Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my 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 how the tech are you. It is March twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and I would like to begin this episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff News with an apology. This goes out
Speaker 1: to all my Irish listeners out there, and just know
Speaker 1: that the following message is really for all my fellow Americans.
Speaker 1: Top of the podcast to yeah and happy St Patrick's day.
Speaker 1: Toy to toy to toy. All right, I got that
Speaker 1: all the way again, mice. Sincerest. Apologies. Also, you might
Speaker 1: hear a little bit of background noise in this episode
Speaker 1: might sound a little different. That's because I am actually
Speaker 1: in the office recording today. Had to be here for
Speaker 1: some other reasons. And uh, hey, there's folks here. It's
Speaker 1: like I haven't seen people in so long. It's kind
Speaker 1: of nice. But let's get to the news. Bleeping Computer
Speaker 1: reports that Russia is facing a cloud crunch in the
Speaker 1: near future. According to the Russian news outlet Commercant, the
Speaker 1: country could run out of cloud storage space within as
Speaker 1: little as two months now. This is largely because the
Speaker 1: major cloud storage providers are companies that have pulled out
Speaker 1: of Russia in the wake of that country's invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: The news outlet also reported that at a meeting to
Speaker 1: discuss this issue, there was a proposal to convert domestic
Speaker 1: services within Russia over to cloud storage services, as well
Speaker 1: as potentially seizing the assets of companies that once operated
Speaker 1: within Russia that have since left. In other words, if
Speaker 1: say Amazon was operating a data center in Russia, that
Speaker 1: Russia might potentially sees those assets and use them for
Speaker 1: their own kind of an imminent domain thing. Other options
Speaker 1: include cutting off some media streaming services and then reallocating
Speaker 1: those assets to cloud storage, which wouldn't necessarily be a
Speaker 1: big popular move for Russian citizens. There's also the chance
Speaker 1: that Russia will turn to Chinese cloud services, but that's
Speaker 1: not a guarantee because well, it depends upon China's cooperation.
Speaker 1: Russia has recently been investing heavily in surveillance systems and
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology and smart city tech, and all of
Speaker 1: those rely upon a robust cloud storage foundation. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to see what Russia does because that clock is ticking. Also,
Speaker 1: since we mentioned China earlier. The US government has sent
Speaker 1: a message to China Telecom, which I'm sure you've gathered
Speaker 1: as a telecommunications company from China, and China Telecom currently
Speaker 1: provides services in America. Uh, but we'll have to stop
Speaker 1: that within sixty days due to this government order. An
Speaker 1: issue here is a concern that a telecommunications company potentially
Speaker 1: has access to a ton of information and represents a
Speaker 1: critical component for a country's infrastructure. And China and the
Speaker 1: US have had, uh, let's say, a tenuous relationship. And
Speaker 1: also the Chinese Communist government is notoriously hands on when
Speaker 1: it comes to you know, companies in China, whether those
Speaker 1: are native companies or companies operating within China. So there
Speaker 1: is a legit fear that a Chinese company could act
Speaker 1: like a spy or a general surveillance tool on the
Speaker 1: US and pass information along to the Chinese government. There's
Speaker 1: also a worry that should the relationship between US and
Speaker 1: China get worse, that a telecom company from China could
Speaker 1: end up causing massive problems in the US as communications infrastructure,
Speaker 1: you know, by cutting off operations or otherwise just inter
Speaker 1: hearing with day to day life. And we saw this
Speaker 1: happen previously. We saw a very similar approach with Huawei.
