Speaker 1: Get in tech with technology with tech Stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today we're going to
Speaker 1: conclude our look back at the year what was two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen. In our previous episode, I went from
Speaker 1: January through May, which means we're picking up in June.
Speaker 1: It busted out all over and there's lots of tech
Speaker 1: news to talk about all the way up to current day,
Speaker 1: which I'm recording this on December fifteen, so technically there's
Speaker 1: still some time left in the year, and who knows
Speaker 1: what can happen between now and January one. I apologize
Speaker 1: for missing all those stories, but let's get to June.
Speaker 1: That's when E three happens. That's the big video game
Speaker 1: Expo in Los Angeles. Not the largest video game expo
Speaker 1: in the world, but a pretty big one. Big stories
Speaker 1: out of three included details about Reside, Eeval seven, Legend
Speaker 1: of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, Crash, Bandicoot Remasters, a
Speaker 1: new Spider Man game for PS four, a new God
Speaker 1: of War game, Hideo Kajima's new game called Death Stranding,
Speaker 1: Kajima Kajima's departure from Konami was a big deal in
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, and there was an announcement about a
Speaker 1: remastered sky Rim or Scrim if you prefer, that's now available,
Speaker 1: and word that Bethesda's working on a follow up to Skyrim,
Speaker 1: although whether it's a follow up to Skyrim or yet
Speaker 1: another Elder Scrolls game that remains to be seen. Nintendo
Speaker 1: also announced a mysterious uh mixed reality game called Pokemon Go,
Speaker 1: which would launch a bit later in the year, and
Speaker 1: then people went bonkers for it for at least a
Speaker 1: few weeks. The fat has largely died out since then,
Speaker 1: although there's still some dedicated players out there. For several weeks,
Speaker 1: it was pretty much par for the course to walk
Speaker 1: around places and just see people staring at their phones
Speaker 1: trying to catch Pokemon uh and then ticking off landowners.
Speaker 1: That happened a lot too. Oh and and also at
Speaker 1: E three there were announcements about the Xbox One S
Speaker 1: and PS Pro, which got gamers talking about how the
Speaker 1: consoles were taking a half step in console versions. It's
Speaker 1: not a true new one, it's an kind of beefier
Speaker 1: version of the existing consoles the current generation, plus Microsoft
Speaker 1: teased it's next big update codenamed Project Scorpio, which I
Speaker 1: sure hope looks like a Bond villain. This new console
Speaker 1: will run games at four K resolution at sixty frames
Speaker 1: per second and launches in late twenties. Seventeen, Microsoft made
Speaker 1: available Windows Holographic, which is a variation of Windows ten
Speaker 1: and it is meant to run on the Hollow lens.
Speaker 1: This marked Microsoft's next big push to move into mixed
Speaker 1: reality devices. Microsoft also announced the intention to acquire linked
Speaker 1: In for twenty six point two billion dollars in cash YAWSA,
Speaker 1: and that deal closed in December, so it is official.
Speaker 1: In June, snapchats daily active users outpaced Twitter. Twitter averages
Speaker 1: around a hundred forty million active users. Snapchat hit one
Speaker 1: hundred fifty million. And I'm still not very good at
Speaker 1: using it. Occasionally I remember that it's a thing that's
Speaker 1: on my phone, but honestly, I have so many different
Speaker 1: apps that take pictures or video and then share it
Speaker 1: that remembering there's one more is not something I'm great at.
Speaker 1: But June was also a big month for hackers exploiting vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Six hundred forty two million accounts were accessed across sites
Speaker 1: like Tumbler, LinkedIn and my Space. That can't be right, people,
Speaker 1: people were still using my Space, and later on in June,
Speaker 1: a hacker group by the handle Tessa eight or hacker
Speaker 1: going by the handle Tessa eight shared more than thirty
Speaker 1: two million Twitter log in credentials, which Twitter executive said,
Speaker 1: we're evidence of people having alwear on their computers rather
Speaker 1: than Twitter's security itself failing. So in other words, it's
Speaker 1: not our fault that our users are not very secure.
Speaker 1: The United States f a A warned pilots in June
Speaker 1: to stay away from a region over the Mojave Desert.
Speaker 1: Turned out the Naval Air Weapons Center was testing out
Speaker 1: a GPS interference device, which affects larger areas as it
Speaker 1: increases in altitude, So at forty feet this GPS interference
Speaker 1: device could affect areas from as far across as the
Speaker 1: border between California and Oregon, all the way all the
Speaker 1: way down to the Mexican border, and as far eastward
Speaker 1: as Utah, which is pretty insane. Also, if you got
Speaker 1: lost in late June in that area, that might be why.
Speaker 1: The University of Sussex and June released a report. That's
Speaker 1: just having a phone conversation while driving, even if you're
Speaker 1: using a hands free system, is more distracting than talking
Speaker 1: to someone in the car or listening to the radio.
Speaker 1: And that's partly because you tend to visualize what the
Speaker 1: conversation is about, which takes your mind off the road.
Speaker 1: So it while having hands free is slightly better than
Speaker 1: having the phone in your hand, still not as good
Speaker 1: as not talking on the phone at all. So do
Speaker 1: me a favor, don't don't use your phones in the
Speaker 1: car unless it's absolutely necessary. Just just listen to my show.
Speaker 1: That's fine, because I'm talking at you, not to you.
