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 how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: the news for Thursday, May twenty two, and we got
Speaker 1: a bunch of it to get through, a lot of
Speaker 1: short pieces, but there are a lot of them, So
Speaker 1: let's just get to it, shall we. And we'll start
Speaker 1: off with just a quick update on the ongoing Twitter
Speaker 1: Elon Musk situation, because we've been covering that extensively already.
Speaker 1: In the last couple of weeks, if you recall, Musk
Speaker 1: announced that his deal to acquire Twitter is currently on
Speaker 1: hold while he demands that Twitter provide proof that their
Speaker 1: estimation that less than five percent of all monetize herbal
Speaker 1: accounts on the platform are bots. They he wants to say, like, well,
Speaker 1: prove that you've said it. But unless it's true, uh,
Speaker 1: this this deal is not going forward, And some folks
Speaker 1: speculate the perhaps Musk is maneuvering to either lower the
Speaker 1: price of the deal after he's already agreed to it,
Speaker 1: or to extract himself completely from the deal. Now that
Speaker 1: stocks have really taken a tumble, because that does mean
Speaker 1: that that forty four billion dollar price tag that he
Speaker 1: agreed upon is way over market value at this point.
Speaker 1: And now Twitter's board says, no, man, we're holding you
Speaker 1: to the deal. More precisely, Twitter Sentald a proxy statement
Speaker 1: that said it wishes to complete the deal as soon
Speaker 1: as is practicable and that they look to quote enforce
Speaker 1: the merger agreement end quote, which suggests that the board
Speaker 1: is willing to use legal pressure to hold Elon to
Speaker 1: his agreed upon deal. Now, just to be clear, that
Speaker 1: still does not mean that Musk owning Twitter is a
Speaker 1: sure thing. If the matter does go to litigation, There's
Speaker 1: a chance, maybe even a good chance, that the parties
Speaker 1: will end up settling the matter out of court and
Speaker 1: must will have to pay Twitter to essentially go away,
Speaker 1: which is weird right Anyway. There's more speculation now about
Speaker 1: what could happen next should the deal actually fall through,
Speaker 1: which some people say is like a fifty fifty chance
Speaker 1: or maybe even higher than that. H and some folks
Speaker 1: like techn dirts Mike Masnick suggests that Twitter's board will
Speaker 1: end up looking for another suitor if this deal does
Speaker 1: fall through to buy the company because they appear to
Speaker 1: have quote no clue what to do with it end quote. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or n h t
Speaker 1: s A here in the United States announced that it
Speaker 1: was investigating a fatal car crash that killed three people
Speaker 1: on May twelve. The vehicle that was involved was a Tesla,
Speaker 1: and the n h T s A team is looking
Speaker 1: to determine whether or not the Tesla was operating in
Speaker 1: a mode like autopilot or full self driving. The Tesla
Speaker 1: Model S hit a curb at five in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then it went on to collide with some construction equipment.
Speaker 1: The three fatalities were all people inside the Tesla. Three
Speaker 1: construction workers also suffered minor injuries. Over at Meta, the
Speaker 1: company continues to ease off growing various departments and divisions,
Speaker 1: and that in turn has prompted a little bit of
Speaker 1: anxiety among employees. According to The Verge, Meta's twenty two
Speaker 1: has been a little rough so far, with the company
Speaker 1: reporting a net loss of active users on platforms like
Speaker 1: Facebook during the first quarter of two, and then the
Speaker 1: company's stock price has dipped in value by forty three
Speaker 1: percent this year. Uh and in response, Zuckerberg and his
Speaker 1: executives have adjusted their plans towards the end of one
Speaker 1: really the fall of one. To call Meta slash Facebook's
Speaker 1: strategy aggressive would have been an understatement. The incredible investment
Speaker 1: into developing the Metaverse, along with the commitment to developing
Speaker 1: new mixed reality hardware UH, initiatives aimed at attracting younger
Speaker 1: people to come onto the various platforms, even the renaming
Speaker 1: of the company itself to Meta, all of that pointed
Speaker 1: at a sort of full steam ahead mentality. But that
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two Q one report, coupled with the high
Speaker 1: profile PR disaster of Francis Hogan's revelations of internal documents
Speaker 1: detailing all sorts of negative stuff about the company, those
Speaker 1: all changed things up pretty fast. Now Meta is putting
Speaker 1: on a hiring freeze for certain departments. UH. They have
Speaker 1: frozen hiring of new data scientists as well as recruiters. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the company is hitting pause on a
Speaker 1: few division and departments, at least as far as growth
Speaker 1: is concerned. So those groups aren't going away, they're not
Speaker 1: dissolved or anything like that, but they also are not
Speaker 1: going to grow any larger for the time being affected.