Speaker 1: That's a company that had provided a lot of networking
Speaker 1: components to telecom companies throughout the United States, and then
Speaker 1: the US government said get rid of all those and
Speaker 1: we're kind of in that process now. A lot of
Speaker 1: the smaller I s p s have a little bit
Speaker 1: more time to get rid of those those components and
Speaker 1: replace them with stuff from other companies. We've also seen
Speaker 1: similar pushback on TikTok, which of course is owned by
Speaker 1: a Chinese conglomerate called byte Dance. Anyway, China Telecom released
Speaker 1: a statement saying that the company plans to quote pursue
Speaker 1: all available options while continuing to serve our customers end quote.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to see where this goes. U S
Speaker 1: Senator Elizabeth Warren and US House Representative Mandare Jones have
Speaker 1: introduced legislation in their respective Houses of Congress, and it's
Speaker 1: called the Prohibiting Anti Competitive Mergers Act or HAMMA p
Speaker 1: A m A. And while this isn't explicitly about tech companies,
Speaker 1: Warren has said that she was really keeping those companies
Speaker 1: in mind in particular while drafting the legislation. Essentially, if
Speaker 1: this is signed into law, the act would ban any
Speaker 1: massive mergers that were worth more than five billion dollars
Speaker 1: or that would provide market shares beyond for employers or
Speaker 1: thirty three for sellers. So it's meant to encourage a
Speaker 1: more competitive marketplace and prevent companies from consolidating power. And
Speaker 1: it's also meant to beef up regulator powers when reviewing
Speaker 1: proposed mergers and to expand on reasons that regulators might
Speaker 1: prevent such mergers should they represent any kind of anti
Speaker 1: competitive practices. Not only that, but it would also allow
Speaker 1: for retroactive review and the reversal of acquisitions and mergers.
Speaker 1: So not only would this give regulators more authority moving forward,
Speaker 1: they could actually look back on pre existing deals and
Speaker 1: force companies to divest themselves of certain acquisitions. So immediately
Speaker 1: I think about companies like Google and Meta, with Meta
Speaker 1: positively leaping to mind because that company has a long
Speaker 1: history of acquiring other social platforms and services that we're
Speaker 1: seen as threats to Meta's claim on our free time.
Speaker 1: I mean, like that, that's pretty widely known that the
Speaker 1: reason why Meta, which at the time was you know, Facebook,
Speaker 1: purchased Instagram. It was because Instagram was taking up a
Speaker 1: lot of people's time and Facebook just couldn't compete, so
Speaker 1: rather than compete, they bought it. Now, this act has
Speaker 1: got a pretty broad reach, and it's one that I
Speaker 1: imagine is going to get a lot of resistance before
Speaker 1: it moves any further through the system. It's likely going
Speaker 1: to be an uphill battle to pass this bill in
Speaker 1: the Senate. And there's also no conservative co sponsors on
Speaker 1: either version of this bill, so no Republicans have co
Speaker 1: sponsored it. That's kind of an indication that we're probably
Speaker 1: gonna see some resistance here. If somehow this does pass
Speaker 1: into law, it would obviously change things dramatically, not just
Speaker 1: for tech but for all industry. It's just we probably
Speaker 1: see it very acutely in the tech space. For one thing,
Speaker 1: we would see stuff like Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision
Speaker 1: Blizzard that would get nixed right away because that deal
Speaker 1: is valued at nearly sixty nine billion dollars. That's well
Speaker 1: over the five billion dollar threshold. But we'll have to
Speaker 1: wait and see where this goes from here. One other
Speaker 1: acquisition that the PAMA legislation would have prevented is Amazon's
Speaker 1: acquisition of MGM, the movie and television studio. That deal
Speaker 1: is worth more than eight billion Smackaroo's, so again above
Speaker 1: that five billion threshold. However, the FTC did not make
Speaker 1: a public response about the deal, like there was an
Speaker 1: a period open for that to happen, and the FTC
Speaker 1: took no action. Also, in the EU, the Antitrust Commission
Speaker 1: already approved the acquisition, So in the EU it got
Speaker 1: the green light, and it looks like Amazon now owns MGM. Now,
Speaker 1: this could be one of those deals that the proposed
Speaker 1: legislation would later reverse, right like, if that proposed PAMMA
Speaker 1: Act passes, then presumably even with this deal going through now,
Speaker 1: later on regulators could force Amazon to divest itself of MGM.
Speaker 1: But again, I would be surprised if that PAMMA bill
Speaker 1: actually does become law. The EU Commission said that there
Speaker 1: was very limited overlap between Amazon and MGM, so saying
Speaker 1: that the acquisition would not be anti competitive because it's
Speaker 1: not like they were actually reducing the number of companies
Speaker 1: that are in the same market. The acquisition will mean
Speaker 1: that Amazon gets a big boost in content, though not
Speaker 1: all the content ever created by MGM. That story gets
Speaker 1: super complicated because different parties have acquired different sections of
Speaker 1: MGMs library over the years. Uh, but it would include
Speaker 1: stuff like the James Bond franchise, which obviously very valuable.
