Speaker 1: Welcome to tex 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 this episode is
Speaker 1: the news episode for Tuesday, January twenty six, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Let's jump right in and we will start with a
Speaker 1: follow up from a story from a previous tech stuff
Speaker 1: news episode. The hackers who targeted the Scottish Environmental Protection
Speaker 1: Agency or SPA s e p A with ransomware followed
Speaker 1: through on their threat to publish documents from sipa's databases
Speaker 1: after the organization refused to pony up the ransom money.
Speaker 1: Now as a reminder, these hackers stole about one point
Speaker 1: two gigabytes worth of data from the organization about a
Speaker 1: month ago. The CONTI ransomware Collective has claimed responsibility for
Speaker 1: the attack. That's CEO in t I. Now, CIPA has
Speaker 1: not confirmed that this match is what they are seeing.
Speaker 1: The CONTI collective is so called because when the ransomware
Speaker 1: infects the system, it changes all the affected files so
Speaker 1: that they have the extension dot c O and t
Speaker 1: I within the cybersecurity industry. It's known for being a
Speaker 1: very active type of attack, with hackers making frequent updates
Speaker 1: to the malware in an effort to stay ahead of
Speaker 1: cybersecurity experts. It was first reported by cybersecurity analysts back
Speaker 1: in December two thousand, nineteen as a type of ransomware,
Speaker 1: but it really saw serious spikes in use by the
Speaker 1: spring of the Hackers published more than four thousand documents
Speaker 1: and databases from SIPA, including information that relates to the
Speaker 1: organization's strategic operations and contracts with other entities. SIPA is
Speaker 1: working with Scotland Yard to verify the various published files,
Speaker 1: and then they're taking steps to contact any affected third parties.
Speaker 1: This is a particularly difficult situation. The data in some
Speaker 1: cases is sensitive and so there is an obligation to
Speaker 1: handle it with security and privacy. SIPA maintains it will
Speaker 1: not pay a ransom, which in my mind is still
Speaker 1: the best option. While it can be disastrous to have
Speaker 1: something like this happen, it doesn't help if you pay
Speaker 1: off the attackers because that sends the message that the
Speaker 1: attack works. If SIPA can stay the course, it shows
Speaker 1: other organizations that while the outcomes of such activities as bad.
Speaker 1: It's better than encouraging future attacks. It's not the end
Speaker 1: of the world to have some of those files leaked,
Speaker 1: even if it does mean that for the short term
Speaker 1: things will be pretty challenging. Sticking with the UK, there
Speaker 1: is a developing story that's pretty awful for an accountability standpoint,
Speaker 1: so obviously had an enormous and almost entirely negative impact
Speaker 1: on education all around the world. In the UK, the
Speaker 1: Department for Education rushed to implement a program that would
Speaker 1: send refurbished laptop computers to students in the UK as
Speaker 1: part of an effort to support homeschooling during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which on the surface sounds like a pretty good idea,
Speaker 1: but it has become clear that the Department for Education
Speaker 1: failed to vet these refurbished laptops properly, as some of
Speaker 1: them now proved to be infected with malware known as
Speaker 1: the Gamma U trojan, sometimes also known as Andromeda. Teachers
Speaker 1: in Bradford noticed the malware, and now there's an ongoing
Speaker 1: investigation to see how many of the laptops that the
Speaker 1: d f E sent out could have been infected. According
Speaker 1: to Computer Weekly, a spokesperson for the Department for Education
Speaker 1: says that all known cases were caught at the school
Speaker 1: level when the machine were first booted up, which is
Speaker 1: good news assuming that all known cases actually represents all
Speaker 1: cases period. Gamuru belongs to a family of malware that
Speaker 1: spreads through attachments in emails. A compromise computer becomes part
Speaker 1: of the attack strategy, sending out more spam messages to
Speaker 1: contacts with that computer, and then compromise attachments are part
Speaker 1: of that spam, and then the malware spreads from there.
Speaker 1: They will also copy itself onto stuff like USB drives.