Speaker 1: Gawker filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy following the fallout of
Speaker 1: the lawsuit that was leveled against it by Hulk Hogan,
Speaker 1: which was funded by Peter Thiel, and that was leveled
Speaker 1: against the company earlier in the UH so Gawker's had
Speaker 1: a real rough year, and in fact, that entire situation
Speaker 1: caused a lot of debate in the tech sphere tech
Speaker 1: journalism sphere about the role of funding what amounts to
Speaker 1: be a revenge lawsuit against the company. Uh There's also
Speaker 1: the the fact that Gawker, parts of Gawker have behaved
Speaker 1: in ways that are not particularly upstanding or professional. Not
Speaker 1: that that necessarily means they deserve to go bankrupt, but
Speaker 1: rather it makes it more complicated. It's not as easy
Speaker 1: as saying this person or this entity is clearly a
Speaker 1: victim and this other entity is clearly the bad guy.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of bad behavior on multiple sides
Speaker 1: of this issue, uh, and it has raised a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting conversations out there. I recommend you go and
Speaker 1: check them out if you are so inclined. The Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals ruled against overturning the fccs reclassification of Internet
Speaker 1: service providers as common carriers. That all has to do
Speaker 1: in net neutrality. I did a full episode about it
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, so you can check that out.
Speaker 1: It's also something we'll likely see change again with the
Speaker 1: upcoming transition and political administrations here in the United States.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of worry in the text space that
Speaker 1: net neutral he could become a thing of the past
Speaker 1: once President Trump takes office. A committee in the EU
Speaker 1: submitted a proposal urging for some serious thought to be
Speaker 1: given to robots, including the possibility of extending robots the
Speaker 1: status of personhood. The proposal focused on near future problems
Speaker 1: such as who do you hold accountable if a robot
Speaker 1: causes harm to a person or property, Because the more
Speaker 1: autonomous the robot is and the more it learns through experience,
Speaker 1: the harder it is to answer that question. I did
Speaker 1: a great episode with Scott Benjamin where we ended up
Speaker 1: talking a lot about robots and responsibilities, and I watched
Speaker 1: as he began to question everything he knows and holds.
Speaker 1: Dear longtime listeners know, I love to have Scott on
Speaker 1: the show and then slowly try to break him because
Speaker 1: he's such a nice guy. Moving on to July, Verizon
Speaker 1: officially moved to acquire Yahoo for four point eight billion dollars.
Speaker 1: We're eisen had been in the running to purchase y'ah,
Speaker 1: whose core business since April at the earliest, or at
Speaker 1: the latest. Rather, Yahoo is set to merge with a
Speaker 1: O L. But this process is a slow one, and
Speaker 1: a later hacking scandal that unfolded in September that specifically
Speaker 1: involved Yahoo ended up complicating matters. I'll talk more about
Speaker 1: that later. Pokemon Go launched in July and rapidly gained
Speaker 1: more users than Twitter. It was a runaway success, and
Speaker 1: you've got to catch them all unless you're like me
Speaker 1: and you haven't opened the app. Since August, Twitter began
Speaker 1: to experiment with a platform that allows for live streaming
Speaker 1: of content alongside tweets like NFL games and presidential debates.
Speaker 1: It's another attempt for Twitter to try and stay relevant
Speaker 1: in a social media landscape that changes very rapidly. Twitter
Speaker 1: is one of those things that a lot of people use,
Speaker 1: but the company still finds it challenging to generate revenue
Speaker 1: or to actually make it a business as opposed to
Speaker 1: just a service. In the wake of a live video
Speaker 1: depicting the death of Philando Castile after he was shot
Speaker 1: by police, Facebook had to clarify it's live video policy.
Speaker 1: According to Facebook, the context for a video means absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: So a video that is showing something newsworthy or that
Speaker 1: might help people identify, say a shooter in a different context,
Speaker 1: or something along those lines, is permissible. But videos that ridicule, mock,
Speaker 1: or celebrate violence with someone being victimized, those are not allowed.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a judgment call on a case
Speaker 1: by case basis. But we saw technology play a very
Speaker 1: important role in the continuing Black Lives Matter movement, showing
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of events that are happening
Speaker 1: that the mainstream population may not be aware of because
Speaker 1: it doesn't affect them directly. Um and so this was
Speaker 1: just one of several events throughout that challenged those assumptions.
Speaker 1: Nintendo announced the Nintendo Classic of video game console that
Speaker 1: comes with thirty Classic Anys titles pre programmed on it.
Speaker 1: It plugs into your TV via hd M I and
Speaker 1: has controllers modeled after the original nes controllers. And I
Speaker 1: cannot find one of these things, to say, my life, gush,
Speaker 1: darn it. I've been looking occasionally now and then, not
Speaker 1: crazy serious, but once in a while, because we keep
Speaker 1: hearing reports of different vendors getting a few Nintendo Classics
Speaker 1: in their inventory, but I've yet to be able to
Speaker 1: find one to actually purchase it. Uh So I probably
Speaker 1: will go without not the not a big deal it's
Speaker 1: but it's had another example of what appears to be
Speaker 1: uh kind of a false scarcity. Nintendo has been known
Speaker 1: for creating products that a lot of people want, but
Speaker 1: they're just way too few out on the market to
Speaker 1: support the demand, and this I think ultimately could hurt
Speaker 1: the company. Don't know if it was something they had
Speaker 1: planned on doing or if it just happened that way,
Speaker 1: But the fact is it happens over and over when nintendos,
Speaker 1: so you would think they would get the message and
Speaker 1: get as many of these things out there as possible.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what they're doing, and it's just that as
Speaker 1: many as are possible is just still too few for us.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't put all the blame on them, but gosh
Speaker 1: darn it, I want to. The Defense Innovation Unit, which
Speaker 1: is an experimental division of the Department of Defense. I
Speaker 1: did not realize was a thing until I read this
Speaker 1: news report, began to look into using tech to improve
Speaker 1: military operations, including using VR and robotics. There's also research
Speaker 1: into what is called non invasive electrical stimulation. In other words,
Speaker 1: that involves zapp in the brain with a small amount
Speaker 1: of electricity in an effort to improve learning capabilities. People
Speaker 1: have been trying this out for a few years now.