Speaker 1: I might do a series about the history and evolution
Speaker 1: of MGM in the future. It's pretty complicated, but I've
Speaker 1: done similar episodes about Warner Brothers and some other studios,
Speaker 1: and MGM obviously is another important one. Anyway, this is
Speaker 1: a continuation of a trend of consolidation of media, and
Speaker 1: now Amazon Prime Video will have tons of MGM content
Speaker 1: on it, while Discovery and Warner Media are in the
Speaker 1: process emerging and bringing all their content together. So maybe
Speaker 1: you could argue that this specific example isn't inherently anti competitive,
Speaker 1: but the general trend I think perhaps is Okay, We've
Speaker 1: got a lot more stories to go through, but before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take a quick break now
Speaker 1: to talk about an acquisition that's on a smaller scale.
Speaker 1: Google is buying a company called Raxium, which produces micro
Speaker 1: l e d s for displays. L E d s
Speaker 1: are light emitting diodes, and the micro l e ED
Speaker 1: space is kind of positioned to compete against the predominant
Speaker 1: standard bearer, which is oh LED technology. Reportedly, Google's interest
Speaker 1: in micro l e d S is related to the
Speaker 1: development of augmented reality technology. Google has a long history
Speaker 1: dabbling in a R, the Google Glass project being a
Speaker 1: very early example of that. But presumably whatever Google has
Speaker 1: in mind is going to be more robust and a
Speaker 1: more immersive approach to a R in the future, and
Speaker 1: it appears that this micro led tech will play a
Speaker 1: part in that in some form of display most likely.
Speaker 1: And Apple has done similar things that actually acquired a
Speaker 1: different micro led company. In fact, I think that happened
Speaker 1: way back in As to when we might actually see
Speaker 1: products from Google that incorporate this technology, that's probably gonna
Speaker 1: take a while, And considering Google's track record with hardware,
Speaker 1: it might take even longer for folks to feel comfortable
Speaker 1: adopting it because Google has a long history of introducing products,
Speaker 1: only too in support for those products, like a year
Speaker 1: or two later. Uh. It's hard to get behind the
Speaker 1: idea of buying hardware from Google simply because there is
Speaker 1: this long history of Google saying that didn't work, let's
Speaker 1: just stop supporting it. And then you've got this very
Speaker 1: expensive paper weight that you know, over time can do
Speaker 1: less and less because of that lack of support. Over
Speaker 1: in Europe, a French cloud services company called O v
Speaker 1: A Cloud has filed a complaint alleging that Microsoft is
Speaker 1: in violation of antitrust measures in the EU. Now, according
Speaker 1: to the complaint, Microsoft charges a different rate for its
Speaker 1: Office suite of products if you use a different cloud
Speaker 1: platform then Microsoft's own Azure. So in other words, if
Speaker 1: you have a customer that wants to use say O
Speaker 1: v H Cloud for its cloud platform, but still needs
Speaker 1: to rely on Microsoft Office products for productivity software, then
Speaker 1: it would have to pay more for that office software
Speaker 1: suite than it would if they just went all in
Speaker 1: with Microsoft. Oh v H Cloud says this practice is
Speaker 1: anti competitive and it's meant to discourage customers from seeking
Speaker 1: out any alternatives from Microsoft. And on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you might say, you know, bundled services have kind of
Speaker 1: always been a thing and typically you pay less would
Speaker 1: you bundle things together. But on the other hand, you
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that there are some companies
Speaker 1: that only provide a subset of those services, like a
Speaker 1: cloud platform. So you know, O v H Cloud doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have a productivity suite, so they can't compete on
Speaker 1: apples to apples with Microsoft, and so you might really
Speaker 1: love o v H clouds product, you might love their
Speaker 1: customer service. You might think that's the superior cloud platform.
Speaker 1: But you know, you probably also need a productivity suite.
Speaker 1: So you as a customer might be more inclined to
Speaker 1: just go all in with Microsoft because it's cheaper and easier.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that Microsoft is providing a better experience.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, it's it's giving you an incentive anyway.
Speaker 1: Ov H cloud has filed the complaint, but there's no
Speaker 1: word as of yet on what happens next or whether
Speaker 1: Microsoft has even received a formal notice of the complaint yet.