Speaker 1: It's not a new type of malware. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: been around for almost a decade and it was the
Speaker 1: focus of a worldwide takedown operation in TV and now
Speaker 1: it looks like it's kind of back. Though it's also
Speaker 1: possible that these instances are really a holdover from the
Speaker 1: bad old days and not an indicator that hackers are
Speaker 1: actively using this old malware to infect systems again. Cybersecurity
Speaker 1: analysts say that the malware is attempting to contact servers
Speaker 1: in Russia, so that's obviously a red flag warning. Nothing
Speaker 1: like having a UK government agency issue laptops to students
Speaker 1: that are collecting information for Russian hackers. At the very least,
Speaker 1: this story shows that the Department for Education had a
Speaker 1: massive failure when it comes to protecting the safety of
Speaker 1: students in the UK, and they didn't do the due
Speaker 1: diligence to make certain that the laptops they were using
Speaker 1: were in fact safe. I'm sure I will follow up
Speaker 1: on this story as it develops. Over in Italy, the
Speaker 1: government there has issued an ultimatum to the video social
Speaker 1: platform TikTok implement a policy that blocks any user if
Speaker 1: TikTok is unable to verify that user's age. This follows
Speaker 1: in the wake of a truly tragic story in which
Speaker 1: a ten year old girl from Palermo passed away after
Speaker 1: allegedly attempting to participate in a TikTok challenge, which is
Speaker 1: a truly horrifying story. TikTok's states that it actually has
Speaker 1: no evidence of the associated challenge on its platform, thus
Speaker 1: disputing that this was a case in which a user
Speaker 1: was trying to emulate other users. Italy's requirements on TikTok
Speaker 1: will hold until February, when the government will presumably have
Speaker 1: more permanent rules to put in place, and TikTok has
Speaker 1: until Friday, January twenty nine to respond. If TikTok fails
Speaker 1: to act, the Italian government can take further actions authorized
Speaker 1: by the e use General Data Protection Regulation or g
Speaker 1: d PR. That's a set of policies that put privacy
Speaker 1: protections in place for EU citizens. Very complicated, obviously, because
Speaker 1: the EU represents lots of different countries. It's the g
Speaker 1: d PR that forces companies like Google, Facebook, tons of
Speaker 1: companies to follow very different practices in the EU than
Speaker 1: they would elsewhere, and it also creates a lot of
Speaker 1: complications for global businesses. And just note that I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that those complications are bad or that they're unmerited,
Speaker 1: just that companies have to follow different sets of rules
Speaker 1: depending upon where they are providing goods or services, and
Speaker 1: that just makes things more complicated, particularly for Internet services.
Speaker 1: TikTok has been the center of scrutiny and the EU
Speaker 1: for other reasons as well, mostly involving user privacy and security,
Speaker 1: So this is another case of that in Europe. Following
Speaker 1: up on another story I covered earlier this month, Googlers
Speaker 1: have announced a union alliance for workers in ten countries,
Speaker 1: and it's called Alpha Global. The alliance consists of thirteen
Speaker 1: different unions. Now, if you remember, here in the United States,
Speaker 1: a group of around two hundred Google employees founded the
Speaker 1: Alphabet Workers Union or a w U. Now more than
Speaker 1: seven hundred US Google employees are part of the a
Speaker 1: w U, But part of the challenge the employees wreck
Speaker 1: nizes that Google, or rather the companies under Google's parent company, Alphabet,
Speaker 1: are international in scope, so the goal is to have
Speaker 1: the different unions that are representing employee interests in various
Speaker 1: places around the world stay in touch and coordinate in
Speaker 1: an effort to extend protections to all those who are
Speaker 1: employed by the company. As it stands, the a WU
Speaker 1: doesn't currently register as a legitimate union by the US
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Board that's a US federal government agency.
Speaker 1: The n l RB can enforce US labor laws against
Speaker 1: companies and can force the companies to negotiate with employees
Speaker 1: over various labor matters, but since a w U is
Speaker 1: not yet recognized by the n l RB, they don't
Speaker 1: have that option. Part of the a w u's challenge
Speaker 1: is that the group recognizes Google contract workers as eligible
Speaker 1: for inclusion in the union, but typically these types of
Speaker 1: unions only cover full time employees, not contractors. The new
Speaker 1: coalition will form a steering committee to guide the strategy
Speaker 1: and activities of the various unions. And while these are
Speaker 1: early days and we don't yet know if these unions
Speaker 1: will be able to send into motion real change at
Speaker 1: the you know, Google's various companies, it does seem as
Speaker 1: though there is a growing momentum behind unionization in big
Speaker 1: tech companies, which could potentially lead to some massive changes
Speaker 1: in the tech sphere, which long has operated under a
Speaker 1: more fast and loose environment with very little oversight or
Speaker 1: accountability to employees. In Russia, tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: took to the streets in cities across the country to
Speaker 1: protest the arrest of Alexey Navalny, a Russian figure who
Speaker 1: opposes Vladimir Putin. In August twenty Navalny was poisoned with
Speaker 1: a nerve agent while traveling to Moscow and was hospitalized.