Speaker 1: Bio hackers have been doing this where they will attach
Speaker 1: little electrodes to their heads to to send small amounts
Speaker 1: of electricity to try and boost their they're learning of capabilities.
Speaker 1: But this is a much more ambitious study to see
Speaker 1: if there's anything really there or if it's a you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a placebo effect where you think you are
Speaker 1: better at learning skills, but you aren't necessarily better. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting approach. Elon Musk proposed that Tesla Motors merge
Speaker 1: with Solar City. Tesla produces the power Wall among all
Speaker 1: of its cars. It also creates the power Wall, which
Speaker 1: is a home system. It's essentially a battery that's meant
Speaker 1: to work with solar power generation its stores electricity. Solar
Speaker 1: City is a startup founded by Musk's cousins. Now later
Speaker 1: in the year this issue this this proposed merger is
Speaker 1: put up to vote, and Tesla shareholders would support the
Speaker 1: move in a majority decision. We also later learn about
Speaker 1: a cool project in which solar City became the vendor
Speaker 1: for the American Samoa island of Taiou, which now receives
Speaker 1: nearly all its power needs from solar energy. It had
Speaker 1: been using diesel and had to import more than a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand gas islands of fuel per year. It won't
Speaker 1: have to do that anymore. So this is a great
Speaker 1: story in that it allows an island to become much
Speaker 1: more self sufficient and environmentally friendly. And another issue Towo
Speaker 1: ran into was that sometimes the delivery of diesel would
Speaker 1: be late and people would have to start to ration
Speaker 1: their fuel in order to get by until the fuel arrived.
Speaker 1: So with solar power, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: that unless you go into a prolonged period without an
Speaker 1: appropriate amount of sunlight. So the power walls are there
Speaker 1: to help store electricity. According to solar City, they allow
Speaker 1: for up to three days of electricity without being recharged.
Speaker 1: So assuming you don't go longer than three days without
Speaker 1: any sunlight, you'd be all right. And uh, the islands
Speaker 1: in American Samoa are pretty much covered in the sunshine department.
Speaker 1: So a pretty cool story. Now we've got tons more
Speaker 1: to talk about before we get through the end of
Speaker 1: But before we continue on, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. In August, Samsung announced the Galaxy
Speaker 1: Notes seven. Now that device would end up being a
Speaker 1: huge problem for the company. More on that when I
Speaker 1: get to October, because man, that was a doozy. You
Speaker 1: guys already know what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: Instagram launched Stories, which is a Snapchat like feature that
Speaker 1: allows you to post ten second long videos and photos
Speaker 1: to a collection that exists for twenty four hours before
Speaker 1: being deleted. Snapchat meanwhile introduced memories a bit earlier in
Speaker 1: the year, allowing you to save some of your snaps
Speaker 1: for posterity. In other words, everyone's kind of starting to
Speaker 1: look like everyone else. Facebook created a huge lab twenty
Speaker 1: two thousand square feet in size, and it called Area
Speaker 1: four oh four, and its primary purpose is to prototype
Speaker 1: new hardware, including stuff for VR equipment. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of weird to think of Facebook in the hardware business,
Speaker 1: but that's what this lab is all about. Facebook also
Speaker 1: announced in August that it would tweak the algorithm for
Speaker 1: the news feed so that fewer articles would clickbait titles
Speaker 1: would pop up stuff like you won't believe what Facebook
Speaker 1: did to their news feed algorithm. I'd be out of
Speaker 1: luck if I if I posted that, or or less
Speaker 1: likely to get a lot of clicks anyway. Computer security
Speaker 1: experts identified malware that had been loose and active since
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, and they dubbed it Projects Suron because
Speaker 1: they are cool. It was super tricky to identify the
Speaker 1: malware because it was designed to hide in computer memory
Speaker 1: and never reused IP addresses, which made each attack unique.
Speaker 1: It was mainly found in computer systems in Russia, China, Sweden, Belgium,
Speaker 1: Italy and Iran, and it could log key strokes, steal passwords,
Speaker 1: and experts said that based on the sophistication and the
Speaker 1: wide deployment, it was likely a case of state sponsored malware,
Speaker 1: but who was behind it? Also, the battle against ad
Speaker 1: blockers really ramped up in August, with Facebook designing a
Speaker 1: new anti ad blocking strategy that lasted about twenty four
Speaker 1: hours before a community of programmers found a way around it.
Speaker 1: But the experts on both sides pointed out that the
Speaker 1: criteria to identify and thus block ads would continuously change,
Speaker 1: making this a cat and mouse game. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: find workarounds for workarounds, and then workarounds for those, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Arianna Huffington, who was the founder of the Huffington's Post,
Speaker 1: announced she would leave the company to launch a new
Speaker 1: venture called Thrive Global. Huffington's Post as part of a
Speaker 1: o L and that was acquired by Verizon back in
Speaker 1: Whether she decided to leave because of issues around a
Speaker 1: o L and Yahoo merging is unknown, because, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, rise and purchased Yahoo this year and plans
Speaker 1: to merge AOL and Yahoo together. The University of College
Speaker 1: of London had some researchers who create an algorithm that
Speaker 1: can study and then replicate handwritten text, not just any text,
Speaker 1: but specific handwriting styles. It takes a while for the
Speaker 1: algorithm to get comfortable with a specific handwriting style, and
Speaker 1: it needs some guidance to understand where letters begin an end,
Speaker 1: but then it can create convincing replicas of handwriting. Now
Speaker 1: I want this so that I can send what appears
Speaker 1: to be a handwritten letter to friends or family. Even
Speaker 1: though I'll still type everything out, It'll still look like
Speaker 1: it came from me with my chicken scratch. I'd be
Speaker 1: totally down for that. And right around this time in
Speaker 1: twenties sixteen, we started hearing talk about Twitter potentially looking
Speaker 1: for a buyer. Over the next few months, companies like
Speaker 1: Alphabet which remember is Google's parent company, Salesforce, and even
Speaker 1: Disney were rumored to be interested, but as of this recording,
Speaker 1: no one has plopped down the money to buy Twitter.