Speaker 1: Over in California, state lawmakers have proposed new legislation that
Speaker 1: would give parents the opportunity to sue social networking platforms
Speaker 1: for getting their kids addicted to social media. And this
Speaker 1: is a pretty complicated issue, and I can actually view
Speaker 1: it from a couple of different perspectives. So one perspective
Speaker 1: is that I could see someone saying it's really the
Speaker 1: responsibility of parents and schools to monitor kids and to
Speaker 1: teach them and to help them arm themselves with knowledge
Speaker 1: and prevent them from getting addicted in the first place,
Speaker 1: So why would we hold companies accountable for things that
Speaker 1: parents and school should be doing. And there's some merit
Speaker 1: to that argument, I would say. But another view that
Speaker 1: I can see, and I also find merit in, is
Speaker 1: that companies like say Meta, devote an awful lot of
Speaker 1: time coming up with ways to entice people to come
Speaker 1: to and then stay on their platforms. In fact, almost
Speaker 1: all of Meta's business hinges on attracting and retaining users
Speaker 1: for as much of their time as is possible. In
Speaker 1: other words, companies like Meta have built their business around
Speaker 1: creating addictive experiences. So from that perspective, Meta and other
Speaker 1: companies like it absolutely bear some of the responsibility for
Speaker 1: kids getting addicted to social media. So the reality is
Speaker 1: a complex one, and I think there's actually a plenty
Speaker 1: of accountability to go around. I don't think we can
Speaker 1: assign it all to just one party anyway. This proposed
Speaker 1: law would allow parents to file class action lawsuits against
Speaker 1: companies that provided services that their children subsequently became addicted to,
Speaker 1: and the fine would be about a thousand dollars per
Speaker 1: child UH or twenty five dollars per child in the
Speaker 1: case of civil penalty cases. Uh, the legislation does allow
Speaker 1: for some safe harbor protections if companies meet certain requirements
Speaker 1: that indicate they are taking quote basic steps to avoid
Speaker 1: addicting children in quote. So in other words, if a
Speaker 1: company could show that it's at least doing the bare
Speaker 1: minimum to try and prevent kids from being hooked on
Speaker 1: their services, then they should be in the clear. Also, UH,
Speaker 1: companies that generate less than one million dollars in revenue
Speaker 1: per year would be excluded, and that I find really interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get the risk of big tech because
Speaker 1: I mean, we we've all heard the stories, like we've
Speaker 1: seen the internal documents from Meta, and you know, the
Speaker 1: fact is that companies like Meta really are a major issue,
Speaker 1: a major concern. However, to me, it's a little strange
Speaker 1: to say, if you happen to create experiences that are
Speaker 1: meant to be addictive to children, but you make less
Speaker 1: than a hundred million dollars a year, you're to it's
Speaker 1: okay that that doesn't sit well with me. But maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just interpreting this incorrectly. Three years after getting into
Speaker 1: the VR space, Facebook or I really should say, Meta
Speaker 1: says it's going to roll out parental supervision controls for
Speaker 1: VR experiences. Now, that's definitely important because we've already seen
Speaker 1: several reports about how abusive folks in VR environments can
Speaker 1: be amazingly awful to other people, and they could be
Speaker 1: a really traumatic experience. There's a legit concern for the
Speaker 1: health and safety of children and VR spaces like Meta's
Speaker 1: Horizon Worlds, where again we've already seen evidence of predatory behaviors,
Speaker 1: something you definitely don't want kids to be exposed to. Now,
Speaker 1: I should add that Meta has stated that the Quest
Speaker 1: It's it's main VR product, is intended for users who
Speaker 1: are a thirteen or older, but that doesn't mean younger
Speaker 1: kids aren't still using it. In fact, there's no real
Speaker 1: way to prevent that from happening, and heck, thirteen, I
Speaker 1: would argue, it's still pretty freaking young, and the potential
Speaker 1: harm that we're talking about can be significant. So I
Speaker 1: think that rolling out these parental controls is an important step.
Speaker 1: I also think it's well overdue. Uh. I have an
Speaker 1: issue with Meta in general because I feel like the
Speaker 1: company treats the general public like guinea pigs. It will
Speaker 1: roll out services on a really broad scale and then
Speaker 1: look to see if they're harmful or not, and then
Speaker 1: make changes. I feel like it's a little reckless to
Speaker 1: go that direction. I feel there needs to be maybe
Speaker 1: more QA and R and D work before you start
Speaker 1: rolling stuff out to actual human beings out there. But
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just being too conservative in that case. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the parental controls will include alerts whenever a kid has
Speaker 1: made a purchase within VR apps, and will also include
Speaker 1: a dashboard listing off all the apps that the kid
Speaker 1: has access to UH as well as how much time
Speaker 1: they're spending in those VR environments, and parents will presumably
Speaker 1: have some control over all of that. Meta is bringing
Speaker 1: similar control features and educational material to its other platforms
Speaker 1: as well, including Instagram. The company is pretty clearly been
Speaker 1: on the defensive since Francis Hogan brought forward concerning internal
Speaker 1: documents indicating Meta's research into its products effects on younger users,
Speaker 1: which seemed to indicate that, you know, they're fairly negative.