Speaker 1: Departments include Messenger, Kids, Facebook Gaming, Facebook Dating, the Remote
Speaker 1: Presence department, and the Commerce department. The company is still
Speaker 1: hiring and other divisions, particularly in the divisions that are
Speaker 1: responsible for developing artificial intelligent systems UH. And this kind
Speaker 1: of couples up with an earlier report we talked about
Speaker 1: that revealed the company is also shelving a few projects
Speaker 1: in the Reality Labs division, which is the part of
Speaker 1: the company that creates mixed reality hardware. We've been told
Speaker 1: that some of those projects are going to be at
Speaker 1: least postponed, if not canceled. However, I have not yet
Speaker 1: seen any clarification on which of those projects are going
Speaker 1: to be affected. Zuckerberg attempted to reassure employees by communicating
Speaker 1: that Meta is still in a very strong position, and
Speaker 1: it would be weird to say otherwise. I mean, any
Speaker 1: company that has a couple of billion users is in
Speaker 1: a pretty strong position. It's not like they're on the brink,
Speaker 1: as we used to say on the other show I
Speaker 1: hosted for a while, Business on the Brink. But he
Speaker 1: also said that while he can't make any promises that
Speaker 1: there aren't going to be layoffs at some point there
Speaker 1: are no current plans to go that route, So he
Speaker 1: said essentially like, we aren't planning on firing anyone, but
Speaker 1: if we do have other unforeseen events have a negative
Speaker 1: impact on the company, we may have to revisit that
Speaker 1: in the future. In other words, you can never say
Speaker 1: for sure what's going to happen, but there are no
Speaker 1: plans as of now to lay anyone off. Meta also
Speaker 1: released its May quarterly report, in which it revealed stats
Speaker 1: about its attempts to moderate content on its various platforms.
Speaker 1: I'll mostly be in fact, I'll really only be focusing
Speaker 1: on Facebook for this particular news item, but it did
Speaker 1: cover their other platforms too, so the full report is
Speaker 1: available to read online. Anyone can go there and check
Speaker 1: it out, and it categorizes content moderation in different buckets,
Speaker 1: such as posts that are about violence or drugs or
Speaker 1: firearms or self harm or child endangerment, and et cetera.
Speaker 1: The report reveals that on the Facebook platform, there were
Speaker 1: numerous cases of content moderation going too far, so in
Speaker 1: other words, uh, Facebook ended up removing posts that did
Speaker 1: not in fact violate Facebook's policies on content. For example,
Speaker 1: in that first quarter, Facebook moderators, whether human or AI,
Speaker 1: because Facebook uses both. Actioned on that's Facebook's term, which
Speaker 1: means took some form of action on two and a
Speaker 1: half million posts, uh that were identified as containing material
Speaker 1: promoting terrorism and or organized hate groups, and out of those,
Speaker 1: Facebook later restored four hundred fourteen thousand posts. The vast
Speaker 1: majority of those were restored without anyone having appealed the
Speaker 1: initial decision to remove the content, So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that means that Facebook recognized its own mistake. In other words,
Speaker 1: Meta also revealed that COVID nineteen had a big impact
Speaker 1: on their capacity to review appeals, which suggests to me
Speaker 1: that the number of restored pieces could have been even
Speaker 1: higher if Meta had had the capacity to process more appeals.
