Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And today's tech News
Speaker 1: episode is for Tuesday, May twenty one, and I've got
Speaker 1: a real kind of global episode for you guys today
Speaker 1: because news is hitting all over the world that involves
Speaker 1: tech and politics, and so we're going to dive right
Speaker 1: into it. In India, police rated the offices of Twitter
Speaker 1: in two cities. And why did they do that. Well,
Speaker 1: it all comes down to Twitter applying a manipulated media
Speaker 1: label to an Indian politicians tweet. So back last February,
Speaker 1: you might remember Twitter announced that it would apply such
Speaker 1: labels to messages that were found to have, you know,
Speaker 1: altered images or messaging that spread misinformation. You might also
Speaker 1: remember that the company actually applied this policy a couple
Speaker 1: of times to tweets sent by then US President Donald Trump. Well,
Speaker 1: in this case, the tweet was written by Sambit Patra,
Speaker 1: a member of the b j P party, which currently
Speaker 1: has a majority control of India's government. That tweet accused
Speaker 1: the opposition party, which is the Congress Party of having
Speaker 1: released a quote unquote toolkit in an effort to undermine
Speaker 1: the b j P Party's attempts to respond to the
Speaker 1: coronavirus crisis. And you're probably aware that India is dealing
Speaker 1: with a monumental health crisis, one that has affected millions
Speaker 1: of people within that country, and that the government is
Speaker 1: sensitive to scrutiny with regard to how they've handled the
Speaker 1: issue or failed to handle it, as the case may be.
Speaker 1: Patra's claim essentially says that the opposition party in India
Speaker 1: was actively trying to sabotage government efforts to deal with
Speaker 1: the crisis by creating this document, this toolkit strategy to
Speaker 1: defeat government efforts, and an independent fact checking organization in
Speaker 1: India called ault News investigated this claim and found that
Speaker 1: the document Pottery had said proved that the Congress Party
Speaker 1: had created this alleged toolkit was in fact printed on
Speaker 1: forged letterhead and thus not a legitimate document. So Twitter
Speaker 1: then applied the manipulated media label to the tweet. The
Speaker 1: b JP party was not pleased with this and sent
Speaker 1: messages to Twitter demanding that they remove it, and then
Speaker 1: apparently they contacted the police to investigate. So the police
Speaker 1: paid a visit to the to Twitter offices, but they
Speaker 1: found that no one was there. So why was that, Well,
Speaker 1: it's because of the aforementioned coronavirus crisis in India, so
Speaker 1: Twitter employees in India work from home, so that whole
Speaker 1: issue of the police showing up at the Twitter office
Speaker 1: is kind of fell flat. The police activity has prompted
Speaker 1: several journalists to suggest that perhaps this is an intimidation
Speaker 1: effort on the part of the Indian government and that
Speaker 1: it sends a message to Twitter. And India is another
Speaker 1: country that has tried to grapple with the fact that
Speaker 1: tech companies like Twitter and Facebook have a broad reach
Speaker 1: and that these companies aren't always subject to the tight
Speaker 1: controls of government agencies the way state run communication channels are.
Speaker 1: And we all know that information is powerful stuff and
Speaker 1: that a lot of governments, including the one here in
Speaker 1: the United States, would prefer to keep you know, at
Speaker 1: least a close hand on communication channels too. I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's say, guide the flow of information. India and Twitter
Speaker 1: have already had some battles about that earlier this year,
Speaker 1: with a previous example being the Indian government pressuring Twitter
Speaker 1: to ban accounts that belonged to farmers in India who
Speaker 1: were protesting new legislation within the country. Meanwhile, in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, Palestinian journalists reporting from the Gaza Strip say
Speaker 1: that they have been blocked from using WhatsApp, the messenger app.
Speaker 1: The political situation in the area is complicated, but essentially
Speaker 1: the journalists were covering the issues of Palestinian residents of
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip who had fled their homes while the
Speaker 1: area was under attack from military operations out of Israel.