Speaker 1: He was airlifted to Berlin to receive tree eatment. He
Speaker 1: survived the attack and recovered in September. Of Russian authorities
Speaker 1: refused to pursue any investigation into the poisoning. Navalny returned
Speaker 1: to Russia earlier this month and was detained by police
Speaker 1: under the charge that he was violating terms of an
Speaker 1: earlier jail sentence. It should be noted that Navalny has
Speaker 1: been part of numerous investigations into Putant's activities, including numerous
Speaker 1: corruption investigations, so in other words, he's clearly dedicated to
Speaker 1: opposing Putin. Upon his arrest, Navalny encouraged Russian citizens to protest,
Speaker 1: and many Russians have used various social media platforms in
Speaker 1: an effort to organize and spread word of the protests
Speaker 1: and their message. Consequently, Russian authorities have tried very hard
Speaker 1: to take those kinds of posts down and have demanded
Speaker 1: that platforms like Facebook jump in and remove quote fake
Speaker 1: posts about protests end quote, which I mean this is
Speaker 1: pretty darn ironic, as there is a mountain of evidence
Speaker 1: that number one, the protests in Russia are very real
Speaker 1: and have incredible support, considering that you know, in some
Speaker 1: places people are coming out to protest in public despite
Speaker 1: not just the threat of police response, but that there
Speaker 1: are temperatures in the neighborhood of minus fifty degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: And number two, Russia itself has been behind numerous misinformation
Speaker 1: campaigns in an effort to disrupt democracy all over the world,
Speaker 1: including the United States. Russia has a specific regulation media
Speaker 1: department that is in charge of handling these sorts of things.
Speaker 1: There are conflicting reports about whether or not various posts
Speaker 1: supporting the protests have actually been removed. Russian government officials
Speaker 1: claimed that a lot of that material has been scrubbed
Speaker 1: from these various platforms because they leveraged YouTube and Instagram
Speaker 1: and Facebook and told them to remove it. But then
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google report that neither company has removed any
Speaker 1: posts and that the content doesn't actually violate their terms
Speaker 1: of service, so there's no reason to bring down those
Speaker 1: those posts. Gizmodo reports that Andre Soldatov, an expert who
Speaker 1: has written about the media regulators, feels as though the
Speaker 1: government officials aren't really adept at handling situations that change
Speaker 1: so quickly, and so we'll likely see less of an
Speaker 1: effect as they attempt to deal with the protests online.
Speaker 1: We have more news to cover, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break. We're back last Friday,
Speaker 1: January twenty second, Microsoft upset a lot of gamers with
Speaker 1: an early morning announcement, but don't worry. We've got a
Speaker 1: happy ending on this one, so just stick around now.
Speaker 1: The original blog post was about how Microsoft planned to
Speaker 1: adjust prices for its Xbox Live Gold service. For those unfamiliar,
Speaker 1: this subscription service gives Xbox gamers access to online multiplayer
Speaker 1: networking for games that support it. Plus they get two
Speaker 1: pre selected free games available each month, so they you
Speaker 1: can't pick which games you get for free. Microsoft says
Speaker 1: this month, these two titles are free for you, so
Speaker 1: you can download them. You can also get game discounts
Speaker 1: for certain titles in the Xbox Store and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It's what Xbox players have to pay if
Speaker 1: they want to play online with other folks, making it
Speaker 1: different from how Sony used to handle the PlayStation online
Speaker 1: services back in the day. The blog post explained that
Speaker 1: Microsoft was going to increase the subscription fee by one
Speaker 1: dollar for a one month Gold membership, or by five
Speaker 1: dollars for a three month membership, and so on. In addition,
Speaker 1: the post encourage users to upgrade two Xbox Game Pass Ultimate,
Speaker 1: which gives players access to dozens of different game titles
Speaker 1: as part of their subscription. And again, this is a
Speaker 1: subscription service. Gold users were told they could upgrade and
Speaker 1: any remaining time on their Gold membership would be applied
Speaker 1: to their Ultimate membership. The reaction to this announcement was
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly negative. Now, I think the Ultimate Pass is actually
Speaker 1: a pretty darn good product in general, but I also
Speaker 1: think that trying to push gamers to adopt it is
Speaker 1: not a great move, and before long, Microsoft got the message.