Speaker 1: But that's just speculation on my part. Other categories show
Speaker 1: similar trends. Wasn't just in uh, you know, organized hate
Speaker 1: and terrorism posts? Facebook restored hundreds of thousands of posts,
Speaker 1: either after an appeal or otherwise after determining that the
Speaker 1: posts did not in fact violate platform policies. Now, this
Speaker 1: really illustrates how content moderation is hard, particularly when your
Speaker 1: platform has reached a gargantuan size like Facebook has, It
Speaker 1: is necessary to do content moderation, but it's not easy
Speaker 1: to get it right. Of course, it is also impossible
Speaker 1: for us to quantify how many posts that did violate
Speaker 1: policies were missed. Now, surely there were lots of them,
Speaker 1: but we don't know how many. There's no way to know,
Speaker 1: right unless you were to actively go out seeking them
Speaker 1: and then just track to see whether or not they
Speaker 1: stay up or if they're taken down. Uh, And even
Speaker 1: then it would just be an estimate based upon whatever
Speaker 1: you were able to observe. So we don't have any
Speaker 1: data on that. We do know that Facebook has been
Speaker 1: cited numerous times as a platform that tends to amp
Speaker 1: lafi harmful messages, some of which might actually skirt around
Speaker 1: official policies, which means Facebook would not be able to
Speaker 1: respond to those without first updating those policies. Right. We
Speaker 1: had that representative from Facebook's oversight board, and one of
Speaker 1: the important jobs that board has is to make sure
Speaker 1: that when Facebook is enforcing its rules, the rules actually
Speaker 1: give Facebook that authority. Right, The Facebook can't just remove
Speaker 1: something for no reason. It has to have a stated
Speaker 1: reason that users have agreed to by you know, agreeing
Speaker 1: to to be part of the Facebook platform. In order
Speaker 1: for them to be able to do that, they cannot
Speaker 1: do it with impunity. There has to be reason behind it,
Speaker 1: so it is really tricky. It is a tight rope
Speaker 1: that you have to walk, and then finding a way
Speaker 1: to do that efficiently across such an enormous platform presents
Speaker 1: a different challenge altogether. So it is complicated it and
Speaker 1: it is messy. So good luck Elon Musk. If you
Speaker 1: do end up with Twitter, you might find it more
Speaker 1: hard work than you bargained for because free speech absolutists
Speaker 1: often are going to get a pretty rude wake up
Speaker 1: call when that free speech is used to do things
Speaker 1: that are, you know, just really dangerous and hazardous sometimes
Speaker 1: to the platforms themselves. Now, back when I was active
Speaker 1: on social networks, one thing I really didn't like was
Speaker 1: getting added into groups without being asked if I was
Speaker 1: okay with that first, because it creates a kind of
Speaker 1: social obligation that I wasn't seeking, and if I had
Speaker 1: no intention of joining the group, it gets awkward, particularly
Speaker 1: if when I leave the group, my departure is broadcast
Speaker 1: to everyone else who's in that group. That just invites
Speaker 1: the opportunity for those folks to reach out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: why do you leave the group? And I just want
Speaker 1: to be grouchy and alone and listen to neutral milk
Speaker 1: Hotel Well. Meta is experimenting with a feature in WhatsApp
Speaker 1: that would allow people who are in group messaging instances
Speaker 1: to leave that group without it being broadcast to everyone
Speaker 1: else there. Uh, the admin for the group would be notified,
Speaker 1: but no one else would. And it lets you do
Speaker 1: the classic Irish exit or the French leave. That's when
Speaker 1: you dip out of a social gathering without first saying
Speaker 1: goodbye or making the rounds one last time, or making
Speaker 1: it a big thing. That's actually how I prefer to
Speaker 1: leave a party. But it's because I've been through the
Speaker 1: opposite experience and it find I find it exasperating. I
Speaker 1: know too many actors, and if you go to a
Speaker 1: party with actors and your ride happens to be an actor,
Speaker 1: you might find that you're there for an additional hour
Speaker 1: and a half after you said you were gonna go,
Speaker 1: because your ride, the actor has to go and say
Speaker 1: goodbye to every single other person. They're including people that
Speaker 1: they had never met before that at night. And it
Speaker 1: could just be that I'm becoming a misanthrope. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's almost certainly the case. Anyway, the feature for WhatsApp
Speaker 1: is reportedly in the testing phase, so there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that it will ever be rolled out to the service
Speaker 1: at large. But I'm sure folks who are like me
Speaker 1: who are on WhatsApp would really like that option. As
Speaker 1: for myself, I'm not on WhatsApp, but if I were,
Speaker 1: I would eagerly be awaiting that feature to get rolled
Speaker 1: out into the service. All Right, we've got a lot
Speaker 1: more stories to cover today. Before we get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Hey, y'all, let's chat about
Speaker 1: Google next. The Russian subsidiary of Google has declared bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: That might sound weird because we all know Google is
Speaker 1: a massive company has a huge amount of of money,
Speaker 1: or at least value. So how could a citiary of
Speaker 1: Google declare bankruptcy. Well, earlier this year, the Russian government
Speaker 1: seized the subsidiaries bank account, and that meant that Google's
Speaker 1: Russian subsidiary had no means to access its finances. It
Speaker 1: could not do stuff like, you know, pay people for
Speaker 1: working at Google, and so Google closed up shop. The
Speaker 1: company also has not been selling ads in Russia due
Speaker 1: to the ongoing war in Ukraine, so they had already
Speaker 1: stopped that activity. In fact, that's part of the reason
Speaker 1: why the government seized the assets, and the company says
Speaker 1: it is committed to providing services like Gmail and YouTube
Speaker 1: access to Russia, so those services are not going away.
