckerberg's point was that,
Speaker 1: you know, Apple sells iPhones at really high prices. They're
Speaker 1: not like marking down the cost or the price rather
Speaker 1: of these devices and selling them at cost or even
Speaker 1: lower than at cost to customers, whereas Facebook had been
Speaker 1: doing that at least with things like mixed reality headwear.
Speaker 1: Even with the recent news of the price hike, my
Speaker 1: guess is that the hardware that there, you know, the
Speaker 1: price that they're selling the hardware at is probably still
Speaker 1: pretty close to at cost for the company. So he said,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a totally different approach. We are trying
Speaker 1: to create an enormous user base, and then we will
Speaker 1: really rely on services to generate revenue, which ultimately, again
Speaker 1: I think takes it right back to Apple's own strategy.
Speaker 1: It's just that Apple is kind of transitioning from being
Speaker 1: so so much hardware focused to being services focused, and
Speaker 1: Meta in this case is looking at just going services
Speaker 1: focused from the get go. But I would argue that
Speaker 1: they really aren't that different in the long run. All Right,
Speaker 1: last Meta story for today, and then we're gonna move
Speaker 1: on to other stuff. Nick Clegg, Meta's head of global affairs,
Speaker 1: released a statement indicating that Meta is as king it's
Speaker 1: oversight board if maybe, possibly it would be okay for
Speaker 1: the company to start allowing misinformation about COVID to post
Speaker 1: on the site now that everything's fine again. But Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I hear some of you say things are most certainly
Speaker 1: not okay. Well, yeah, that's that's true. That's reality. But
Speaker 1: Meta's argument is that, you know, maybe things are okay
Speaker 1: and we're back to normal now, maybe or something. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Clegg said that what the company is considering is a
Speaker 1: major change in policy. Currently, the official policy at Meta
Speaker 1: is that the company will prevent or remove posts that
Speaker 1: promote COVID misinformation in an effort to protect users. Now,
Speaker 1: some people argue that this infringes upon free speech. I
Speaker 1: would counter that argument by saying, free speech has never
Speaker 1: been entirely free. There have always been limitations in place. Namely,
Speaker 1: if the speech were to cause harm to others, it
Speaker 1: is not protect it as free speech. Anyway, Meta would
Speaker 1: like to change this policy they have been using so
Speaker 1: that the company could maybe go back to perhaps pushing
Speaker 1: misinformation posts lower in priority for its recommendation algorithms, so
Speaker 1: in other words, it would still allow the posts to post,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't spread as far in theory, and they
Speaker 1: would have less reach, and maybe also to include labeling
Speaker 1: them as potentially including misinformation rather than just outright banning
Speaker 1: the post entirely. And The Guardian and several other news
Speaker 1: outlets have all kind of positive that since the oversight
Speaker 1: boards recommendations are not mandatory, like Meta is under no
Speaker 1: obligation to actually enact any suggestion the oversight board makes.
Speaker 1: They're more like advisors in this In this capacity, this
Speaker 1: could be a case where Meta actually already has a
Speaker 1: plan in place of what it is going to do,
Speaker 1: like it they've already decided, but that the company is
Speaker 1: trying to use the oversight board to kind of shoulder
Speaker 1: some of the responsibility for that decision so that all
Speaker 1: the hate doesn't hit Meta itself. In other words, Meta
Speaker 1: is probably going to ease off on how it police
Speaker 1: has misinformation because there's way more money. If it allows
Speaker 1: misinformation to proliferate on the platform, it just gets more engagement,
Speaker 1: and that means more money, and the company loves that money,
Speaker 1: especially since you know, in the last couple of quarters
Speaker 1: things have been a little more shaky and they really
Speaker 1: need to reassure stakeholders shareholders that the company is is
Speaker 1: heading in a strong financial direction. Uh, but you know,
Speaker 1: the company who still would really like someone else to
Speaker 1: kind of take at least some of the heat for
Speaker 1: that decision. So if the oversight board says, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a reasonable thing for you to to switch
Speaker 1: gears because how things have changed in the world, you
Speaker 1: don't need to ban everything, well, then the oversight board
Speaker 1: can take some of the heat for that decision one
Speaker 1: that I think again that Meta has already made so
Speaker 1: it it becomes theater. In other words, now the oversight
Speaker 1: board has actually opened this matter up to public comment,
Speaker 1: which I suspect will be very active, and I can't
Speaker 1: predict what the board will conclude. I just feel fairly
Speaker 1: sure that no matter what the board says, Meta is
Speaker 1: heading to a future where it will not be taking
Speaker 1: a hardline stance against misinformation as it had been forced
Speaker 1: to do in the recent past. All Right, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot more news today. Before we get any of that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Yesterday, which was Wednesday, July
Speaker 1: twenty two, for those of you from the future who
Speaker 1: for some reason decided to listen to a news episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, Google announced several new policies that will
Speaker 1: affect developers who are creating apps for Android. Now. A
Speaker 1: lot of those policies are for small technical things. Uh.