Speaker 1: On Friday night, about fourteen hours after the original blog
Speaker 1: post went live, Microsoft updated it to say that the
Speaker 1: company would not be changing the price for Gold subscriptions.
Speaker 1: After all, this is not the first time we've seen
Speaker 1: the Xbox division walk back an announcement. When in the
Speaker 1: company first unveiled the Xbox One, the original plan was
Speaker 1: that the console would need a twenty four seven connection
Speaker 1: to the Internet. This would open up new features for
Speaker 1: the console, but it also promised to change how game
Speaker 1: companies would incorporate digital rights management into titles, and it
Speaker 1: threatened the resale market for games. Ultimately, Microsoft walked back
Speaker 1: those decisions before launching the Xbox One, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of like history repeating itself. Meanwhile, let's talk about game
Speaker 1: stop for a second, because a sort of meta game
Speaker 1: was going on with the company's stock last Friday, and
Speaker 1: I think the story will also illustrate how bonkers stock
Speaker 1: market activity can be. So there's a practice in trading
Speaker 1: called the short cell, and it involves selling stock that
Speaker 1: you don't actually own and then buying it back later
Speaker 1: for a lower price. So here's how it works. From
Speaker 1: a very high level. Let's say you are a trader,
Speaker 1: as in someone who trades stock, not a trade tour,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking that a certain stock such as game
Speaker 1: Stop is going to take a eating in the near future.
Speaker 1: The stock price is going to fall. Now, you don't
Speaker 1: own shares in game Stop, but you borrow stock from
Speaker 1: investors who do own shares in that company, and you
Speaker 1: sell those shares at the current market value. Now you've
Speaker 1: made a promise to those investors that at some point
Speaker 1: in the future you will return to them their shares
Speaker 1: of stock. But your goal is to wait for the
Speaker 1: stock price to fall, and when it falls to whatever
Speaker 1: your comfort level is, you buy back those borrowed shares
Speaker 1: now to lower price. So if you are selling these
Speaker 1: borrowed shares at ten dollars a pop and buying them
Speaker 1: back at two dollars a pop, you made eight dollars
Speaker 1: per share. In that process, that's selling short. But what
Speaker 1: happens if the price goes up, Well, then you are
Speaker 1: up a certain poopy creek without a certain paddle, because
Speaker 1: you will have to cover those shares for the folks
Speaker 1: you borrowed them from. If you sold off these borrowed
Speaker 1: shares at ten dollars but the stock price went up
Speaker 1: to twenty dollars, you would have to pay an additional
Speaker 1: ten dollars per share to buy back all of that
Speaker 1: borrowed inventory and return it to the original investors. And
Speaker 1: because stock prices can just keep going up, there's not
Speaker 1: really any limit to how much money you can lose
Speaker 1: if you try this and the stock price goes the
Speaker 1: other way. Fun right, So game Stop announced that a
Speaker 1: guy named Ryan Cohen was joining the board of directors,
Speaker 1: and Cohen is the CEO of a company called Chewy.
Speaker 1: A company called Citron Research, which looks for different companies
Speaker 1: that appeared to be right for the short sell approach,
Speaker 1: said hey, you know, we think game Stop stock is
Speaker 1: gonna take a dive because of this announcement, so get
Speaker 1: ready to sell short. But then some folks on a
Speaker 1: Reddit sub reddit called our slash Wall Street bets had
Speaker 1: been pushing to make the game Stop stock price go higher.
Speaker 1: So how do you do that? Well, the stock price
Speaker 1: depends in part on public perception of how a company
Speaker 1: is doing, So if you really talk up a company,
Speaker 1: you can push its stock price higher. It's literally psychology.