Speaker 1: And we've also been concerned obviously about the company's intention
Speaker 1: to build out products that are specifically targeting younger demographics.
Speaker 1: So I feel like this is Meta's approach to addressing
Speaker 1: those concerns. Hopefully, uh, those methods that Meta takes will
Speaker 1: be sufficient. But of course we've got more bad news
Speaker 1: for Meta, and in this case, it's that Congress is
Speaker 1: calling on Meta to answer for a failure that could
Speaker 1: harm kids. That failure centers on Facebook Marketplace, the platforms
Speaker 1: online commerce tool where users can buy and sell various stuff,
Speaker 1: and at the heart of the matter is the issue
Speaker 1: of recalled products. UH. The United States CA Gris says
Speaker 1: that Meta has failed to prevent the sale of recalled
Speaker 1: products it could be harmful and have been harmful to children,
Speaker 1: and said that the failure is a quote remarkable dereliction
Speaker 1: of duty by your company on behalf of your users
Speaker 1: end quote. And this is not the first time that
Speaker 1: Congress has sent a letter to Facebook urging the company
Speaker 1: to take action on this very subject. In fact, lawmakers
Speaker 1: have been saying this to Meta leadership for for a
Speaker 1: few years now, and according to those lawmakers, the company
Speaker 1: has appeared to do little, if anything about it. USA
Speaker 1: Today investigated the issue and found instances of several recalled
Speaker 1: products appearing on Facebook Marketplace, and these were products that
Speaker 1: were associated with the deaths of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: children collectively, which is truly awful to think about, and
Speaker 1: they're still occasionally being bought and sold on the Facebook
Speaker 1: marketplace platform. And this is despite the availability of tools
Speaker 1: text and image recognition that could identify those kinds of
Speaker 1: listings and at least allow Facebook to block them. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, it is entirely possible for Meta to
Speaker 1: log and subsequently remove these posts, and yet the company
Speaker 1: fails to do so. However, let's talk about the law
Speaker 1: for a second. So currently in the United States, it
Speaker 1: is illegal to sell recalled products, Like if there's been
Speaker 1: a toy that's been recalled because it turns out it's
Speaker 1: toxic and kids could get sick if they were playing
Speaker 1: with it. Um, it is illegal to sell that. However,
Speaker 1: Facebook isn't actually selling anything in Facebook Marketplace. It is
Speaker 1: an online platform. It's facilitating sales, so it gives people
Speaker 1: a place where they can post and shop for stuff.
Speaker 1: But Facebook itself isn't the merchant. So just as websites
Speaker 1: shouldn't be held responsible for the stuff that used or
Speaker 1: is post to those websites, Facebook shouldn't be held liable
Speaker 1: for illegal products sold on marketplace because again, it's not
Speaker 1: like Facebook's the vendor that says the law stands now,
Speaker 1: there are some lawmakers in the US who are looking
Speaker 1: to draft legislation that would require online stores to take
Speaker 1: greater steps to prevent illegal sales. In the future, I
Speaker 1: imagine that Facebook and lots of other online store companies
Speaker 1: will take a few steps to address issues like this
Speaker 1: before that goes much further, because generally speaking, we typically
Speaker 1: see businesses and industries tackle these issues themselves before regulations
Speaker 1: get involved. And wrapping up on our let's dump on
Speaker 1: meta segment, let's have a somewhat goofy news item. Instagram
Speaker 1: issued a twenty four hour ban on Kanye West because
Speaker 1: something he posted violated Instagram's policies. Now, the specific post
Speaker 1: wasn't singled out, however, general consists of says that was
Speaker 1: likely to do with a post Kanye made about Trevor Noah,
Speaker 1: the host of The Daily Show. Trevor Noah had made
Speaker 1: some humorous commentary about the ongoing drama between Kanye West,
Speaker 1: Kanye West's ex wife Kim Kardashian, and Kim Kardashian's boyfriend
Speaker 1: Pete Davidson, and y'all, I'm old and I'm out of touch,
Speaker 1: so I am not the best person to give a
Speaker 1: full rundown on all the drama that's gone on here.