Speaker 1: Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire on May twenty,
Speaker 1: and shortly afterwards, seventeen journalists found their access to WhatsApp blocked.
Speaker 1: The apparent reason behind this was that several of the
Speaker 1: journalists twelve out of the seventeen of them, belonged to
Speaker 1: a communal group within which the journalists would share for
Speaker 1: nation related to Hamas's operations in the area, and the
Speaker 1: journalists have said that this group was purely for the
Speaker 1: purposes of journalism in order for them to all stay
Speaker 1: aware of what was going on so that they could
Speaker 1: report on the news as accurately as possible. It wasn't
Speaker 1: indicating necessarily a support for you know, Hamas. It was
Speaker 1: more about how do we report on this? And so
Speaker 1: the channel and and WhatsApp appealed to Facebook, that's the
Speaker 1: corporate owner of WhatsApp, and a few of the journalists
Speaker 1: found their access restored a couple of days later. Others
Speaker 1: were still waiting for it, but the contents of the
Speaker 1: channel itself were wiped clear, with all previous conversations and
Speaker 1: images and contact information all deleted. This follows other events
Speaker 1: that raise additional questions about Israel's military response in the area.
Speaker 1: For example, earlier Israeli air attacks destroyed a building that
Speaker 1: had offices for Alja zero and the associated press inside
Speaker 1: of it. Now, the Israeli government said that the same
Speaker 1: building housed Hamas military intelligence within it, and thus this
Speaker 1: was a strike to target enemy intelligence, but several press
Speaker 1: organizations suggested that this might have been in fact an
Speaker 1: attempt by the Israeli government to hinder the press's ability
Speaker 1: to cover the war within the area. Similarly, journalists are
Speaker 1: questioning if Israel is pressuring companies like Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: to crack down on journalists who are covering the Palestinian
Speaker 1: side of the conflict. Once again, we see the struggle
Speaker 1: of large tech companies with a global presence that are
Speaker 1: attempting to operate in a world has deep political and
Speaker 1: social and regional schisms. And it's a pretty far cry
Speaker 1: from the utopian ideal of the Internet, this idea that
Speaker 1: the Internet was going to open up communications so that
Speaker 1: it could freely travel across borders without any problems. The
Speaker 1: reality is much more complicated. Also, I feel like this
Speaker 1: should go without saying, but I do want to be clear.
Speaker 1: It is entirely possible to be critical of Israel's military
Speaker 1: operations and also condemn anti semitism. That is not a contradiction,
Speaker 1: and anyone suggesting that criticizing the state use of military
Speaker 1: operations in Israel is automatically anti Semitic is setting up
Speaker 1: a false position. Now that being said, we have also
Speaker 1: seen a rise of anti semitism, which in itself is condemnable.
Speaker 1: As always, recommend people use critical thinking and compassion together
Speaker 1: when they're considering things like world politics. Over at Ours Technica,
Speaker 1: writer Tim Deshant has written a piece about China and
Speaker 1: bitcoin mining. Bitcoin has been having a pretty bumpy ride lately.
Speaker 1: It reached nearly six thousand dollars per bitcoin value before
Speaker 1: plunging to around thirty two dollars per bitcoin and then
Speaker 1: entering a recovery period. So as I record this, it's
Speaker 1: now somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per bitcoin. So it does appear to be recovering right now,
Speaker 1: but that might change soon. As Deshaunt reports, China is
Speaker 1: going to quote crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading behavior
Speaker 1: and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to the
Speaker 1: society end quote. And as it stands, bitcoin mining operations
Speaker 1: in China contribute an enormous amount to the overall bitcoin
Speaker 1: mining operations. So in case you're not familiar with how
Speaker 1: bitcoin mining works, I'll give you a very high level overview.