Speaker 1: For example, they're going to be restrictions on the types
Speaker 1: of apps that will be able to access the alarm
Speaker 1: function on an Android device. So if the app doesn't
Speaker 1: fall into one of a couple of specific categories, then
Speaker 1: it should not tap into that that particular function, and
Speaker 1: any app that's discovered to do that that doesn't fall
Speaker 1: in those categories could be removed from Google Play. Other
Speaker 1: policies are much more sweeping, such as measures that are
Speaker 1: meant to limit the spread of misinformation through apps, also
Speaker 1: to limit things like impersonation. So this means Google is
Speaker 1: going to crack down on apps that advocate. For example,
Speaker 1: harmful health practices, conversion therapy being a big and terrible
Speaker 1: example of that. If an app is found to promote
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff that is fundamentally harmful, Google will
Speaker 1: remove it. Uh. Also, if an app actively spreads misleading
Speaker 1: claims about stuff vaccines, like if an app says this
Speaker 1: vaccine will alter your DNA, which is a false claim,
Speaker 1: Google will remove it. It's it's this is these policies
Speaker 1: are are the rules that Google establishes so that it
Speaker 1: has the authority to do things like remove apps from
Speaker 1: the play Store. Right. This is this is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we told you what the rules were. If you don't
Speaker 1: follow them, then we get to act um. And as
Speaker 1: for impersonation, well, that actually covers a lot of ground.
Speaker 1: Like impersonation in this sense doesn't mean an app that
Speaker 1: somehow impersonates a person necessarily. Instead, it's like creating false
Speaker 1: expectations or false representations in the eyes of app users. So,
Speaker 1: as an example, it is against Google's policy now for
Speaker 1: you to design your app in such a way that
Speaker 1: it implies that you have a relationship with some other
Speaker 1: well known entity, which could be another app, it could
Speaker 1: be a famous person that could be an official organization,
Speaker 1: and yet no actual relationship really exists between the two
Speaker 1: of you. So if I were to make an app
Speaker 1: that implied that somehow the app was connected to the FBI,
Speaker 1: but that was not true, that there was no connection
Speaker 1: to the FBI, but I was claiming that, then I
Speaker 1: would be in violation of that policy and Google could
Speaker 1: remove my app from the play Store. Um Or if
Speaker 1: I made an app that just claimed to be the
Speaker 1: official app of some celebrity, let's say Tim Curry, I
Speaker 1: say it's the Tim Curry Official app, but I provide
Speaker 1: no evidence to prove that it's the Tim Curry official app,
Speaker 1: that there has been any involvement with Tim Curry or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Again, I would be violating Google's new policy.
Speaker 1: Other changes will create more positive experiences for customers, including
Speaker 1: a policy that or required developers to make it easier
Speaker 1: for users to cancel a subscription. Now this change requires
Speaker 1: developers to make cancelation settings easier to find. It has
Speaker 1: to be included in the apps account settings that cannot
Speaker 1: be obfusekated, or buried like ten menus down, and if
Speaker 1: you click on the cancel uh feature or option in
Speaker 1: that menu, then you are supposed to be taken directly
Speaker 1: to that apps cancelation process or to Google Place subscription center.