Speaker 1: I'm aware of it, but I haven't really been following it. However,
Speaker 1: I do think that, based on my limited knowledge of
Speaker 1: Kanye West, this was a very Kanye thing to have happened.
Speaker 1: All right, We've got more news items to get through
Speaker 1: before we get to that. Let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back the site Fast Company has a really interesting article.
Speaker 1: It has the headline to fight Disinformation, Follow the Money
Speaker 1: and the Ads, and it was written by Rob Peggararro.
Speaker 1: It's about an organization called check my Ads and it
Speaker 1: was founded by Nandini Jummy and Claire Atkin. The focus
Speaker 1: of this organization is to defund disinformation, and the two
Speaker 1: co founders made the case that disinformation campaigns are funded.
Speaker 1: They make money, not by just posting on social networks
Speaker 1: like that's not really where money comes in to these organizations.
Speaker 1: If if that were hill they depended upon revenue, they
Speaker 1: would fade away because they don't make enough that way. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's attracting people to owned and operated websites that heavily
Speaker 1: feature advertising and you know web ads. That's the basic
Speaker 1: revenue plan we see across the web, and in many
Speaker 1: of these cases, companies that use certain ad exchanges, that is,
Speaker 1: a company that broker's ads right like it takes in
Speaker 1: orders from cli ants and then places those ads on
Speaker 1: websites well, certain add exchanges might end up running ads
Speaker 1: against content that their clients would rather not be associated with. Uh.
Speaker 1: There have been lots of cases with this. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Sleeping Giants organization, which is related in a way
Speaker 1: at least it's it's connected to check my Ads, has
Speaker 1: long been pointing out how ads for certain companies have
Speaker 1: appeared on let's say, controversial sites with the question of hey,
Speaker 1: are you okay with your ad being posted against this article,
Speaker 1: and that has often resulted in various companies pulling their
Speaker 1: ads from those companies and telling ad exchanges, hey, we
Speaker 1: don't want you to place our ads on sites like
Speaker 1: this one. So that's kind of what checked my Ads
Speaker 1: is all about, is like helping identify where these instances
Speaker 1: are happening in an effort to defund those websites and
Speaker 1: take away the money that allows these disinformation campaigns to
Speaker 1: exist in the first place. And the whole article is
Speaker 1: well worth a read. The co founders make a plead
Speaker 1: to business owners. They tell business owners, Hey, you guys
Speaker 1: need to be really good stewards of your brands. You
Speaker 1: need to be aware of where you're advertising is going,
Speaker 1: and uh, you need to take a more proactive approach
Speaker 1: to being sure that the sites where your ads are
Speaker 1: showing up a line with the vision of your company.
Speaker 1: So interesting article, I recommend you check it out. Hey,
Speaker 1: do you log into Netflix using someone else's account? Because
Speaker 1: I know that happens a lot. I've actually got friends
Speaker 1: who have casually mentioned that they use a log in
Speaker 1: that belongs to someone else in order to get on Netflix. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Netflix would really prefer people not do that. Netflix is
Speaker 1: always gonna want everyone to have their own subscription, and
Speaker 1: now what sounds like Netflix is looking at a way
Speaker 1: to actively discourage that behavior. Namely, Netflix is going to
Speaker 1: try and identify accounts that are shared across multiple users
Speaker 1: and then charge those accounts more for a Netflix subscription.
Speaker 1: So you if you are borrowing login information, you might
Speaker 1: find that that login password has mysteriously changed, because it
Speaker 1: might turn out that your parents, or your old college
Speaker 1: roommate or whomever doesn't want to have to pay more
Speaker 1: for their Netflix account just so you're freeloading butt can
Speaker 1: watch the next season of Love Island or whatever. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't even watch Netflix anymore. But at
Speaker 1: the moment, Netflix is just doing a limited test on
Speaker 1: this policy in Costa Rica, in Chile and Peru, and
Speaker 1: the company has also stated that it will let account
Speaker 1: holders allow the folks using the account sharing the account
Speaker 1: to quote transfer profile information either to a new account
Speaker 1: or an extra member sub account, thus keeping the viewing
Speaker 1: history my list in personalized recommendations end quote. Presumably Netflix
Speaker 1: will monitor the effects of this policy in the test
Speaker 1: countries before rolling it out or tweaking it, and then
Speaker 1: rolling it out worldwide. But this is just a heads
Speaker 1: up if you happen to rely on a shared account
Speaker 1: to access Netflix. Also, I imagine other streaming services are
Speaker 1: going to watch this closely, and I would not be
Speaker 1: shocked to see similar policies on other services follow suit.