Speaker 1: There's a network of computers that are all connected to
Speaker 1: the bitcoin system, and the system groups transactions of bitcoin
Speaker 1: transactions together in blocks of data, and when a block
Speaker 1: reaches capacity, when it's well, the system then essentially invites
Speaker 1: all the connected computers to the network to verify the
Speaker 1: transactions that are within that block of data. And this
Speaker 1: is done essentially by guessing a very large number. The
Speaker 1: first computer to guess successfully has verified the transactions and
Speaker 1: has quote unquote mind a certain number of bitcoins. Uh,
Speaker 1: that number of bitcoins actually goes down in increments over time,
Speaker 1: so right now it's six point to five bitcoins per
Speaker 1: mind block. That block of data then joins the end
Speaker 1: of a chain of previously verified transaction blocks the block chain,
Speaker 1: and the goal is to aim for about ten minutes
Speaker 1: of time between opening up the opportunity to mind a
Speaker 1: block and reaching the correct guess. But as more computers
Speaker 1: joined the system, and more computers try to solve this problem,
Speaker 1: and some computers having like super fast processors, and more
Speaker 1: likely you're talking about gri of computers or networks of
Speaker 1: computers all working together to try and solve this problem,
Speaker 1: then the system has to make the problems more difficult
Speaker 1: to solve in order to stick with that ten minute goal.
Speaker 1: Otherwise the problems would be solved way too quickly. And
Speaker 1: so this has created a kind of escalating situation in
Speaker 1: which bitcoin miners would add increasingly powerful computer systems to
Speaker 1: the network in attempt to be the first, particularly as
Speaker 1: the value of bitcoin began to climb. And so it
Speaker 1: might cost you a few hundred thousand dollars to set
Speaker 1: up an actual mining operation, but if you can mind successfully,
Speaker 1: then you can pay all those costs off pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: So we saw a rise in power hungry bitcoin mining operations,
Speaker 1: sucking up huge amounts of electricity and thus potentially contributing
Speaker 1: to carbon emissions as a result because they were placing
Speaker 1: a higher demand on power plants, and a lot of
Speaker 1: power plants still use fossil fuels, so the environmental impact
Speaker 1: is one reason that countries like China are cracking down
Speaker 1: on cryptocurrencies that rely on this type of proof of
Speaker 1: work approach. That's what bitcoin does. But another reason is
Speaker 1: that criminals use cryptocurrency for all sorts of illegal activities,
Speaker 1: from trading in illegal goods to money laundering to circumventing
Speaker 1: tax laws. And there's also the fact that cryptocurrency exists
Speaker 1: outside the control of centralized organizations like governments and banks.
Speaker 1: Pretty much all country governments are a bit wary of
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't have control over, but China in
Speaker 1: particular is way up on that list. The state in
Speaker 1: China is supreme and any entity, any organization, or currency
Speaker 1: that could threaten the state's position is treated seriously. So
Speaker 1: we could soon see a total ban on bitcoin mining
Speaker 1: in China, which will change the game a great deal,
Speaker 1: and it could mean that will see another drop in
Speaker 1: Bitcoin's value, as China represents a huge market all by itself.
Speaker 1: But we'll also see a change in which mining operations
Speaker 1: are on the receiving end of more bitcoin. And then
Speaker 1: I'm sure Elon Musk will tweet something that will throw
Speaker 1: people into a tizzy, so we'll keep an eye on it.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Elon Musk, his electric vehicle company Tesla you
Speaker 1: may have heard of it is facing a big fine
Speaker 1: in Norway and apparently at the heart of the matter
Speaker 1: is the rate at which Tesla's batteries can charge. So
Speaker 1: the company issued a software update for its cars back
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen and allegedly that has throttled the charging
Speaker 1: rate for batteries that are in Tesla vehicles that had
Speaker 1: been manufactured between and twenty It also allegedly reduces the
Speaker 1: driving range that vehicles can have before they need a recharge.