Speaker 1: The Russian government has been hitting the company with fines
Speaker 1: for doing stuff like allowing media outlets that don't have
Speaker 1: state support upload content to YouTube, but so far the
Speaker 1: government has not taken the drastic step to actually cut
Speaker 1: off access at the I s P level for stuff
Speaker 1: like YouTube, presumably because if they did so, they would
Speaker 1: upset too many Russians, and the desire to control the
Speaker 1: narrative gets outweighed by the fear that the Russian people
Speaker 1: would get upset enough to potentially oppose the government. It's
Speaker 1: a delicate balance when you are running an authoritarian regime strategy.
Speaker 1: The Intercept reports that shareholders in Google and Amazon will
Speaker 1: soon have the opportunity to vote on resolutions that could
Speaker 1: force those two companies to re evaluate their involvement in
Speaker 1: Project Nimbus. So, if you're not familiar with Project Nimbus,
Speaker 1: that is Israel's push to create a cloud computer infrastructure
Speaker 1: that has all of the components within the borders of
Speaker 1: Israel itself, So a domestic cloud service, you might wonder
Speaker 1: why would Israel want to do that. Well, if all
Speaker 1: the servers and the rest of the infrastructure for the
Speaker 1: cloud computing system are within Israel's own borders, then that
Speaker 1: service gets insulated from international pressures. So should Israel do
Speaker 1: something that the international community objects to, such as, you know,
Speaker 1: launch an invasive surveillance program that uses the cloud computing
Speaker 1: infrastructure as the backbone, or perhaps lean on cloud computing
Speaker 1: technology to create oppressive measures that are used against a Palestinians.
Speaker 1: The cloud services would remain untouched because the international community
Speaker 1: would have no authority to get involved on any of that.
Speaker 1: So critics of Project Nimbus have pointed to these sort
Speaker 1: of possibilities as reasons that these companies should abandoned that project,
Speaker 1: that other countries would not be able to hold Israel
Speaker 1: accountable in the in the event that it would initiate
Speaker 1: policies that could violate human rights, at least not by
Speaker 1: disrupting those operations by cutting off access to cloud services.
Speaker 1: So shareholders are going to vote on resolutions that, if passed,
Speaker 1: would force Google and Amazon to conduct thorough invest stigations
Speaker 1: into the operation and determine whether or not the project
Speaker 1: would lead to enabling Israel to commit human rights abuses.
Speaker 1: Shareholders could support the resolution for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: An obvious one is that there are probably some shareholders
Speaker 1: who would be concerned about the impact these technologies could
Speaker 1: have on you know, vulnerable people. But another big reason
Speaker 1: is that a negative perception of Project Nimbus could end
Speaker 1: up hurting the companies, which in turn could hurt the
Speaker 1: stock price, which ultimately hurts investors, you know, shareholders. So
Speaker 1: there are altruistic and more selfish motivators at play here,
Speaker 1: and and to be clear, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks would experience some of both. Like I don't think
Speaker 1: everyone is purely in one camp or another. I think
Speaker 1: there are people who are going to take these things
Speaker 1: into account and say I don't like what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and I also don't want to see my investments suffer.
Speaker 1: Whether that's going to be enough to get a majority
Speaker 1: of shareholders to back those resolutions remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: We also have to keep in mind that these really
Speaker 1: big government projects have really big price tags attached to them.
Speaker 1: They bring in a ton of money to these companies.
Speaker 1: So it's also possible that shareholders will reject the resolutions
Speaker 1: because that money is seen as a very valuable asset
Speaker 1: for the companies that the shareholders are invested in. We'll
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. The state of New York
Speaker 1: has filed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging that the company
Speaker 1: has engaged in discrimination against certain employees, namely employees who
Speaker 1: are disabled or pregnant. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of forcing
Speaker 1: those employees of making the choice of either taking unpaid
Speaker 1: leave or they have to work in unaccommodating conditions, and
Speaker 1: that furthermore, the company authorized managers to deny recommendations from
Speaker 1: accommodation consultants, according to Business Insiders, So in other words,
Speaker 1: they hired consultants to come in and say, how can
Speaker 1: we make sure that this this workplace UH follows regulations
Speaker 1: and has those accommodations for people who need them. And
Speaker 1: the consultants gave their recommendations, but then Amazon told managers, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to follow those if you don't want to.
Speaker 1: According to the lawsuit, that is and this is very
Speaker 1: early on in the process at the time of recording.
Speaker 1: In fact, as I'm recording this, Business Insider had not
Speaker 1: yet received a comment from Amazon representatives addressing the matter.