Speaker 1: If the app is using the Google architecture for that
Speaker 1: and there, you should be able to cancel your subscription.
Speaker 1: It should not set you on a wild goose chase
Speaker 1: where the whole goal again is to discourage you from canceling,
Speaker 1: not by convincing you that the services worth having, but
Speaker 1: by convincing you it's too much trouble to go through
Speaker 1: the process to actually cancel the ding dang darn thing.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of other policy changes that Google announced,
Speaker 1: including some really important ones, like restrictions on apps that
Speaker 1: have been marketed as surveillance or spying apps, like apps
Speaker 1: that are meant attract people's movements, that kind of stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a policy that now restricts developers that are using
Speaker 1: the VPN service function on Android from collecting personal user
Speaker 1: data without first giving prominent disclosure and getting consent from
Speaker 1: the users. Developers will have a thirty day grace period
Speaker 1: to make sure that their apps are conforming to these
Speaker 1: new policies before Google will start to take any action
Speaker 1: against apps that you know don't do that. The US
Speaker 1: Senate has voted in favor of a bill that will
Speaker 1: ultimately allow for subsidies, grants, and tax brakes valued at
Speaker 1: more than fifty billion dollars in an effort to bring
Speaker 1: semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States on a grand scale. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that it doesn't happen in the
Speaker 1: US already. It does, it's just at a fraction of
Speaker 1: what it used to. So quick history lesson. We used
Speaker 1: to have a lot of silicon manufacturing here in the
Speaker 1: United States, but other regions, namely Taiwan, invested huge amounts
Speaker 1: of money to build out facilities that could make chips
Speaker 1: cheaper and at enormous manufacturing scale. Naturally, this meant that
Speaker 1: most semi conductor manufacturing would move overseas, and today the
Speaker 1: US makes up just twelve percent of the world's chip manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Taiwan is producing nearly half of all semi conductors used
Speaker 1: around the world. And it's it's even more than that
Speaker 1: when you start looking at advanced semi conductors, not just
Speaker 1: like simple ones for you know, micro controllers and stuff,
Speaker 1: but when you're looking at advanced semiconductors, Taiwan produces more
Speaker 1: than half of those and Taiwan's um relationship with China
Speaker 1: is a big cause for concern. You know, Taiwan is
Speaker 1: an island that's just off the coast of mainland China. UH.
Speaker 1: The history of these two regions is tightly intertwined. The
Speaker 1: the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China,
Speaker 1: but the Republic of China, which was in charge of
Speaker 1: the whole country up to nineteen forty nine, effectively retreated
Speaker 1: to Taiwan and still lays claim over mainland China. Mainland
Speaker 1: China is ruled by the People's Republic of China, and
Speaker 1: it lays claim over Taiwan. So you've got these two
Speaker 1: entities that simultaneously claimed that they're in charge of the other. Uh.
Speaker 1: Except that China is way bigger than Taiwan is, and
Speaker 1: there's always this concern that China might invade Taiwan or
Speaker 1: otherwise use methods to force Taiwan under Chinese rule. And
Speaker 1: if you are dependent upon semiconductor manufacturing and an economic
Speaker 1: and political adversary is in charge of the manufacturing center,
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. It's not good for national security,
Speaker 1: it's not good for self reliance. And as we have
Speaker 1: seen with the pandemic. When there are interruptions, then there
Speaker 1: are massive disruptions across multiple industries. The semiconductor shortage has
Speaker 1: a affected everything in tech. So also there's also the
Speaker 1: concern about China and industrial espionage. This this, at least
Speaker 1: this perception, if not reality, that China is actively attempting
Speaker 1: to steal technologies from other countries, primarily the United States.
Speaker 1: So moving manufacturing back over to the United States in
Speaker 1: large amounts would help the US become more self reliant,
Speaker 1: and it would improve national security. It would improve the
Speaker 1: chances for the United States to make up some lost
Speaker 1: ground against China in high tech fields like artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: machine learning, that sort of thing. And personally, I think
Speaker 1: that this move is well past do. The effects of
Speaker 1: the pandemic really highlighted how necessary it is to diversify
Speaker 1: your manufacturing process for things that are as critical as semiconductors.