Speaker 1: The government has ordered Tesla to pay each affected customer
Speaker 1: the equivalent of sixteen thousand dollars US in order to
Speaker 1: settle the matter, and according to Norwegian press outlets, Tesla
Speaker 1: sold around ten thousand vehicles that were made in those years.
Speaker 1: Within Norway. So by doing some quick math, that would
Speaker 1: mean the company would need to pay out around a
Speaker 1: hundred sixty million dollars US in fines for this issue.
Speaker 1: Tesla had the opportunity to respond to the charges, but
Speaker 1: apparently never filed such a response and so ended up
Speaker 1: being on that end of the judgment. Tesla has until
Speaker 1: May thirty to comply or to file an appeal. The
Speaker 1: company faces similar lawsuits here in the United States. The
Speaker 1: German lower chamber of Parliament has passed legislation that permits
Speaker 1: driverless vehicles on public roadways by next year. Now, the
Speaker 1: country already allowed autonomous vehicles to test on public roads,
Speaker 1: but this step would mean that for the first time,
Speaker 1: driverless vehicles will have the legal right to operate on
Speaker 1: roads without their needing to be a safety driver behind
Speaker 1: the wheel. Now, to qualify for this distinction, cars have
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that they fall into the fourth level of autonomy,
Speaker 1: as designated by the Society of Automobile Engineers or s
Speaker 1: a E. So yeah, just in case you weren't aware,
Speaker 1: the s a E identifies six levels of autonomy, starting
Speaker 1: at zero and ending at five. So at level zero,
Speaker 1: all operations of the vehicle are effectively under manual control.
Speaker 1: There are no real automated systems of you know, any
Speaker 1: means that would control the vehicle, so a human is
Speaker 1: absolutely required to operate the vehicle. Level one would have
Speaker 1: minimal automation, so it might include stuff like adaptive cruise
Speaker 1: control or lane assist, and then each excessive levels seaves
Speaker 1: more operations that are handed over to automated systems, and
Speaker 1: by the time you get to level four, the vehicle
Speaker 1: should be able to operate by itself in most situations,
Speaker 1: and usually you would just consider what would be the
Speaker 1: normal operating conditions within a given region. If you reach
Speaker 1: level five, then theoretically anyway, you've got a complete automation
Speaker 1: that can operate under any conditions, whether they are typical
Speaker 1: or otherwise. We do not have any vehicles that qualify
Speaker 1: as level five autonomy, and according to the s a E,
Speaker 1: A level for autonomous vehicle will only operate autonomously if
Speaker 1: all limited conditions are met for such operations. So in
Speaker 1: other words, you would have a list of things that
Speaker 1: have to be met in order for the vehicle to
Speaker 1: qualify for level four, and if any of those boxes
Speaker 1: went unchecked, then it would not operate autonomously, you would
Speaker 1: have to have someone dray of the vehicle. So in Germany,
Speaker 1: this is going to include operating within specific geographic regions,
Speaker 1: so such vehicles in those regions will have geo fencing
Speaker 1: features that govern their operation. That kind of approach could
Speaker 1: open up the possibility of robo taxis within a specific
Speaker 1: region or city, but you wouldn't see cross country trucking
Speaker 1: necessarily unless specific trucking routes fell under those geo fencing limitations.
Speaker 1: This legislation now has to pass through the upper chamber
Speaker 1: of Germany's Parliament before it will become law. We have
Speaker 1: a couple more stories to cover, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break. Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: switch on over from global news to cyber security and
Speaker 1: the Bows Corporation, that is, the company that makes audio equipment,
Speaker 1: recently announced that it was the target of a ransomware
Speaker 1: attack back in March. Of Ransomware is a cyber attack
Speaker 1: that typically involves infecting a computer system with malware that
Speaker 1: limits access to that system. It might encrypt data on
Speaker 1: those systems so that people can't see the stuff that
Speaker 1: was saved there, or it otherwise makes it difficult for
Speaker 1: an organization to continue operations. So with ransomware, you usually
Speaker 1: get a message indicating how you can pay off the attackers,
Speaker 1: who then will presumably lift those conditions preventing you from
Speaker 1: getting stuff done. And generally speaking, it is a bad
Speaker 1: idea to pay off ransomware hackers, as it sends the
Speaker 1: message that ransomware is a viable way to make money.