Speaker 1: That might have changed by the time you hear this,
Speaker 1: so it will likely be something that will touch on
Speaker 1: in future episodes. Corporate Apple employees have a temporary reprieve
Speaker 1: from the mandate that would require them to return to
Speaker 1: the office three days a week. They are currently under
Speaker 1: a mandate that requires them to be there two days
Speaker 1: out of the week from my understanding, but the three
Speaker 1: day mandate was supposed to take effect on May twenty three.
Speaker 1: You might remember from an earlier Tech News episode that
Speaker 1: this was one of the reason and is previously cited
Speaker 1: as why some Apple employees were considering leaving the company.
Speaker 1: That was actually part of a survey which had a
Speaker 1: fairly small sample size, so it's actually hard to say
Speaker 1: how many employees were seriously considering this, let alone how
Speaker 1: many would have actually gone through with it. But people
Speaker 1: were pointing at maree is being kind of a a
Speaker 1: pivotal moment, and that if the company continued to require
Speaker 1: people to come in three days out of the week,
Speaker 1: there was going to be the the equivalent of a
Speaker 1: mass exodus or at least a significant exodus of employees.
Speaker 1: But that mandate is now on hold and there is
Speaker 1: no new date yet that is going to require folks
Speaker 1: to come out and work in the office three days
Speaker 1: out of the week. So why did the company change
Speaker 1: its mind or rather, why did the company executives change
Speaker 1: their minds? Well, Apple says it's because of a rise
Speaker 1: in COVID nineteen cases. Now, I do think it's weird
Speaker 1: that COVID nineteen rates would cause a company to pau
Speaker 1: cause bringing workers in three times a week, But twice
Speaker 1: a week is still okay. Now, you could argue there's
Speaker 1: potential for a less overlap if people are coming in
Speaker 1: two days out of the week, because maybe one person
Speaker 1: comes in Monday Tuesday and someone else comes in Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday or Thursday Friday. So those two people are never
Speaker 1: going to interact, right, and thus that limitation cuts down
Speaker 1: on the possibility of COVID spreading in those specific cases,
Speaker 1: I guess. But you would really think that if COVID
Speaker 1: were truly the motivating factor to hold off on bringing
Speaker 1: people in three days out of the week, you might
Speaker 1: go back to a remote work strategy entirely, at least
Speaker 1: until the COVID nineteen rates go down again. But you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just being unreasonable here. Anyway, One person who
Speaker 1: did leave Apple, reportedly at least in part because of
Speaker 1: the company's policy on remote work, was Ian Goodfellow, and
Speaker 1: formerly he served as the director of machine learning at Apple.
Speaker 1: Good Fellow is now set to join Alphabet, you know,
Speaker 1: Google's parent company. So this is a high profile example
Speaker 1: of someone leaving one company, and at least part of
Speaker 1: the reason for leaving it was due to the demand
Speaker 1: to return to the office at least three days out
Speaker 1: of the week. Yikes. Down in Atlanta, that's my hometown.
Speaker 1: Apple stands accused of violating the National Labor Relations Act.
Speaker 1: Employees claim that Apple forced them to attend meetings meant
Speaker 1: to discourage unionization. Now, historically in the United States, the
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Board has accepted that captive audience meetings
Speaker 1: those are meetings where employers can force employees to go
Speaker 1: to the meeting and listen to anti union messaging. The
Speaker 1: n l r B has previously said that does not
Speaker 1: actually violate the law. However, the n l RBS General counsel,
Speaker 1: a woman named Jennifer Abruzzo, says that that stance is
Speaker 1: predicated upon a misinterpretation of an employer's right of free speech,
Speaker 1: and in fact, is an opposition of the intent of
Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Act, which is to protect employees
Speaker 1: freedom of choice. So she's saying, we have to change
Speaker 1: the policy because it's in violation of what the Act
Speaker 1: is supposed to do. So this is a pretty fluid situation,
Speaker 1: not just for Apple, but for the interpretation of law.
Speaker 1: And it really shows that, you know, making rules is
Speaker 1: tricky and complicated, and sometimes there are loopholes. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to see how this plays out. We've got more stories,
Speaker 1: including more legal loopholes in just a moment, but first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. We're back, and we're not
Speaker 1: quite done with Apple yet. So a Texas judge has
Speaker 1: denied Apple the company's request to relitigate a matter that
Speaker 1: currently has the company on the hook to pay a
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollar fee to another company called Optus.
Speaker 1: All right, So all of this stems from a patent dispute.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty nineteen, Optus sued Apple and accused Apple
Speaker 1: of making illegal use of patented technologies that Optus held
Speaker 1: and that the company thus infringed upon five patents relating
Speaker 1: to four G LTE technology, in other words, cellular tech
Speaker 1: of the four G era of of of wireless communications.