Speaker 1: And Twitter head of tumultuous ear in part because many
Speaker 1: people criticize the company for its apparent reluctance to take
Speaker 1: harassment and worse seriously around the election. It was really
Speaker 1: getting out of control. We have terrible stories throughout the
Speaker 1: year of harassment, especially on Twitter, and and it got
Speaker 1: particularly bad around the elections, but it's been bad all
Speaker 1: year long. And this has been a real issue with
Speaker 1: lots of people asking Twitter, when are you going to
Speaker 1: crack down on this? When are you going to actually
Speaker 1: make sure you are being responsible and standing up for
Speaker 1: people who are being abused via the voices on Twitter?
Speaker 1: And it's continuing to be a problem. Uh and and
Speaker 1: a big I would I would say there was a debate,
Speaker 1: except I don't hear anything back from Twitter, so it's
Speaker 1: not so much a debate as it is a bunch
Speaker 1: of people who are getting increasingly frustrated and upset at
Speaker 1: how Twitter is failing to, in their eyes, act appropriately. Now.
Speaker 1: Uber around this time began to test self driving cars
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh. Each car still has a human driver ready
Speaker 1: to take over if the autonomous car goes all wonky,
Speaker 1: and the rides are free of charge, though they are
Speaker 1: randomly assigned, so you can't just use your Uber app
Speaker 1: to call a ride in Pittsburgh and specify you wanted
Speaker 1: an autonomous car. Uber has made no secret that its
Speaker 1: goal is to see fully autonomous cars become a reality
Speaker 1: by one presumably so they could switch to robo cars
Speaker 1: and sack all the human drivers, and then you just
Speaker 1: got a bunch of robots driving around. You don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about humans taking home a portion of the
Speaker 1: money for the rides. UH. I go back and forth
Speaker 1: on that. I think that it's great that a lot
Speaker 1: of people can get employment or at least some extra
Speaker 1: cash being an uber driver or a lift driver, So
Speaker 1: it's upsetting to think about those people no longer having
Speaker 1: that access. But at the same time, I think that
Speaker 1: driverless cars tend to be safer and more efficient, So
Speaker 1: I'm torn on this one. In late August, the FBI
Speaker 1: Cybersecurity Division noted that there was evidence of foreign hackers
Speaker 1: gaining access to voter databases here in the United States.
Speaker 1: This would be the beginning of a long story that
Speaker 1: is still playing out as I record this. The effect
Speaker 1: and the extent of foreign hackers interfering with the US
Speaker 1: election is still a huge deal. We don't really know
Speaker 1: to what extent it affected the US election. UH. It
Speaker 1: has clearly created a lot of anger and anxiety in
Speaker 1: the political landscape a lot of denialism as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is not pretty, and I suspect that either it
Speaker 1: will get even uglier or through a massive effort of
Speaker 1: sweeping it under the ru we'll stop talking about it.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope. Actually it's the first one, because
Speaker 1: even though I don't want to see it get uglier,
Speaker 1: I think that this is absolutely something we have to
Speaker 1: talk about anytime any country has another country interfering with
Speaker 1: its Uh, it's it's legal transition of power that's a problem.
Speaker 1: And yes, I include the times when the United States
Speaker 1: has done that to other countries. I don't think that
Speaker 1: we are we should be exempt from that rule. Everyone
Speaker 1: should be respectful of the legal transition of power, assuming
Speaker 1: that the legal transition of power is actually according to
Speaker 1: the rules that that nation follows, and not you know,
Speaker 1: not a shell game. Anyway, Off my soapbox, because it's
Speaker 1: time to go to September. September has become the time
Speaker 1: when the world turns its eyes to Apple to see
Speaker 1: if anything spectacular is announced during the annual product event,
Speaker 1: especially especially the iPhones. This year we saw a few
Speaker 1: in sting and somewhat controversial announcements. The new iPhone has
Speaker 1: no headphone jack. I'm sure you heard enough of that
Speaker 1: this year. That drove a lot of people nuts though
Speaker 1: the fact that the headphone jack was gone. The new
Speaker 1: MacBook Pro, which was announced the following month, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, has only USB C ports and a headphone jack,
Speaker 1: but no lightning ports, which also drove people nuts, although
Speaker 1: the USBC and lightning thing is a little different. The
Speaker 1: second generation of the Apple Watch came out and boasts
Speaker 1: a better battery life and a few other enhancements. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people kind of feeling, not
Speaker 1: really feeling the Apple announcements. They didn't really think that
Speaker 1: they were exciting, but that may be more due to
Speaker 1: keynote burnout than anything else. And besides, next year marks
Speaker 1: the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, so we can probably
Speaker 1: expect something big will happen next year, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why this year was not quite
Speaker 1: as as big of a breakout. In early September, Samsung
Speaker 1: announced it was delaying shipments of the Galaxy Note seven
Speaker 1: after receiving reports that some devices had While the technical
Speaker 1: term is caught all on fire, the official company statements
Speaker 1: said that the problem was traced to the battery and
Speaker 1: affected only point one percent of all handsets. Samsung's market
Speaker 1: value took a hit, dropping seven billion dollars after the
Speaker 1: initial reports. Samsung also halted sales of the Notes seven
Speaker 1: and identified thirty five cases that were reported globally By
Speaker 1: early September, and in non phone news, Samsung also announced
Speaker 1: it would sell off its printer business to HP for
Speaker 1: a cool one point oh five billion dollars. Now this
Speaker 1: is an important story. This next one. Alphabet partnered with
Speaker 1: Chipotle to deliver burritos by drone to students of Virginia Tech,
Speaker 1: one of the most important stories of Dylan agrees with me,
Speaker 1: because come on, it's burritos, Sky Burritos. The drones were
Speaker 1: self guided, but they also had human operators who were
Speaker 1: capable of taking control if the drone started, you know,
Speaker 1: going crazy and began to chuck burritos forcifully at students heads,
Speaker 1: which would have been hilarious, but unfortunate. The f a
Speaker 1: A itself gave its approval for this experiment. They actually
Speaker 1: had to ask permission of the f a A and
Speaker 1: they got the thumbs up. And I'm guessing the f
Speaker 1: a A approved it because they were hungry and hey,
Speaker 1: sky burritos right. Apple CEO Tim Cook gave an interview
Speaker 1: on Good Morning America in which he said that he
Speaker 1: believed augmented reality would be much bigger than virtual reality.