Speaker 1: It encourages future attacks that's not great. Also, you're never
Speaker 1: guaranteed that the attackers are actually gonna lift those restrictions.
Speaker 1: They might not depending on how you pay them. You
Speaker 1: might just be out the money and then they're just
Speaker 1: laughing at you. But anyway, not paying a ransom is
Speaker 1: easier to say than it is to do, as in
Speaker 1: the meantime you really have to, you know, get back
Speaker 1: to work, and depending upon the nature of the attack,
Speaker 1: you might not be able to wait around why your
Speaker 1: team is restoring operations through one method or another. Plus,
Speaker 1: you might have data on those systems that just doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anywhere else anyway. In the case of Bows, the
Speaker 1: company states that the attack included a data breach, and
Speaker 1: according to Bose, the company immediately reached out to a
Speaker 1: quote small number end quote of affected individuals, as is
Speaker 1: required by law when a company discovers that a data
Speaker 1: breach included personal information that relates to, say, employees or
Speaker 1: customers or third parties like corporate partners. In this case,
Speaker 1: the information included personal data about current and former Bows employees.
Speaker 1: That data included such stuff as social security numbers and
Speaker 1: compensation information. While Bose can't determine if the attack was
Speaker 1: aiming at x filtrading that data. In other words, they
Speaker 1: aren't sure if that's what the hackers were trying to
Speaker 1: get at, the company does acknowledge that the hackers had
Speaker 1: some access to quote a limited set of folders end quote.
Speaker 1: Bose also says that the company was able to reestablish
Speaker 1: control of corporate systems by partnering with third party cybersecurity experts,
Speaker 1: and that the company never paid the ransom. Now, while
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of ransomware, pro Publica published an
Speaker 1: interesting piece about it. A lot of alliteration there, so
Speaker 1: sorry to Mr pop Filter. The ransomware group dark Side,
Speaker 1: which was recently responsible for the hack that brought down
Speaker 1: Colonial pipeline and thus created a short term fuel crisis
Speaker 1: in the eastern half of the United States, had previously
Speaker 1: been using a scheme that involved relying on the same
Speaker 1: digital encryption keys for multiple victims, which is kind of
Speaker 1: the equivalent to using the same password for multiple services.
Speaker 1: It's a bad idea if you want to achieve your goals.
Speaker 1: And cybersecurity researchers noticed this trend. A couple of them
Speaker 1: were quietly reaching out to victims of dark Side hacks
Speaker 1: in order to help them restore their services without having
Speaker 1: to pay the ransom. And they were doing it quietly because, well,
Speaker 1: if you let the bad guys know that you figured
Speaker 1: out how to counteract their attacks, the bad guys find
Speaker 1: new ways to attack. Then a cybersecurity company called bit
Speaker 1: Defender also found this same vulnerability and released an announcement
Speaker 1: about it and about how the company had developed a
Speaker 1: process to counteract the attacks. Now, the intent, I assume
Speaker 1: was to let companies know, hey, we figured out a
Speaker 1: mistake that dark Side is making, so we can help
Speaker 1: you if you've been attacked by them. Except the bad
Speaker 1: guys read press releases too, and dark Side responded by
Speaker 1: saying that it had taken note of that discovered vulnerability
Speaker 1: in its attack scheme, and they patched it. They even
Speaker 1: thanked bit Defender for the heads up, so a cybersecurity
Speaker 1: firm effectively alerted hackers to a weakness in their own attacks,
Speaker 1: which thus made the hackers better at hacking, which, um here,
Speaker 1: let me check my notes here. Uh yeah, it says
Speaker 1: here that's the exact opposite of what you want to do. Then,
Speaker 1: not long after that, the hackers targeted Colonial Pipeline and
Speaker 1: we saw the consequences of that particular move. And oh
Speaker 1: we also know that Colonial actually gave in to the
Speaker 1: hackers demands and paid a ransom of more than four
Speaker 1: million dollars to dark Side, which again is a bad
Speaker 1: freaking idea. Granted, the crisis we saw as a result
Speaker 1: of that attack wasn't great, and it was exacerbated by
Speaker 1: selfish and frankly stupid actions of a lot of folks
Speaker 1: in the Eastern United States who decided to try and
Speaker 1: hoard gasle But paying the hackers means that those hackers
Speaker 1: will keep on doing what they're doing as long as
Speaker 1: it's paying off. Anyway, this particular story got my dander up.