Speaker 1: Now this can't go on forever. If this gets done
Speaker 1: too much, you can end up with a bubble that
Speaker 1: bursts somewhere down the road. But it certainly works in
Speaker 1: the short term, and in this case it resulted in
Speaker 1: what's called a short squeeze. People who are trying to
Speaker 1: sell short saw the stock price was going up, not down,
Speaker 1: so they started buying up shares of game Stop to
Speaker 1: cover the ones they were already trying to sell short,
Speaker 1: plus maybe buying extra in order to earn money through
Speaker 1: the increased stock price to help cover the losses they
Speaker 1: would have had otherwise from trying to sell short. But hey,
Speaker 1: if more folks start buying up shares of stock, that
Speaker 1: tends to push stock prices even higher. So more people
Speaker 1: were getting in on it. They were jumping out of
Speaker 1: short selling and jumping into buying, and the cycle continued.
Speaker 1: The price rose nearly sevent before the stock exchange halted
Speaker 1: all trading for game Stop stock. That happens if the
Speaker 1: exchange detects that something really unusual is going on, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of a safety precaution. Citron meanwhile, has backed
Speaker 1: way the heck away from commenting on game Stop as
Speaker 1: people are mightily miffed at being told to sell short.
Speaker 1: As for what will happen long term for the company itself,
Speaker 1: that's undetermined, but it does show how stock market activity
Speaker 1: can be chaotic and sometimes more of a game than
Speaker 1: video games can be. And sticking with games, let's do
Speaker 1: a quick update on Cyberpunk twenty seven, Everyone's favorite game
Speaker 1: to bully. The game has been the subject of a
Speaker 1: lot of controversy from crunch Times that the at CD
Speaker 1: prod Read the company that make it to a rushed
Speaker 1: launch despite the fact that the game had been delayed
Speaker 1: a couple of times. Two major problems with bugs in
Speaker 1: the game, which were particularly egregious for people who are
Speaker 1: playing it on PS four or the Xbox One. But
Speaker 1: now we've got some more bad news. CD Project Read
Speaker 1: pushed out an update for the game, the one point
Speaker 1: one patch, in an effort to address some of the
Speaker 1: many problems that gamers have experienced as they played through
Speaker 1: this much anticipated title, But it seems as though this
Speaker 1: fix has broken something else. Specifically, a quest called Down
Speaker 1: on the Street now seems to be affected. In part
Speaker 1: of this quest, the player receives a call that helps
Speaker 1: move the story forward, only now for some players, the
Speaker 1: call doesn't work properly, and so the players are unable
Speaker 1: to progress any further in that mission. The publisher has
Speaker 1: posted a work around, but that one is dependent upon
Speaker 1: the player having an earlier save of the game in
Speaker 1: order for stuff to work out properly. If you don't
Speaker 1: have that earlier save, you kind of out of luck.
Speaker 1: The company does plan an even bigger patch one point two,
Speaker 1: which will include a quote more significant update end quote.
Speaker 1: No word on if it will address this new problem,
Speaker 1: or if CD Project Read will push out some other
Speaker 1: independent quick fix. The situation serves as a reminder that
Speaker 1: developing games is really hard, and sometimes when you fix
Speaker 1: one thing, you will break something else, which is why
Speaker 1: quality assurance is such an important part of the development process.