Speaker 1: If you rely really heavily on a small number of
Speaker 1: manufacturing facilities in a particular region and that region is
Speaker 1: disprop ortunately affected by something, whether it's a pandemic or
Speaker 1: a natural disaster or a war or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: you see where that ends up having this massive consequence
Speaker 1: for everybody else, so it's good to diversify that. However,
Speaker 1: I also think this is just the beginning of a
Speaker 1: series of investments that the United States is going to
Speaker 1: have to make into promoting semiconductor manufacturing within the country
Speaker 1: if the US expects to keep them here because other
Speaker 1: nations are doing that other than that's why. That's how
Speaker 1: Taiwan got the semiconductor industry established there in the first place.
Speaker 1: The government poured billions of dollars worth of investment into
Speaker 1: that to make it a reality. If the United States
Speaker 1: doesn't do that, other countries will, and then ultimately companies
Speaker 1: will say, hey, we have an obligation to our shareholders,
Speaker 1: and for us to do business that's profitable, we have
Speaker 1: to go overseas or else we're wasting money, and shareholders
Speaker 1: hate that, and then you start to see where we
Speaker 1: get stuck where we are now. Samsung has admitted to
Speaker 1: false advertising in Australia regarding exactly how water resistant certain
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy Line smartphones actually are. So the argument here
Speaker 1: is that Samsung ran some marketing campaigns, like commercials and
Speaker 1: things like that claiming that these phones are more water
Speaker 1: resistant than reality would reflect, and that if people were
Speaker 1: to actually put these phones through any kind of activities
Speaker 1: that would get them wet, they might find them turn
Speaker 1: out to be, uh, you know, inoperable. So the company
Speaker 1: copped up to the fact that between two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen and two thousand eighteen it exaggerated that water resistant
Speaker 1: feature on seven different smartphone models. So the Australian courts
Speaker 1: levied a fourteen million dollar fine that's Australian dollars on
Speaker 1: the company. Now, if you earned fourteen million Australian dollars
Speaker 1: upside down, you find out it's about nine point eight
Speaker 1: million US dollars. That is a big fine. But obviously
Speaker 1: for really huge companies, you know, ten million dollars US
Speaker 1: is as a relatively small expense once you get down
Speaker 1: to it. I mean, you never want to see a
Speaker 1: ten million dollar expense if you can avoid it. But
Speaker 1: it's not like this cripples Samsung. Uh. You might even
Speaker 1: argue that it might not be enough of a slap
Speaker 1: for Samsung to to purposefully avoid this kind of thing
Speaker 1: in the future. But it is good for the Australian
Speaker 1: court system to get Samsung to own up to false advertising.
Speaker 1: And my hope is that you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: this is gonna stop false advertising, but I do hope
Speaker 1: it makes people a little more critical when they evaluate products,
Speaker 1: because while companies are supposed to be fourth right when
Speaker 1: they describe what their products do, that's not always the case.
Speaker 1: And I would argue many times companies will use language
Speaker 1: lets them creatively enhance the truth. Let's say, in recent
Speaker 1: episodes about Apple's former head of industrial design, Johnny I've
Speaker 1: I mentioned that the company has long been at work
Speaker 1: designing a car, but that project has taken more time
Speaker 1: than expected because, as it turns out, that's hard to do,
Speaker 1: and there have been a lot of delays because of
Speaker 1: different things that have happened within Apple and within that
Speaker 1: project specifically. However, Apple has recently hired Luigi tera Borelli,
Speaker 1: who previously worked at a little supercar company called Lamborghini.
Speaker 1: In fact, he worked there for more than twenty years.