Speaker 1: Continuing our cybersecurity news, Extreme Tech has a piece titled
Speaker 1: new Morpheus CPU design defeats hundreds of hackers in DARBA
Speaker 1: tests and this is pretty cool alright. So CPUs or
Speaker 1: central processing units have a design that you could call
Speaker 1: an architecture, and that architecture is dependent upon which chip
Speaker 1: manufacturer you're talking about. Essentially, it's, at least in theory,
Speaker 1: a a optimized way for data to be processed through
Speaker 1: that chip. So a company like Intel has what they
Speaker 1: call a TikTok approach, So they'll create one architecture designed
Speaker 1: for a chip. Then in the next generation of chips,
Speaker 1: they keep that same design even as they reduce the
Speaker 1: size of components, so they are able to pack more
Speaker 1: components on a chip, but they're staying with the same
Speaker 1: general design as they had for the previous generation. Then
Speaker 1: they overhauled the architecture for the following generation of chips
Speaker 1: after that. So it's all about find the ideal architecture
Speaker 1: for that size of components. Then you reduce the size
Speaker 1: of components, then you find the ideal architecture again, and
Speaker 1: you just keep going back and forth between those uh
Speaker 1: those processes. Well, sometimes these architectures have flaws or vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: in them, so it's in the hardware itself, and hackers
Speaker 1: who are familiar with architecture can design code that targets
Speaker 1: those vulnerabilities and could allow them to inject malware into
Speaker 1: systems that rely on those types of chips. Enter the Morpheus. Now,
Speaker 1: this chips job was to hide critical information like vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: from hackers without impacting the ability of a developer to
Speaker 1: write code for the machine, which is a non trivial problem.
Speaker 1: The Morpheus is actually a simulated chip and it had
Speaker 1: very modest capabilities. This was not like a screamingly fast,
Speaker 1: bleeding edge processor. But what it does do is it
Speaker 1: encrypts memory pointers every one hundred milliseconds, So in a
Speaker 1: fraction of a second, the CPU switches up the encryption
Speaker 1: scheme for these memory points and thus narrows the window
Speaker 1: that hackers would have to one figure out the architecture
Speaker 1: properly and to launch an attack that targets that architecture. So,
Speaker 1: if I were to make an analogy, I would say
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter stories.
Speaker 1: The staircases and halls of Hogwarts frequently change, which means
Speaker 1: you're route to get from point A to point B changes. Now,
Speaker 1: if Hogwarts were to change every one hundred milliseconds to us,
Speaker 1: that would just seem like it was in a constant
Speaker 1: state of change, and getting from one point to another
Speaker 1: would become incredibly challenging, if not impossible. That's wizard's chess
Speaker 1: or cybersecurity. Now, keep in mind this approach specifically applies
Speaker 1: to counteracting hacker attempts to exploit underlying vulnerabilities in the
Speaker 1: processors themselves. It does not prevent attacks that target software
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities or attacks that rely on social engineering to get
Speaker 1: access to systems. This is just one facet of cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: It's a really nifty one and effective. The report says
Speaker 1: that that hackers spent the equivalent of thousands of hours
Speaker 1: attempting to compromise the system, and we're unable to do it.