Speaker 1: He said that VR was limited in that it closes
Speaker 1: people off to the real world, and he said VR
Speaker 1: experiences can be super cool, but he felt that they
Speaker 1: had a limited shelf life as far as consumer interest
Speaker 1: is concerned. And I can kind of see his his criticisms.
Speaker 1: I don't fully necessarily agree. I think that there could
Speaker 1: be some killer VR apps and hardware that are just
Speaker 1: down the line that could change that game. But considering
Speaker 1: how heavy and bulky most VR sets are even now,
Speaker 1: even the lighter ones um and how limited the experiences are,
Speaker 1: I can see where what he's saying if we don't
Speaker 1: see improvements in those areas. Absolutely, I think augmented reality
Speaker 1: is going to be the bigger story of the two
Speaker 1: UH election debates were streamed across multiple services, making the
Speaker 1: Internet and even more important component in US politics this year.
Speaker 1: The same must be said for candidates use of platforms
Speaker 1: like Twitter and Facebook. President Trump's use of Twitter is
Speaker 1: legendary and not necessarily in a good way. That's not
Speaker 1: a judgment based upon his politics. That's purely based upon
Speaker 1: the stuff he has tweeted out. I mean, I've tweeted
Speaker 1: out some dumb stuff, but I also have never run
Speaker 1: for president. Yeah, who revealed it had been hacked inten
Speaker 1: though it had only just recently discovered that fact in,
Speaker 1: and that five hundred mill lien user accounts were compromised
Speaker 1: on at least some level. That number grew as months
Speaker 1: went on. The most recent account I saw was more
Speaker 1: than a billion, which is not good. The company said
Speaker 1: suspected the attacks were state sponsored, meaning that this was
Speaker 1: an attack from some hackers that were getting official government
Speaker 1: backing which government they didn't say. Security researcher Brian Krebs
Speaker 1: reported that the company that hosted his website that is
Speaker 1: All about Cybersecurity was hit by a massive distributed denial
Speaker 1: of service attack a di DOS attack. Now, the basic
Speaker 1: type of de DOS attack usually you get an army
Speaker 1: of Internet connecting machines and you have them all send
Speaker 1: messages to a target computer, and that target computer gets
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by all those data requests. So I kind of
Speaker 1: imagine that you walk into a room full of people
Speaker 1: and they all know you, and they all start trying
Speaker 1: to talk to you at the same time. You can't
Speaker 1: make out what anyone is saying. You're being bombard it
Speaker 1: by small talk from all corners. Well, that's why ad
Speaker 1: DOS attack is except even larger and faster. This attack
Speaker 1: was a little bit different from some earlier ones and
Speaker 1: that it appeared much of the traffic came from compromised
Speaker 1: Internet of Things devices. So we'd see many more attacks
Speaker 1: like that using that same malware that allowed this hacker
Speaker 1: to direct machines against Brian Krebs's website throughout the rest
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, including attacks on dines servers d y
Speaker 1: N that limited user access to sites like Netflix, Reddit,
Speaker 1: and Spotify across regions of the United States, largely the
Speaker 1: East Coast, but other areas throughout the day in late October,
Speaker 1: and we would also see two apartment buildings in Finland
Speaker 1: get hit by ad DOS attack, shutting down those buildings
Speaker 1: heating systems. So that's not good. It's really brought up
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about how we have not done
Speaker 1: a great job at a king a secure Internet of things. Uh,
Speaker 1: Adding security to Internet of things devices is a bit
Speaker 1: of a hassle because it adds another step between getting
Speaker 1: the thing and plugging it into your network. But on
Speaker 1: the flip side, if you don't have a secure system
Speaker 1: in place, then hackers can get access to it and
Speaker 1: start to use it to their own ends, which are
Speaker 1: nearly always not great. As part of his Space ex duties,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk announced his desire to see a ship sent
Speaker 1: to Mars by three, which I think would be pretty
Speaker 1: nifty and also crazy ambitious. BlackBerry CEO John Chen said
Speaker 1: that the company would end all internal hardware development and
Speaker 1: would only outsource hardware development from that point forward. That
Speaker 1: was in the wake of a pretty disastrous year for BlackBerry,
Speaker 1: which had seen a loss of three seventy two million.
Speaker 1: Now last year they saw a profit of fifty one million,
Speaker 1: so going from profit to loss so dramatically was a
Speaker 1: pretty rough transition. Moving on into October, officially, Sony released
Speaker 1: the PlayStation VR formally known as Project Morpheus. US customers
Speaker 1: can buy the peripheral for about four dollars, but that
Speaker 1: does not include a Sony Eye camera or the move controllers,
Speaker 1: both of which can enhance the VR experience and are
Speaker 1: required for some games but not all of them. However,
Speaker 1: the PSVR works with existing PS four consoles as well
Speaker 1: as the PS pro, which means the PSVR has a
Speaker 1: leg up on the install base. They don't have to
Speaker 1: convince people to go out and buy an expensive new computer.