Speaker 1: Must have been a heck of an offer for Apple
Speaker 1: to convince tera Borelli to come over to Apple from Lamborghini. Now,
Speaker 1: Apple has still not come out and said what Tara
Speaker 1: Borelli will be doing at the company or what this
Speaker 1: project is, but the obvious conclusion is that he's going
Speaker 1: to be working on Apple's attempts to design and build
Speaker 1: its own electric vehicle. Apple's internal name for this project,
Speaker 1: which is technically still secret, it's just a very poorly
Speaker 1: kept secret, is Project Tighten. And it's been going on
Speaker 1: for at least eight years already. Now does this mean
Speaker 1: it's actually building up the traction that's going to be
Speaker 1: needed to develop an Apple electric vehicle? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It has been long in development. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's getting any closer to becoming a reality. I don't
Speaker 1: know if Apple will ultimately kill this project before we
Speaker 1: ever get to see an actual like prototype, let alone
Speaker 1: a production model. It would be interesting. I've long been
Speaker 1: curious to see what an Apple vehicle would look like.
Speaker 1: Of course, without Johnny I've there, the design is not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to have his influence built into it, though
Speaker 1: I've did work on designs for this project while he
Speaker 1: was there. Are It's just again, they never came to fruition.
Speaker 1: We'll have to wait and see, But I am very curious. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got some more stories to cover before we get
Speaker 1: to those, let's take another quick break. So a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I mentioned in a news story that BMW
Speaker 1: is testing out something in a market, not the United States,
Speaker 1: but in South Korea, in which it is turning its
Speaker 1: heated seats option into a subscription service, and how folks
Speaker 1: got upset about that because the actual electronics that are
Speaker 1: necessary to heat the seats are already in the vehicle
Speaker 1: models right like it's there, it's just waiting to be
Speaker 1: turned on. So everything you need to heat a seat
Speaker 1: is still is already installed in the car. But to
Speaker 1: access the feature, drivers in what the test market, South Korea,
Speaker 1: would first have to subscribe to a service, and only
Speaker 1: then with the vehicle actually provide heating to the seats,
Speaker 1: it's behind a paywall. In other words, this led to
Speaker 1: discussions about car options and whether or not it makes
Speaker 1: sense to charge for those kind of features up front,
Speaker 1: where you know, at the time of purchase it's built
Speaker 1: into the price tag of the vehicle, so you're buying
Speaker 1: the vehicle and all the options right then and there,
Speaker 1: or if it makes sense to go to an ongoing
Speaker 1: subscription based service. And a few news outlets like Wired
Speaker 1: and Vice are reporting the drivers are already seeking out
Speaker 1: hacks that will let them get around this lock on
Speaker 1: the feature, so bypassing the need to subscribe to BMWs
Speaker 1: services in order to get access to it. And I
Speaker 1: think we're seeing consumers draw a line between ongoing services
Speaker 1: that are largely software driven, such as a subscription to
Speaker 1: Internet radio. That's something that a lot of people feel. Okay,
Speaker 1: I understand this is an ongoing sir of this that
Speaker 1: does not exist within the vehicle I am paying for
Speaker 1: that that makes sense to be a subscription versus subscriptions
Speaker 1: that just enable functions that are already present in physical hardware.
Speaker 1: That's there seems to be like this fundamental barrier there,
Speaker 1: which I understand. I would think, Hey, if if the
Speaker 1: thing I bought can do this, but the manufacturer won't
Speaker 1: enable that function unless I cough up even more money.
Speaker 1: That's infuriating. Now, just to be fair to BMW, it
Speaker 1: does look like this subscription approach with the heated seats,
Speaker 1: it's really a pilot program. They're testing the waters of
Speaker 1: what will and won't fly in the market. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: ultimately this is going to be one that will fall
Speaker 1: into the won't fly category, but you never know. It
Speaker 1: might be that people get distracted by something else and
Speaker 1: then they're like it stinks but my seats cold, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to cough up the dough. Tesla has adjusted
Speaker 1: its free data connectivity feature, which is called Standard Connectivity.