Speaker 1: It's the job of the q A employee to try
Speaker 1: and break stuff, or to make sure that stuff ain't
Speaker 1: broken to begin with, and after every break fix new
Speaker 1: stuff can break. It's the joy of coding. Oh and
Speaker 1: how about we cover the story of Gabe Newell, president
Speaker 1: of Valve, talking about controlling them their video games with
Speaker 1: your brain stuff. Now, according to new Well, one of
Speaker 1: the things that Valve is working on is a research
Speaker 1: software project that involves BC eyes. Now that stands for
Speaker 1: Brain computer Interfaces, and as the name suggests, it's a
Speaker 1: technology that aims to allow people to interact directly with
Speaker 1: computer systems using thought alone, kind of like telepathy for computers. Actually,
Speaker 1: in the ideal version of this technology, you would be
Speaker 1: able to have stuff go in either direction, person to
Speaker 1: computer or computer to person. You could create systems that
Speaker 1: people could control through thought, and you could build out
Speaker 1: extensions of human intelligence by having computers augment our natural abilities. Now,
Speaker 1: that's the ideal version. That's something that we are far
Speaker 1: from being able to achieve right now, and honestly, we
Speaker 1: don't know if we will ever achieve that dream of
Speaker 1: making everyone computer smart. Like, just imagine having a literal
Speaker 1: computer database that stores memories perally, so when you remember,
Speaker 1: you're not recreating a memory, you're literally looking at the
Speaker 1: actual memory as it was formed at that time. That
Speaker 1: is kind of the science fiction version of this. Now,
Speaker 1: there has already been a lot of work with various
Speaker 1: devices that respond to brainwave activity, largely in the medical field,
Speaker 1: and typically requires a great deal of training if you're
Speaker 1: creating a b c I, both on the part of
Speaker 1: the system that is running on the b c I
Speaker 1: side and the user who is trying to you know,
Speaker 1: leverage that system. It's tricky to even pick up on
Speaker 1: brain waves in the first place, because it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to get accurate read of what's going on in
Speaker 1: our noodles due to our thick skulls. It's why some
Speaker 1: earlier b c I implementations actually required transcranial operations, meaning
Speaker 1: that part of that interface had to be surgically implanted
Speaker 1: into the U user, typically with a wire extending from
Speaker 1: the implant sticking out of their skull and connecting to
Speaker 1: the external system. This has mostly been done with patients
Speaker 1: who are paralyzed or otherwise cannot move and are unable
Speaker 1: to communicate through other means, and so it is really
Speaker 1: not common at all. Obviously, it's an extremely intrusive type
Speaker 1: of surgery UH and typically is only used in extreme cases,
Speaker 1: so that is probably a bridge too far even for
Speaker 1: the most hardcore of gamers, so any computer game system
Speaker 1: with a b C I component would have to settle
Speaker 1: for something that could pick up on brain activity through
Speaker 1: the skull. There are a lot of technical hurdles to
Speaker 1: get beyond in order to ever make this work beyond
Speaker 1: a really basic implementation, but it's kind of cool. The
Speaker 1: Valve is working on it. Perhaps in a few years
Speaker 1: will have game systems that don't include any sort of
Speaker 1: handheld controller. You'll just think jump and then little Mario
Speaker 1: will throw a fireball, then you'll rage quit. We have
Speaker 1: a few more stories to cover in this episode, but
Speaker 1: first let's take another quick break over this past weekend,
Speaker 1: Connor McGregor, professional Fighter, faced off against Dustin Poire at
Speaker 1: UFC two. He lost, by the way, but this story
Speaker 1: isn't about McGregor getting knocked out in the second round. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's about a failure of ESPN Plus, a subscription streaming
Speaker 1: service that was streaming the event for the cool admission
Speaker 1: price of sixty nine dollars and nine cents. And that's
Speaker 1: on top of the regular subscription fee for ESPN Plus,
Speaker 1: which is fifty nine dollars and nine cents per year. Anyway,
Speaker 1: early on during UFC two five seven, ESPN Plus had
Speaker 1: some technical difficulties and made it impossible for some customers
Speaker 1: in the US to watch the event, and it largely
Speaker 1: affected users in the Western United States. Disney, that's the
Speaker 1: company that actually owns ESPN, was able to resolve those
Speaker 1: issues before the headlining fights on the ticket took place,
Speaker 1: so the really anticipated fights weren't affected. But to make
Speaker 1: good on those glitches, the company is offering partial refunds
Speaker 1: two affected users. Anyone who tried to watch the event
Speaker 1: through a third party platform like you know, YouTube or
Speaker 1: on Apple, they will have to go directly to those
Speaker 1: third parties in order to get a refund, but Disney
Speaker 1: is working with them to create a refund policy. Now,
Speaker 1: this reminds me a lot of the w w E
Speaker 1: s streaming platform ww E network. I used to be
Speaker 1: a subscriber to w w E network, and without fail
Speaker 1: during every major pay per view event, the service would
Speaker 1: have some hiccups. Sometimes you would have buffering issues, sometimes
Speaker 1: it would drop entirely. And that brings me to the
Speaker 1: next story. The w w E is going to shut
Speaker 1: down the w w E network here in the United
Speaker 1: States and they're going to incorporate the services of w
Speaker 1: w E Network with the NBC universal streaming service Peacock.