Speaker 1: If you have a PS four, then you've got the
Speaker 1: console that will support it. Out of the gate um
Speaker 1: all the major VR headsets, it probably well does. It
Speaker 1: has the lowest resolution. After numerous fire incidents, yes, we're
Speaker 1: going back to Samsung. One of those fire incidents, by
Speaker 1: the way, happened on a plane. Samsung issued a recall
Speaker 1: on the Galaxy Notes seven smartphone. Now that came after
Speaker 1: the company attempted to do an exchange program where they
Speaker 1: would send out new handsets that in theory no longer
Speaker 1: posed a danger. They would only allow charging up to
Speaker 1: six of the battery and some other limitations, but the
Speaker 1: new phones appeared to suffer the same problem, and so
Speaker 1: Samsung issued a full recall. In addition, major airlines made
Speaker 1: a move to discourage travelers from bringing a Note seven
Speaker 1: on board at all, going so far as to have
Speaker 1: exchange table set up in airports to swap out the
Speaker 1: Note seven for a different phone. Now, this whole thing
Speaker 1: was a huge pr disaster for Samsung. Also in October,
Speaker 1: Samsung would acquire an AI assistant called Viv, designed by
Speaker 1: the same team that created Sirie for Apple. The Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize for Chemistry would be awarded to Jean Pierre Savage,
Speaker 1: Sir Fraser Stoddart, and Bernard Feinga. That was for their
Speaker 1: work in designing and synthesizing nanoscale machines. Savage led a
Speaker 1: team that designed a control system to make a molecule
Speaker 1: rotate around another molecule so you could actually control that revolution.
Speaker 1: Stoddard's group created a molecular sized axle, and for Inga's
Speaker 1: group create a molecular motor. Nintendo announced the Switch, but
Speaker 1: gave us not that much information about the actual console.
Speaker 1: This is the new console from Nintendo. It was formerly
Speaker 1: known as the n X. It's kind of part home console,
Speaker 1: part handheld device, kind of like the we You in
Speaker 1: a way. There's a tablet like screen that you can
Speaker 1: detach from a docking station and use as a portable
Speaker 1: gaming system, as detachable wireless controllers that you can use
Speaker 1: with the tablet, as well as other controls you can
Speaker 1: use when it's in its console form, but Nintendo gave
Speaker 1: very few details about how many configurations the system will have,
Speaker 1: or when it will be available, or how much it
Speaker 1: will cost, but we're gonna learn more about that. On
Speaker 1: January twelve, two seventeen, Atari co founder Nolan Bushnell launched
Speaker 1: a VR company called Modal VR. The VR system is
Speaker 1: portable and can include full body tracking suits, but it
Speaker 1: may not end up being a consumer product, but rather
Speaker 1: an experience you pay to have, sort of like an
Speaker 1: amusement park. So instead of going out and buying the system,
Speaker 1: you might go to an amusement facility of some sort,
Speaker 1: like an arcade, and pay to do it. A Russian
Speaker 1: scientist named Dr Igor Asher Bailey announced plans to create
Speaker 1: a space based nation called as Guardia. The nation would
Speaker 1: consist of satellites in orbit. It would also be meant
Speaker 1: to help with early detection of possible dangerous to Earth,
Speaker 1: like an incoming meteor, and possibly serve to help deflect
Speaker 1: the object or otherwise protect our planet. You can apply
Speaker 1: for citizenship and contribute funds at as Guardia dot space.
Speaker 1: And I think this idea is a bit wackadoodle but interesting.
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick, who I am told, coaches a team called
Speaker 1: the New England Patriots in a sport called football, declares
Speaker 1: that he is done with tablets. After one too many
Speaker 1: technological failures using a Microsoft surface, he said he's going
Speaker 1: to go back to paper. He said there just wasn't
Speaker 1: enough consistency and performance with tablets. His frustration is felt
Speaker 1: by many, although there are plenty of other NFL coaches
Speaker 1: who are still using paper. Tesla announced that all future
Speaker 1: vehicles in production would include the hardware needed for full
Speaker 1: self driving capability. This despite the issues they had had
Speaker 1: with their autopilot system. A T and T announced the
Speaker 1: intention to acquire time Warner for a cool eighty five
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars. That deal is going to take
Speaker 1: most of seen to complete, and near the end of October,
Speaker 1: Google announced it would pause its activities in ten cities
Speaker 1: where it had not already fully committed to installing Google Fiber,
Speaker 1: and then they laid off or reassigned about nine percent
Speaker 1: of Google fibers staff. Big sad story for those that
Speaker 1: were going to get Google Fiber but had not actually
Speaker 1: started the process. The company did say was still committed
Speaker 1: to serving the cities it would already really began to
Speaker 1: lay cable in, including Atlanta and Austin and others. Speculation
Speaker 1: rose that Google is looking more into wireless solutions rather
Speaker 1: than laying physical fiber. Google also created AI programs that
Speaker 1: can invent their own cryptography to prevent eavesdropping, which I
Speaker 1: thought was pretty darn cool. Okay, we're into the home stretch,
Speaker 1: last couple of months left to go. But before we
Speaker 1: jump into that, let's take another quick break and thank
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Okay. November, Samsung announced it intended to acquire
Speaker 1: Harmon International Industries Incorporated for about eight billion dollars. Harmon's
Speaker 1: best known for creating in vehicle technologies, so this is
Speaker 1: Samsung's move to get into the smart car field. But
Speaker 1: the company's woes still were not over. With the Notes
Speaker 1: seven debuckle, Samsung also issued a voluntary we call of
Speaker 1: two point eight million washing machines in addition to those
Speaker 1: Notes seven issues. The washing machines, however, weren't bursting into flame,
Speaker 1: but they did have a problem with excessive vibration. The
Speaker 1: video game company Blizzard launched a new East sports venture
Speaker 1: in November called Overwatch League. Teams will be drafted in
Speaker 1: North and South America, Europe, China, Korea, and the South Pacific,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they're gonna pick me because I'm
Speaker 1: a bullet sponge. But I do play a mean Lucio.