Speaker 1: So that matter went to trial and a jury found
Speaker 1: Apple guilty of those charges and ultimately decided that Apple
Speaker 1: should have to pay Optus a half billion dollars billion
Speaker 1: with a B that is a lot of money. However,
Speaker 1: a court then subsequently overturned that verdict because the jury
Speaker 1: had not yet heard evidence that suggested Optus failed to
Speaker 1: provide a licensing option that was fair, reasonable and non
Speaker 1: discriminatory or frand f R A n D, which meant
Speaker 1: Apple possibly didn't have a valid option to follow, at
Speaker 1: least one that wasn't predatory, and that that should factor
Speaker 1: into the jury's decision regarding Apple's punishment. So the overturning
Speaker 1: wasn't saying that Apple was innocent of the crime, but
Speaker 1: rather the punishment did not necessarily fit the crime because
Speaker 1: of other circumstances. So in a subsequent court trial, which
Speaker 1: again was only meant to arrive at a new figure
Speaker 1: for damages, the judge denied Apple the ability to fully
Speaker 1: relitigate the whole thing. The new jury adjusted the damages
Speaker 1: down to just a paltry three hundred billion dollars. And yes,
Speaker 1: I'm being sarcastic. Apple sought out an option to get
Speaker 1: a new trial, to throw that out and to retry
Speaker 1: the matter. Uh, and that's where this Texas judge said, yeah, no, dice.
Speaker 1: Apple can still appeal this to a higher court, which
Speaker 1: I imagine is what is going to happen next. And
Speaker 1: these trials get pretty tricky. Now. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: patent infringement is a real problem. We have seen massive
Speaker 1: lawsuits in technology over the matter. Apple and Samsung had
Speaker 1: a long history of hitting each other with patent infringement lawsuits.
Speaker 1: On another hand, cause in this case, I actually have
Speaker 1: more than two hands. There are some companies that hoard
Speaker 1: patents expressly for the purpose of extorting other companies, and
Speaker 1: we call those organizations patent trolls. They're known for holding
Speaker 1: onto patents, but otherwise they don't do a dang thing.
Speaker 1: So in other words, they don't make anything, and they're
Speaker 1: not actively using the intellectual property that has been patented.
Speaker 1: They just exist to deny other and he is the
Speaker 1: option of using that design unless those of the companies
Speaker 1: either cough up a huge amount of money in licensing fees,
Speaker 1: or sometimes they don't even give the option of licensing
Speaker 1: the tech. They're just waiting for someone to violate that
Speaker 1: patent and then threaten them with a massive lawsuit in
Speaker 1: an effort to get usually a big settlement out of it. Then,
Speaker 1: on the third hand, which I should probably have someone
Speaker 1: look at, if Optus wasn't offering fair licensing options, that
Speaker 1: needs to be addressed. I don't think companies should just
Speaker 1: use the technical designs and then brave the consequences the
Speaker 1: way Apple appears to have done. There has to be
Speaker 1: a better way to ensure fairness in the system, because
Speaker 1: if you go with a pure free market approach, what
Speaker 1: that means is a lot of companies will just not
Speaker 1: go down certain pathways, and that means that the rest
Speaker 1: of us never get to benefit from that patented invention
Speaker 1: until you know, the patent expires, so it hurts people
Speaker 1: in the long run. The whole purpose of patents is
Speaker 1: to protect innovation and to inspire people to innovate, because
Speaker 1: if their ideas are protected, then they have the incentive
Speaker 1: to pursue those ideas. If the ideas aren't protected, then
Speaker 1: people are going to say, well, what's the point in
Speaker 1: me innovating, someone else is just going to steal my
Speaker 1: idea and make money off of it. That's why patents exist.
Speaker 1: The problem is there are some individuals and companies out
Speaker 1: there that have turned patents into a war club as
Speaker 1: opposed to a way to incentivize innovation. All right, enough
Speaker 1: about that, let's move on the information. As in the
Speaker 1: news outlet reports that according to a survey, Netflix is
Speaker 1: losing more long term subscribers, namely that of people who
Speaker 1: canceled Netflix services in the first quarter of two were
Speaker 1: made up of folks who had been Netflix customers for
Speaker 1: at least three years. That is a really bad number
Speaker 1: for Netflix. It's one thing to have trouble holding onto
Speaker 1: new users, but it's another when long term customers are
Speaker 1: leaving the platform. Now of all cancelations doesn't sound so
Speaker 1: huge in the grand scheme of things, but it does
Speaker 1: mark an increase because at the end of twenty one,
Speaker 1: long term users made up just six percent of all cancelations.