Speaker 1: The integration will happen in the middle of March. The
Speaker 1: w w E Network isn't just the streaming source for
Speaker 1: big events like WrestleMania or The Royal Rumble, which I
Speaker 1: maintain is really the best show of the year at
Speaker 1: least most years. The w w E Network also serves
Speaker 1: as a massive repository for the w w e s
Speaker 1: deep library of wrestling videos. Ww E owns a ton
Speaker 1: of libraries due to a series of acquisitions that the
Speaker 1: company has held over the years. This gives w w
Speaker 1: E the chance to reach a broader audience, as the
Speaker 1: network subscriptions had plateaued some time ago, and Peacock will
Speaker 1: get access to a mountain of content. The deal reportedly
Speaker 1: was for a billion dollars, which is a stone cold
Speaker 1: stunner if I've ever heard one. For folks in other countries,
Speaker 1: the w w E Network will live on as an
Speaker 1: independent streaming service for the people here in the United States.
Speaker 1: It means that things get a little less complicated in
Speaker 1: that if you are a w w E fan, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to Peacock, and then you also get the
Speaker 1: access to all the regular NBC Universal stuff over there
Speaker 1: as well. For once, we're talking about streaming services consolidating,
Speaker 1: not multiplying, which I think is a good thing for
Speaker 1: the moment. I feel like we've got a few too
Speaker 1: many services already, But I also don't want to see
Speaker 1: them all morph into a single monopolistic entity. I think
Speaker 1: there needs to be a few in order for competition
Speaker 1: to exist. But at the moment, there's just there's there's
Speaker 1: just too many. Man, I can't subscribe to anymore. Give
Speaker 1: me a break. Netflix, one of the services I do
Speaker 1: subscribe to, announced in a blog post that a new
Speaker 1: change in the Android version of Netflix should create a
Speaker 1: better experience for users. The challenge, the company said was
Speaker 1: to create a better audio experience. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if this has happened to you, it's definitely happened to me.
Speaker 1: Have you ever watched the movie, whether on Netflix or otherwise.
Speaker 1: It could be a DVD, it could be some other
Speaker 1: streaming service, but you had real trouble because the dialogue
Speaker 1: was really quiet, but the action scenes were super loud.
Speaker 1: It makes the viewing experience a real pain, sometimes literally
Speaker 1: because you're constantly adjusting the volume so that you can
Speaker 1: hear what's going on when people are talking and not
Speaker 1: blow out your speakers the next time John McClane makes
Speaker 1: something go boom. Well, for Android users, Netflix has moved
Speaker 1: to a CODECK called x H E DASH A A C.
Speaker 1: But the important thing for us to know here is
Speaker 1: that the CODEC uses dynamic range control. Now that automatically
Speaker 1: boosts the volume of quiet parts and it lowers the
Speaker 1: volume of loud parts. Essentially, it's pulling everyone closer to
Speaker 1: a middle ground. It's reducing the dynamic range of the
Speaker 1: softest sounds and the loudest sounds. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: same thing that the MP three compression format can do
Speaker 1: with audio, and in general, with stuff like music, that's
Speaker 1: a bad thing because you're reducing the dynamic uh qualities
Speaker 1: of a piece of music, But in this case, it's
Speaker 1: all to make that viewing experience more pleasant. The volume
Speaker 1: for stuff like dialogue should also be consistent between different videos,
Speaker 1: which means you shouldn't have to make adjustments after you
Speaker 1: finished binging one show and then switch to an other.