Speaker 1: That's a feature that provides basic connectivity features like Bluetooth
Speaker 1: streaming for your music and some basic navigation services. Well,
Speaker 1: now if you own a Tesla vehicle after eight years,
Speaker 1: that free service expires and you will have to subscribe
Speaker 1: to premium service Premium Connectivity, or you're gonna lose those
Speaker 1: functions completely. Now, some Tesla owners might not be too
Speaker 1: concerned about that because maybe they plan to trade their
Speaker 1: vehicle before they get to owning it for eight years.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely gonna have an impact on some Tesla
Speaker 1: drivers as well as second hand buyers. Like if you
Speaker 1: buy a four year old Tesla, then you're gonna only
Speaker 1: have four more years of this basic connectivity, the standard
Speaker 1: connectivity available to you, and then after eight years, you'll
Speaker 1: be prompted to subscribe to a premium connectivity service which
Speaker 1: costs ten dollars a month or if paid, and really,
Speaker 1: according to the Verge, even accessing FM radio could be
Speaker 1: behind a paywall. Now, I don't see this as quite
Speaker 1: as egregious a move as the BMW story, but it
Speaker 1: is another example of how car companies are shifting toward
Speaker 1: more subscription services just like everybody else, you know, just
Speaker 1: like Tim Cook is doing with Apple. We're seeing car
Speaker 1: companies say, you know what model works, the services model.
Speaker 1: Let's push even harder toward that. So, yeah, it just
Speaker 1: seems like that's where everyone's going, just like with video
Speaker 1: games a few years ago, where lootboxes were the way
Speaker 1: to go. Uh and after some some lashing out by
Speaker 1: various regulatory agencies around the world, we've seen that ease
Speaker 1: off a little bit. But you know, now we're seeing
Speaker 1: this services model throughout a lot of tech companies. Here's
Speaker 1: some intriguing news out of Columbia University's AI program. So,
Speaker 1: in a project, researchers set up an AI so that
Speaker 1: it would be able to observe physical phenomena through a
Speaker 1: video feed. And then the AI was meant to suss
Speaker 1: out what was the minimal set of fundamental variables that
Speaker 1: would describe and enable the physical phenomena. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: based upon what you saw, what are the variables that
Speaker 1: determine how this plays out? And this reminds me a
Speaker 1: little bit of an experiment back in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: at Cornell, which in fact included some of the same
Speaker 1: people working on this project, And that was when we
Speaker 1: heard about the computer program that was able to deduce
Speaker 1: the natural laws of physics by observing physical phenomena, namely
Speaker 1: the swinging of a pendulum, but only because it also
Speaker 1: had certain variables that were identified in advance, so it
Speaker 1: didn't have to figure that stuff out on its own.
Speaker 1: This new approach is about figuring out those variables themselves.
Speaker 1: So one experiment used a double pendulum, which you know,
Speaker 1: based upon our understanding of physics tells us has four
Speaker 1: state variables. So this pendulum is a double armed structure,
Speaker 1: and the four variables that we know are important to
Speaker 1: determine the activity of the pendulum are the angle of
Speaker 1: each arm as well as the angular velocity of each arm.
Speaker 1: So that's the four you know, angle of arm one,
Speaker 1: angle of arm two, angular velocity of arm one, angular
Speaker 1: velocity of arm two. Now, the AI observed the swinging
Speaker 1: arms with any quote unquote knowledge of those variables and
Speaker 1: attempted to suss out what, you know, how many variables
Speaker 1: determine the movements, and they came up with four point
Speaker 1: seven and the team said, well, that's close. It's not
Speaker 1: exactly what we have, but it's close. It's also weird
Speaker 1: to have points seven of a variable. But then the
Speaker 1: team had to try and figure out what variables did
Speaker 1: the AI program identified, Like what what were those variables?
Speaker 1: Because that's not easily understood. The AI has no way
Speaker 1: of communicating that to the team, so they had to
Speaker 1: review the data that the AI had generated and had
Speaker 1: analyzed and determined that two of the variables the AI
Speaker 1: identified were in fact the angles of the arms of
Speaker 1: the double pendulum, so that correlates with what we understand,
Speaker 1: but no matter what, they could not figure out what
Speaker 1: the other two variables were. So what what did the
Speaker 1: AI figure out? Was also determining the movement of this
Speaker 1: double pendulum, So the AI was able to identify some
Speaker 1: variables that determine how this thing operates. We're able to
Speaker 1: identify variables that determine how this thing operates, and we
Speaker 1: both end up with similar answers for how it operates,
Speaker 1: but we're using different variables in order to describe it.