Speaker 1: As for what is prompting folks to leave, that's probably
Speaker 1: a mixture of factors. Um One is that Netflix has
Speaker 1: lost access to a ton of content as various studios
Speaker 1: have launched their own streaming platforms, and then they've migrated
Speaker 1: their properties off of Netflix once agreements expire, and then
Speaker 1: they stream them on their own native services, like you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen that with Peacock, for example. Another is that
Speaker 1: there are just a ton of different streaming options out there,
Speaker 1: so competition shi is a lot more fierce than it
Speaker 1: used to be. And yet another is that Netflix has
Speaker 1: increased the subscription price a few times over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, and that puts Netflix in a more
Speaker 1: expensive tier than a lot of its competitors. And if
Speaker 1: something gets expensive enough, then folks who use the service
Speaker 1: and frequently are more likely to say something like why
Speaker 1: how are we paying for this? We don't watch no
Speaker 1: Netflix no more, and then they go through the trouble
Speaker 1: of canceling that subscription. In fact, I should fall into
Speaker 1: that category. I should be the one saying it and
Speaker 1: exactly that that tone of voice, because I'm a Netflix customer,
Speaker 1: but I very rarely watch anything on Netflix these days.
Speaker 1: Then again, I rarely watch anything at all that isn't
Speaker 1: a YouTube series. In fact, why am I paying for
Speaker 1: all that? Do you know what? This isn't the place
Speaker 1: for that? Anyway, Netflix has found itself in a bit
Speaker 1: of a crisis mode right now, trying to find a
Speaker 1: new strategy that will reverse this trend of people leaving
Speaker 1: the platform. Trend is hard. I shouldn't really say trend
Speaker 1: because Q one two was the first time in Netflix
Speaker 1: history that it had a net loss of users. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Netflix wants to reverse that. They don't want to see
Speaker 1: that number go down again for Q two, and so
Speaker 1: they also are looking for new ways to generate revenue,
Speaker 1: perhaps by incorporating advertisements and launching a lower cost subscription tier.
Speaker 1: And they also want to cut costs, which we've mainly
Speaker 1: seen the form of stuff like Netflix canceling several projects,
Speaker 1: including a ton in the animation department that have me
Speaker 1: really upset because I was looking forward to an animated
Speaker 1: adaptation of the comic book series Bone Gush, darn it,
Speaker 1: and now we're not gonna get it over. In India,
Speaker 1: the government has passed a policy that will require VPN
Speaker 1: services to collect data on their users. So VPN stands
Speaker 1: for virtual Private network. The way this works is essentially,
Speaker 1: it's a service that lets you log into a server
Speaker 1: and then browse the Internet as if your computer was
Speaker 1: that server. So from the perspective of the sites that
Speaker 1: you visit, or for anyone who's snooping on traffic that's
Speaker 1: going to those sites. All the traffic is coming from
Speaker 1: that server, and all the return traffic is going to
Speaker 1: that server. It's not going to you. Now, someone who
Speaker 1: is really doing a lot of snooping might be able
Speaker 1: to see that you are connected to this VPN server,
Speaker 1: and they would be able to see that traffic going
Speaker 1: from that VPN server is going to these other sites,
Speaker 1: but they would not be able to tell if you
Speaker 1: were visiting any of those sites. For all, the snooper
Speaker 1: knows you're using the VPN, but all you're doing is
Speaker 1: logging in to read the news, so you're not going
Speaker 1: to anything you know, salacious or whatever or illegal. Well,
Speaker 1: the more authoritarian governments really hate this practice because it
Speaker 1: means they can't tell what you're up to, and they
Speaker 1: really want to know what you're up to. So that's
Speaker 1: why the Indian past this policy mandating that VPN services,
Speaker 1: even those that are operating outside of India but that
Speaker 1: offer services to Indian citizens, have to collect data on
Speaker 1: their users. Now, for many VPN services, one of the
Speaker 1: big selling features is that they explicitly do not collect
Speaker 1: data on their users, or if they do collect any data,
Speaker 1: they regularly delete that data like typically on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: which offers security and privacy because even if authorities went
Speaker 1: to the VPN and demanded that the company hand over
Speaker 1: all their user data, the VPN and its users are
Speaker 1: in the clear because there's no data to hand over. Now,
Speaker 1: this new policy is not yet in effect. That will
Speaker 1: change in late June. Already, several VPN providers have objected
Speaker 1: to this policy, and several of them have pointed out
Speaker 1: that their technology means they literally cannot comply with that
Speaker 1: policy because they have no technology to log user data
Speaker 1: in the first place. That is not part of their
Speaker 1: their suite of features. They can't do it. They would
Speaker 1: have to build that capability into their services. The Indian
Speaker 1: government has remained steadfast, however, essentially saying, hey, these are
Speaker 1: the rules, you abide by them, or you stop providing
Speaker 1: services to customers in India, so rough deal. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: always against policies that end up infringing upon privacy and
Speaker 1: personal security. There are a lot of very legitimate reasons
Speaker 1: to use a VPN that have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: illegal activity or sometimes they do have to do with
Speaker 1: illegal activity, but the reason that the activity is illegal
Speaker 1: is because the government is repressing citizens. So I'm talking
Speaker 1: about stuff like expressing opinions that run counter to the
Speaker 1: government's position on things like if that ends up being
Speaker 1: illegal in that country, that's repressive. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, using it to get around things
Speaker 1: like like drug laws and stuff. To me, that gets
Speaker 1: a lot more tricky, and you have to look at
Speaker 1: things on a case by case basis, but you get
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Finally, in a segment that I'm going
Speaker 1: to call how engineers are solving important problems, let's talk
Speaker 1: about burritos. A well made burrito is a thing of beauty.