Speaker 1: Not the moment. This is more of a prototype or
Speaker 1: proof of concept because the simulated chips were seriously underpowered
Speaker 1: compared to today's technology. It would also mean that any
Speaker 1: chips that use this approach would effectively be giving up
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen percent of their performance in order to
Speaker 1: carry out the encryption process in the background. Still, that's
Speaker 1: a small price to pay for better security, at least
Speaker 1: for some organizations and applications. In previous episodes, I reported
Speaker 1: on how Nvidio, which is known mainly for the production
Speaker 1: of graphics processing units or GPUs, is acquiring the semiconductor
Speaker 1: company ARM, which is based in the UK. The Register
Speaker 1: reports that ARM now has a hiring freeze and effect,
Speaker 1: and that the well being allowance for the company that
Speaker 1: had been paying out to employees is now cut and
Speaker 1: apparently these decisions will hold until the acquisition is complete,
Speaker 1: which is supposed to happen sometime next April, and this
Speaker 1: means that the ARMED teams will not be allowed to
Speaker 1: hire anyone new until then. Even if employees and existing
Speaker 1: positions leave the company, there is no allowance to backfill
Speaker 1: positions that are left empty by departures. And in addition,
Speaker 1: any positions that were going to be filled before the
Speaker 1: hiring freeze now have to remain empty. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like working at ARM for the next year is going
Speaker 1: to be a pretty tough experience with effectively a pay
Speaker 1: cut for employees, and then team managers are left without
Speaker 1: an option if they need to add more people to
Speaker 1: their teams. Any exception has to get the approval of
Speaker 1: executive leadership. ARM issued a statement that said the company
Speaker 1: was ahead of its head count goals for the year,
Speaker 1: and so the freeze really is just to prevent the
Speaker 1: company from overextending itself and quote, remain within the cost
Speaker 1: targets for the business end. Quote. Acquisitions can be really
Speaker 1: scary for employees, and I should know. I used to
Speaker 1: work for consultants who would help oversee acquisitions, so I
Speaker 1: saw it from that side. And then I worked for
Speaker 1: a company that was acquired several times within ten years.
Speaker 1: So as an employee, you just don't know how you're
Speaker 1: goal will be impacted or even if you will have
Speaker 1: a place at the company once the dust settles. So
Speaker 1: seeing these decisions with almost a year to go before
Speaker 1: the acquisition completes has got to be rough for those employees. Also,
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure that the British government is
Speaker 1: going to sign off on this acquisition because there are
Speaker 1: concerns that a company from outside the UK acquiring ARM
Speaker 1: a company based within the UK could potentially represent national
Speaker 1: security risks, so we will stay tuned. And finally, numerous
Speaker 1: sources report that Netflix is looking to get into the
Speaker 1: video games business, possibly offering up a subscription based service
Speaker 1: as early as next year. According to initial reports, it
Speaker 1: sounds like the service would be similar to what you
Speaker 1: see with Apple Arcade, which offers up a subscription based
Speaker 1: service for games that are similar to mobile games in general,
Speaker 1: but they don't have the stuff you tip quickly find
Speaker 1: in mobile games, stuff like in app purchases or advertising.
Speaker 1: So in other words, it sounds like netflix Is offerings
Speaker 1: might be more in the mobile category of games, rather
Speaker 1: than say, a streaming service that offers up access to
Speaker 1: Triple A style video games, akin to the Microsoft's Xbox
Speaker 1: Pass or Google Stadia, which I guess the less said
Speaker 1: about that the better right now. But it's all still
Speaker 1: very early on and the company is actively looking to
Speaker 1: fill leadership positions that would define Netflix's gaming strategy moving forward,
Speaker 1: so this is an area of development. We will keep
Speaker 1: our eyes on that as well. And that is the
Speaker 1: news for Tuesday, May one. As always, if you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics you would like me to cover on
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle we use is text stuff h s W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon, y. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
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