Speaker 1: And that is intriguing because it raises questions about if
Speaker 1: there are different ways to describe how things work. That
Speaker 1: are equally valid, but on a fundamental level, they are different.
Speaker 1: They include different variables. It's kind of mind blowing when
Speaker 1: you think of it that way. The team also discovered
Speaker 1: that if they repeated the experiment by turning off the
Speaker 1: system and restarting its essentially making the AI learn all
Speaker 1: over again, it would still come up with the same
Speaker 1: number of variables, but the specific variables were different each time.
Speaker 1: So yes, it would still say, oh, there's like four
Speaker 1: point seven variables that determine how this moves, but the
Speaker 1: specific variables were different from the time that it ran previously.
Speaker 1: So it's saying it's it behaves this way because of
Speaker 1: these four things. But those four things changed every single
Speaker 1: time it was run, which is crazy. Uh, Now, why
Speaker 1: would you want something to be able to identify variables
Speaker 1: in the first place. When you start looking at very
Speaker 1: complex systems where you have, you know, dozens of variables
Speaker 1: at play, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict how those
Speaker 1: systems are going to behave over any given amount of time.
Speaker 1: Easiest example I can give you is weather forecasts. You know,
Speaker 1: weather forecasts take a lot of variables into account, but
Speaker 1: not all of them. Right, there are probably variables that
Speaker 1: we have yet to identify that are important in the
Speaker 1: formation of weather systems. And that's why when you look
Speaker 1: at a weather forecast, you cannot be certain that what
Speaker 1: has been forecast is actually going to happen. So creating
Speaker 1: ways of identifying variables is is a step toward being
Speaker 1: able to have a deeper understanding of these kinds of
Speaker 1: complex systems. That is, if we don't also discover that
Speaker 1: every system can be described by you know, X number
Speaker 1: of variables uh in x different configurations, Because then you
Speaker 1: start getting to a point where you're saying, well, does
Speaker 1: anything mean anything anymore? But I'll leave that to people
Speaker 1: who are way, way, way smarter than I am to
Speaker 1: figure out. The journal the Royal Society Open Science, which
Speaker 1: is a peer reviewed scientific journal. It's published by the
Speaker 1: Royal Society, has some news that probably has gamers happy. Namely,
Speaker 1: the journal published research saying there has been no causal
Speaker 1: link found between playing video games and poor mental health.
Speaker 1: Now there is a caveat here. The caveat is as
Speaker 1: long as the gamer in question is playing because they
Speaker 1: want to play, and they're not playing because they feel
Speaker 1: they have to play, there's no negative impact on mental health.
Speaker 1: So by that you might say that professional streamers and
Speaker 1: pro gamers could experience mental health issues that are related
Speaker 1: to gaming because they're obligated to play. It's part of
Speaker 1: their job. If they aren't producing content, or if they're
Speaker 1: not training for the next professional tournament, then their income
Speaker 1: can be affected. But if you're a gamer who just
Speaker 1: likes to settle in for a nice, friendly evening of
Speaker 1: being called horrible things as you play war Zone, good news.
Speaker 1: It's not bad for your mental health the gaming bed anyway.
Speaker 1: The abuse is a different story. This research, by the way,
Speaker 1: is based off a survey. That's important to note because,
Speaker 1: i mean, let's face it, it's challenging to develop a
Speaker 1: survey that produces scientifically reliable results because you can't really
Speaker 1: control for all the variables, and it's hard to ask
Speaker 1: questions in a way that doesn't lead people to specific answers.