Speaker 1: It should be filled to a point where there's a
Speaker 1: little give when you pick the burrito up. And now,
Speaker 1: you don't want so much meat or vegetables or whatever
Speaker 1: in that burrito that the burrito just disintegrates as you
Speaker 1: pick it up and content spew out like some sort
Speaker 1: of horror movie. But you also don't want to limp
Speaker 1: burrito that lameley just folds over your hand, because you
Speaker 1: can just imagine that burrito whimpering as you pick it up.
Speaker 1: You want a burrito has the right amount of stuff
Speaker 1: inside it, and you want that burrito to maintain structural
Speaker 1: integrity as you dive hour it. After all, we all
Speaker 1: know that the proper way to eat a burrito is
Speaker 1: to use your hands, resorting to a knife and four
Speaker 1: a quhile sometimes necessary, really just means you're admitting defeat.
Speaker 1: But how do you help ensure that a burrito will
Speaker 1: maintain that structural integrity as you eat it and not
Speaker 1: just flop open mid bite causing a big goopy mess.
Speaker 1: To paraphrase Paul Blart, mal clup too well, what if
Speaker 1: you taped the burrito shut? That might solve that structural problem.
Speaker 1: But tape isn't edible until now. Yeah, Engineering students at
Speaker 1: John Hopkins University have developed an edible tape fittingly called
Speaker 1: Tasty tape. Tasty is spelled with two ease at the
Speaker 1: end instead of a hy. So it's an adhesive that
Speaker 1: can be used on food items, and not just burritos,
Speaker 1: but other stuff like euros or gyros if you prefer
Speaker 1: wraps or and this next one since shivers down my
Speaker 1: spine food art, you could probably hear the air quotes
Speaker 1: I did as I said that. Now, the engineers created
Speaker 1: the tape out of quote food grade fibrous scaffold and
Speaker 1: organic adhesive end quote. They've filed for a patent, and
Speaker 1: they're a bit kg describing what they used to do this,
Speaker 1: because obviously they don't want someone else to just steal
Speaker 1: the formula. But they do say that everything they used
Speaker 1: is food grade and safe and consists of quote common
Speaker 1: food and dietary additives end quote, so it's not like
Speaker 1: they snuck in some guerrilla glue in there or anything.
Speaker 1: The product works by tearing a strip off a sheet
Speaker 1: of the stuff, soaking that strip in some water, and
Speaker 1: then applying said wet strip to whatever it is you
Speaker 1: need to tape shut. As it dries, it then becomes
Speaker 1: that that adhesive, so you might use it on that
Speaker 1: otherwise vulnerable Brito I for one, and thankful for this
Speaker 1: scientific breakthrough. And that's it for the news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: May nine, twenty two. If you have any comments or
Speaker 1: suggestions or questions or anything like that, there are a
Speaker 1: couple ways to get in touch with the show. One
Speaker 1: is you download the I Heart Radio app. Do you
Speaker 1: navigate to the text stuff page within that app, and
Speaker 1: there's a little microphone and if you tap on that,
Speaker 1: you can record an audio message up to thirty seconds long.
Speaker 1: If you do it for this episode, they'll be tagged
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Speaker 1: is what you're commenting on. You can also just leave
Speaker 1: a comment on the show in general. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: have a suggestion for an episode, we might even use
Speaker 1: that audio clip to introduce the topic. So that's one
Speaker 1: way to reach out. The other way, of course, is
Speaker 1: to get in touch on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is text Stuff H s W and that's it.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again, release soon Y. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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