Speaker 1: By mean, I mean I'm a good support character. I
Speaker 1: don't do so well with the shooty shooting snap The
Speaker 1: makers of Snapchat introduced vending machines containing a hundred twenty
Speaker 1: nine dollars sunglasses called Spectacles, which are designed to work
Speaker 1: with Snapchat. The glasses include a camera that can record
Speaker 1: short videos that you can then upload to Snapchat. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of a super simplified version of what Google
Speaker 1: Glass was, and it's specific to Snapchat. By mid November,
Speaker 1: both Google and Facebook revised their policies to help discourage
Speaker 1: the spread of fake news. Google hits fake news sites
Speaker 1: where it hurts in the wallet. Google said it would
Speaker 1: restrict ad serving on sites that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal
Speaker 1: information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary
Speaker 1: purpose of the web property. So those fake news sites
Speaker 1: that have a statement hidden deep down that they are
Speaker 1: technically a quote unquote satire site maybe in for a
Speaker 1: rude awakening. By the way, satire is only satire if
Speaker 1: you are aware that it is satire. If you cannot
Speaker 1: tell that it is satire. It is what we call
Speaker 1: a lie, and lies are not journalism. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not even bias there, that's just plain old fact from
Speaker 1: a grouchy, bald guy talking into a microphone. Darn it.
Speaker 1: SpaceX requested permission from the United States FCC to launch
Speaker 1: more than four thousand satellites in an effort to create
Speaker 1: a global high speed in net network. Honestly, at this point,
Speaker 1: I don't care who gets to me first, if it's
Speaker 1: Space Internet or Google Fiber. Just someone please come out
Speaker 1: to my house so that I can have reliable Internet access.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Hackers gained access to San Francisco's Muni transportation system,
Speaker 1: infecting it with ransomware and then encrypting the system. They
Speaker 1: claimed they would release the data only upon being paid
Speaker 1: a ransom. Then the hacker who created the hack was
Speaker 1: hacked as their email wasn't properly secure, so someone else
Speaker 1: hacked the hacker by tracing back the email that had
Speaker 1: the ransom demand in it. Why why. The Internet Archive
Speaker 1: announced it will create a backup of its backup and
Speaker 1: store it in Canada just in case, you know, just
Speaker 1: in case things go pear shaped. With a new US
Speaker 1: political administration, which is both sad and terrifying that that
Speaker 1: could actually be a possibility getting into December. By mid December,
Speaker 1: Facebook's Oculus VR division got the old shuffle treatment. Brendan
Speaker 1: arrived stepped down as CEO in order to run the
Speaker 1: pc VR division of Facebook's company. So now there are
Speaker 1: two main divisions within Facebook VR. There's PCVR and Mobile VR,
Speaker 1: and then Oculus VR is kind of the the overall
Speaker 1: arching organization that's both PCVR and Mobile VR. They're looking
Speaker 1: for a new CEO, or at least they were as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast, to actually be the
Speaker 1: top dog. Both divisions will answer to this new Oculus CEO,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm right here is all I'm saying. Fit
Speaker 1: that would go on to acquire Pebble, But I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned that in the last episode, So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to dwell on it here other than to say
Speaker 1: we're very curious to find out if this means success
Speaker 1: for both companies or if it's a last gasp. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping for success. I don't want to see a company fail.
Speaker 1: Amazon introduced Amazon Go at a test low cation in Seattle.
Speaker 1: It's a physical store where you can walk in. You
Speaker 1: use an app called Amazon Go, and you just start
Speaker 1: picking up stuff in the store, and the store has
Speaker 1: got cameras and sensors to detect you and computer vision
Speaker 1: algorithms to track you and to figure out what it
Speaker 1: is that you're picking up. So once you do it,
Speaker 1: you can just walk out of the store with the
Speaker 1: stuff you want, and Amazon bills your Amazon account for you,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to go and stop at a
Speaker 1: cashier or anything like that. You literally just pick it
Speaker 1: up and go. If you put something back while you're
Speaker 1: in the store, the store actually detects it and you're
Speaker 1: not charged for that item. And it's currently open for
Speaker 1: Amazon employees in Seattle, but will open to a broader
Speaker 1: public next year. Google announced it will purchase enough renewable
Speaker 1: energy in Seen to power all of its offices and
Speaker 1: data centers. That is huge, uh, They already purchased quite
Speaker 1: a bit of renewable energy, but by Seen, they made
Speaker 1: this commitment that they would purchase enough energy from renewable
Speaker 1: sources to power all of their their offices and data
Speaker 1: centers um there primarily depending upon wind energy, by the way,
Speaker 1: not solar. Solar makes up a part of it, but
Speaker 1: wind is the primary way that they are generating electricity.
Speaker 1: At this point, Samsung sent out an update to all
Speaker 1: remaining US Galaxy Notes seven devices. That update disables the
Speaker 1: phone's ability to charge, as well as disabling its ability
Speaker 1: to even be a mobile device, So it just becomes
Speaker 1: a brick. And seeing is how more than a hundred
Speaker 1: thirty thousand of these devices are still out in the wild.
Speaker 1: That's an important thing. However, Verizon said it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to publish the update to its customers. Later on it said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll do it, but not until January seven. So if
Speaker 1: you're a Verizon customer with a Note seven, just be
Speaker 1: careful between now in January, or go and trade your
Speaker 1: phone in for something that doesn't burst into flames. A
Speaker 1: computer science lab in Toronto used machine learning to feed
Speaker 1: a computer hundreds of hours of music. Then they showed
Speaker 1: the computer a picture of a decorated Christmas tree, and
Speaker 1: by showed them that, they had the computer analyze the picture.
Speaker 1: Then they asked the machine to compose a song inspired
Speaker 1: by the picture, and it did, and it is not good.