Speaker 1: So that's another caveat we should throw in here, is
Speaker 1: that this is based off a survey. But still it
Speaker 1: seems like it's pretty good news for gamers. And finally,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reports that rock stars next title in the Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto series will feature a pair of protagonists, and
Speaker 1: one of them for the first time in the game's
Speaker 1: history since it switched away from being an overhead view
Speaker 1: video game is going to be female, so gamers will
Speaker 1: be able to play as a female protagonist in the
Speaker 1: main campaign of g t A six for the first
Speaker 1: time since it went to a three D perspective. Now
Speaker 1: I should add that you can create female characters for
Speaker 1: the online multiplayer version of Grand Theft Auto, but that's
Speaker 1: different from the campaign, which you know, features characters that
Speaker 1: have prescripted responses to things. Right, you're playing out a
Speaker 1: story in the single player experience as opposed to having
Speaker 1: an online multiplayer experience. So in addition to that news,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg also revealed that rock Star plans to introduce cities
Speaker 1: to the campaign over time, meaning they will release content
Speaker 1: over time and the initially when the game launches, it
Speaker 1: will focus on a single main city. It's rumored to
Speaker 1: be rock Stars version of Miami, which is known as
Speaker 1: Vice City. And this kind of reminds me of how
Speaker 1: some other games have been releasing content to players like
Speaker 1: I. I I think of things like the Telltale games, which
Speaker 1: would release in chapters. You get a new chapter every
Speaker 1: so often, and then you could play through and then
Speaker 1: you had to wait for the next one or the
Speaker 1: recent Hitman series where you would have levels released over time,
Speaker 1: and that approach has several benefits. For one, it keeps
Speaker 1: gamers engaged with the title, and since more and more
Speaker 1: games are launching with ways to generate ongoing revenue, either
Speaker 1: with in game purchases or online components are both, keeping
Speaker 1: your player base around is important for the bottom line.
Speaker 1: It's a long tail revenue generation model. For another, it
Speaker 1: gives development teams the opportunity to dedicate more time and
Speaker 1: hopefully avoid too much crunch time before they release a product.
Speaker 1: They don't have to release the game with every single
Speaker 1: city built out. They can focus on one part, get
Speaker 1: that part of the game out, and then transition to
Speaker 1: working on the next bit, so the game scale can
Speaker 1: still be huge, it just is accessible gradually. As for
Speaker 1: when we can expect a release of g t A six,
Speaker 1: that's still up in the air. Analysts are saying it's
Speaker 1: probably going to be at least two years from now,
Speaker 1: and that's mostly due to disruption that's happened within Rockstar
Speaker 1: and internal issues that have caused delays in production. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to suggest that that disruption was necessarily
Speaker 1: bad because from what I understand, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot of the reason for the delays are connected to
Speaker 1: a genuine effort to overhaul the corporate culture at rock
Speaker 1: Star and to eliminate negative working conditions, So everything from
Speaker 1: making sure that the company is treating employees in a
Speaker 1: more equitable way to making sure that they're not working
Speaker 1: people to death by trying to hit some some release
Speaker 1: date that is more or less arbitrary and doesn't take
Speaker 1: into account the amount of work that still needs to
Speaker 1: be done in order for a game to go out
Speaker 1: and not be broken. That's another thing that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of gamers are are frustrated with, is this
Speaker 1: tendency for games to be released only to be broken
Speaker 1: in some way and require you know, some some sort
Speaker 1: of uh uh work in order to make them play
Speaker 1: a bowl. Um. But the flip side of that is
Speaker 1: delaying the release. Gamers don't tend to like that either.
Speaker 1: Gamers are hard to satisfy. My suggestion for any game
Speaker 1: developers out there, don't announce the release date of your game.
Speaker 1: In fact, don't even talk about your game until it's
Speaker 1: ready to go gold, and that will do you the
Speaker 1: best at avoiding this issue. Also, it really excites gamers
Speaker 1: when they find out about a game for the first
Speaker 1: time and then they're told, hey, by the way, this
Speaker 1: is available today. They lose their their minds over that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So that's my advice to game developers,
Speaker 1: who probably know all too well about this stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's it for the news for Thursday July two thousand
Speaker 1: twenty two. If you have suggestions for topics I should
Speaker 1: cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out
Speaker 1: to me. One way to do that is to download
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app. It's free to download. You
Speaker 1: can navigate over to the tech Stuff part of the
Speaker 1: app and you can leave a little voice message. You
Speaker 1: click on the microphone icon leaves up to a thirty
Speaker 1: second message there for me, Or you can reach out
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more
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