Speaker 1: At long last, the James web Space telescope has taken
Speaker 1: the first fully focused image of a star in what
Speaker 1: was essentially a test to make sure that the telescope
Speaker 1: is working properly. And it is, and that's not a
Speaker 1: trivial thing. I mean, way back when the Hubble Space
Speaker 1: Telescope first came online, NASA was somewhat dismade to discover
Speaker 1: that a manufacturing error meant the telescope was out of
Speaker 1: focus and there was no way to fix it without
Speaker 1: sending people up there. So NASA sent up missions of
Speaker 1: astronauts to install some additional equipment on the Hubble and
Speaker 1: address those errors. That's something that's not possible with the
Speaker 1: James Webb Space Telescope because it's at a much further
Speaker 1: out orbit. It's beyond the Moon and we can't get there.
Speaker 1: So the test image was of a star that has
Speaker 1: a name that involves so many numbers. There's no point
Speaker 1: in me saying the name of the star here because honestly,
Speaker 1: it would sound like I was making a joke. You'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: he's just rattling off random numbers at this point. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't have an easy name like Bob. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: shutter speed on the imaging equipment was beyond slow. The
Speaker 1: exposure lasted thirty five minutes, So imagine for a moment
Speaker 1: that you have to sit perfectly still for thirty five
Speaker 1: minutes while you're taking your next selfie. But that long
Speaker 1: exposure time allows the telescope to collect as much light
Speaker 1: as it can in order to image incredibly faint objects
Speaker 1: out in space. The test is a great indication that
Speaker 1: the telescope will work as it was design. Mind though,
Speaker 1: it will still take several weeks of minor adjustments and
Speaker 1: tweaking to tune the telescope so that it can get
Speaker 1: down to some serious work. Cosmologically speaking, considering all the
Speaker 1: delays and challenges around this particular space telescope, it's pretty
Speaker 1: astounding to see it working like this, and it really
Speaker 1: stands as a triumph of science and engineering. Finally, I'll
Speaker 1: have to do a full episode about this next news item,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to share a quick reference to it.
Speaker 1: So IBM in Video and various researchers published a paper
Speaker 1: with the wonderful title b AM or BAM a Case
Speaker 1: for enabling fine grain high throughput GPU orchestrated access to storage.
Speaker 1: And in this case, BAM doesn't refer to Emerald Legassi
Speaker 1: throwing garlic on something. It stands for a big accelerator
Speaker 1: memory and the goal is to remove something that can
Speaker 1: otherwise throttle the machine learning process, which is the connection
Speaker 1: between processors and storage. The BAM system proposes a design
Speaker 1: that connects GPUs or graphics processing units straight to s
Speaker 1: s d s or solid state drives, so the s
Speaker 1: s d s serve as memory and storage. And because
Speaker 1: GPUs typically emphasize parallel processing applications, they are well suited
Speaker 1: for machine learning applications. And keep in mind that machine
Speaker 1: learning is all about training computer systems to do something
Speaker 1: uh and it can really be like just about anything.
Speaker 1: For example, you might use very large data sets to
Speaker 1: train a computer system to look for signs when criminal
Speaker 1: organizations are attempting to launder money using cryptocurrency. That could
Speaker 1: be one use of machine learning. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be like that weighty. You could train a system to
Speaker 1: become better at natural language recognition and be able to
Speaker 1: interact with people more naturally. Historically, the path between processors
Speaker 1: and storage has created kind of a traffic jam in
Speaker 1: machine learning applications, so this proposed architecture could alleviate that.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I'll have to read up on
Speaker 1: this further and maybe do a full episode about it
Speaker 1: in the future. In the meantime, if you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, I welcome you
Speaker 1: to reach out and let me know about your ideas.
Speaker 1: The best way to do that is over on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Yeah.
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