Speaker 1: It's vaguely creepy, but that's largely because the voice that's
Speaker 1: also chosen to sing the song. It's an electronic voice.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a bit of the YouTube video I
Speaker 1: Feel Fantastic, but not the Jonathan Colton song. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the creepy robot mannequin that sings I Feel Fantastic
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. That's kind of what
Speaker 1: it reminds me of. Not quite as creepy as that,
Speaker 1: but I doubt that it's going to replace you know, Baby,
Speaker 1: it's cold outside or anything like that. National Geographic became
Speaker 1: the first content creator to post a live three sixty
Speaker 1: degree Facebook video showing scientists walking out of a Mars
Speaker 1: Desert research station in Utah. Uh. This is the thing
Speaker 1: where you can actually control a camera and look in
Speaker 1: all directions because the setup uses cameras that face outward
Speaker 1: in all directions. It's either a special camera that can
Speaker 1: capture a three D sixty degree view, or it's an
Speaker 1: array of cameras that are stitched together so that digitally
Speaker 1: you can pan across and keep panning until you can
Speaker 1: turn three sixty degrees. Uh. The National Geographics the first
Speaker 1: one to do a Facebook live that way. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's got some limited applications because Generally speaking, when you
Speaker 1: are shooting video or photographing something, the stuff that's behind you,
Speaker 1: you don't want people to focus on that. You want
Speaker 1: people to focus on the subject of your video or
Speaker 1: or your photography. But if it's something where you're really
Speaker 1: literally in the middle of an interesting landscape or an
Speaker 1: interesting event, it's pretty cool. Alphabet created a new company
Speaker 1: to spend off the autonomous car project previously that under
Speaker 1: Google X. So you know Alphabet again. Google's parent company,
Speaker 1: Google x is kind of the the research and development
Speaker 1: arm that does the super duper high tech stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: they took the autonomous car project out of there and
Speaker 1: they turned it into a company called Weymo w A
Speaker 1: y m O. John kraft Sick is named CEO of Weymo,
Speaker 1: and Google is partnering with Fiat Chrysler and there are
Speaker 1: rumors that the company hopes to have a ride sharing
Speaker 1: service available by the end of twenty sev So you
Speaker 1: remember I was talking about that Amazon Ghost store. There's
Speaker 1: another piece of technology, this one from Panasonic that is
Speaker 1: a special checkout system and it rings up your purchases
Speaker 1: and even bags them up for you. Being used in
Speaker 1: the convenience store in Osaka, Japan. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: testing ground for the technology. I love all these because
Speaker 1: I'm the guy who gets to the self checkout area,
Speaker 1: and then I feel like I'm taking way too long
Speaker 1: to use very simple technology, even though I'm using it
Speaker 1: all properly, i just feel like I'm not being terribly
Speaker 1: efficient with my scanning and bagging approach. So if someone
Speaker 1: could take that off of my shoulders so that I
Speaker 1: could feel like a decent human being again, I'd like that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the California Department of Motor Vehicle sent a letter to
Speaker 1: Uber and said, knock it off with those autonomous card tests.
Speaker 1: Uber had been doing these tests in San Francisco, but
Speaker 1: did not have a permit to do that, and so
Speaker 1: the California Department of Motor Vehicle said, Hey, the DMV
Speaker 1: is gonna get all up in your face if you
Speaker 1: don't back off. And Uber said, hey, relax, our cars
Speaker 1: won't work unless a human driver is present in the
Speaker 1: first place, even if that human driver isn't, you know,
Speaker 1: actually driving, So that has not yet resolved as the
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast. Florida's Court of Appeals Second District
Speaker 1: ruled that UH police can compel someone to provide a
Speaker 1: pass code to an iPhone five if they have a
Speaker 1: search warrant. Now, courts in Vermont, California, and Michigan had
Speaker 1: previously ruled against that, saying that that would fall under
Speaker 1: the category of self incrimination, which technically U. S. Citizens
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to worry about because we have a whole
Speaker 1: amendment in the Constitution protecting us against it. It's called
Speaker 1: the fifth one. So yeah, you have to read all
Speaker 1: the way down to five. If you gave up at
Speaker 1: three or four, I mean, I understand that you don't
Speaker 1: don't know about it, but just keep reading because when
Speaker 1: you get five, it's pretty clear that a person is
Speaker 1: not cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves. UM, very important,
Speaker 1: important right there, but not in Florida, at least right now.
Speaker 1: So that is it. That is all the stories that
Speaker 1: I collected for now. Clearly a lot more happened that
Speaker 1: year than just the stories I covered, but to go
Speaker 1: through all of those would take ages. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think that, um, it's important that we turn our eyes
Speaker 1: forward prepare ourselves for next year, which is why I
Speaker 1: am so excited to announce that I will soon be
Speaker 1: recording my predictions for yes, that time of year where
Speaker 1: I hate myself and try to make wild guesses about
Speaker 1: what the future of tech is going to be like
Speaker 1: and then hopefully forget about them for twelve months until
Speaker 1: I have to revisit it and then realize how far
Speaker 1: off I was. But I'm going to make a promise
Speaker 1: to you guys. I'm gonna try again to make big,
Speaker 1: bold guesses so that, uh, at least we have something
Speaker 1: to talk about when the year is over. Even if
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about is that how wrong I was,
Speaker 1: at least that's interesting as opposed to say, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: there'll be a new Call of Duty game that's not exciting,
Speaker 1: So I will do that soon. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for sticking with
Speaker 1: us throughout. I hope that you guys have a happy
Speaker 1: and safe New Year's Eve, and happy New Year to
Speaker 1: you guys. I will see you in Remember. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with me, you can email
Speaker 1: me the addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Twitter or
Speaker 1: Facebook at both of those. We are tech Stuff hs
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you next year. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com