Speaker 1: I've had that happened to where I was watching one
Speaker 1: thing and had to turn the volume way up to
Speaker 1: hear the dialogue switched to something else, and everybody seems
Speaker 1: like they're shouting at me all the time. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of a nifty approach to the problem. Now,
Speaker 1: you've got a couple of short Tesla stories to include
Speaker 1: in this episode. One is that the company is suing
Speaker 1: a former Tesla engineer named Alex Katilov, accusing him of
Speaker 1: actually stealing software from the company. The software is called
Speaker 1: warped Drive, and it's a back end software for the
Speaker 1: company itself. It does stuff like automates, you know, purchasing
Speaker 1: processes and things like that. Apparently Kettlov wasted absolutely no
Speaker 1: time in this effort. The company claims he was copying
Speaker 1: sensitive files to a personal dropbox account within just three
Speaker 1: days of starting at his job. I'll try to keep
Speaker 1: up with the story as more develops, because this is
Speaker 1: the very early days and we don't know a whole lot. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: John kraft Sick, the CEO of Weymo that's Google's self
Speaker 1: driving car spinoff, through some shade at Tesla in an
Speaker 1: interview with Manager magazine. In that interview, crafts Sick said
Speaker 1: that Tesla will never achieve full autonomous car technology based
Speaker 1: on its current strategy. Now, essentially, he is saying that
Speaker 1: Tesla Autopilot is designed in such a way that it's
Speaker 1: not heading toward a more robust form of autonomy, and
Speaker 1: just as a refresher, generally we look at self driving
Speaker 1: car capabilities in terms of levels, So a level zero
Speaker 1: would be a car that's fully under manual human control
Speaker 1: there are no computer or machine assisted systems in that,
Speaker 1: with a level five being a car that is autonomous
Speaker 1: to the point that no human interaction is required under
Speaker 1: any circumstance. In other words, the car should be able
Speaker 1: to drive in any conditions that a human could drive in,
Speaker 1: and there will be no need or maybe even no
Speaker 1: ability for a human to interact with the car apart
Speaker 1: from saying, hey, you know, take me across town or whatever.
Speaker 1: Tesla's offerings hover at around level two, which involves some automation,
Speaker 1: but obviously there's still the requirement for a human to
Speaker 1: be able to take control at any given moment, so
Speaker 1: it's not really autonomous. And what way moos Ceo is
Speaker 1: saying is that Tesla doesn't really have a pathway toward
Speaker 1: autonomy while pursuing this particular type of technology. And our
Speaker 1: final story today is also about a car. It's about
Speaker 1: a British car called Bloodhound. Now, this unique vehicle exists
Speaker 1: for only one purpose, and that is to crush the
Speaker 1: world land speed record, which currently stands at seven d
Speaker 1: sixty three miles per hour. But here's the problem. It's
Speaker 1: real darn expee and back in, the whole project was
Speaker 1: on the brink of collapse, having burned through let's see,
Speaker 1: let me check my notes says here a metric ton
Speaker 1: of money. But then businessman and car enthusiast Ian Warhurst
Speaker 1: swooped into the rescue. He had recently sold his company, Millette,
Speaker 1: and he must have been feeling, you know, that cash
Speaker 1: from that sale just burning a hole in his pocket,
Speaker 1: because then he decided to purchase Bloodhound and rescue it
Speaker 1: from being sent to the equivalent of a chop shop
Speaker 1: for parts. His goal was to find a sponsorship for
Speaker 1: the car in order to fund the ongoing process, but
Speaker 1: he would float operations until that was viable. However, despite
Speaker 1: some progress among the engineering team, complete with some test
Speaker 1: runs and a documentary about the car, that sponsorship money
Speaker 1: never really came in. Then the pandemic hit and Obviously,
Speaker 1: that made matters worse. Plus the UK was flailing about
Speaker 1: as the Brexit deadlines were approaching, and Warhurst has had enough.
Speaker 1: The engineering team behind the car estimates that they need
Speaker 1: another eight million pounds as in the currency in order
Speaker 1: to achieve their goals, which includes not just breaking that
Speaker 1: previous record of seven hundred sixty three miles per hour,
Speaker 1: but eventually getting the vehicle up to one thousand miles
Speaker 1: per hour. That's well beyond the speed of sound, which
Speaker 1: means this car will be generating a sonic boom if
Speaker 1: it ever does go that fast, But it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen if someone else will pull a Warhurst and
Speaker 1: help shepherd the team to the finish line. That wraps
Speaker 1: up the stories for today's episode. There was more to
Speaker 1: talk about, including some stuff with Twitter, but we'll probably
Speaker 1: save that for Thursday. Unless something really phenomenal happens between
Speaker 1: now and then, we will have to wait and see.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: that I should cover on our normal episodes of Tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: let me know. The best way to get in touch
Speaker 1: with me is over on Twitter and the handle is
Speaker 1: text stuff HSW and I'll talk to you again, really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more
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