WEBVTT - Tech News: Lost in the Amazon 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.760 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.280 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:20.800 and a lot of all things tech. And it is 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:26.119 time for the news for Thursday, February four, twenty twenty one. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.800 Let's get to it, and I think our top story 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.760 should be pretty obvious, and that's that Jeff Bezos is 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.320 stepping down as CEO of Amazon later this year. The 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:43.280 announcement came out on Tuesday, which I think was pretty rude, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.519 as I had already recorded and published the news episode 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:48.920 for that day by the time the press release came out. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.479 Not a lot of consideration there for me. Jeff. This 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:59.120 comes after a banner year for Amazon, at least the 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.520 corporate coffer part of it. While millions of folks were 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.200 struggling to find out how to work and parent and 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.000 all that stuff during a pandemic. Amazon passed the one 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.199 trillion dollar market cap, and it's well in its way 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.160 to to trillion at this point. Heck, Amazon made one 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:23.200 hundred billion dollars in one quarter. That means three months. 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.040 Bezos will not be leaving the company entirely he'll actually 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.360 be playing a pretty firm hand with Amazon as the 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.320 executive chairman of the board of directors. As for his replacement, 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.720 that will be Andy Jesse, who heads up the Amazon 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.800 Web Services Division a k a a w S. And 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.000 while I think most folks probably think of Amazon as 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.960 an online retail company, you know where you go to 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.600 buy everything from books to boats, more than half of 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.840 Amazon's operating income actually comes from a WS. The division 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.800 is responsible for enormous server farms that provide hosting services 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.920 for cloud based applications web companies. You might remember a 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.200 recent news item that AWS booted the social network Parlor 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.680 or parlay from its servers for failing to moderate content 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.480 on the platform, which was a violation of Amazon's policies. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.960 Jesse will take over for Bezos later this year. According 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.960 to Bezos, he will quote focus my energies and attention 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.360 on new products and early initiatives end quote. In addition 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.400 to that work, Bezos also will spend more time with 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.800 several of his other companies, such as his private space 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:45.200 company Blue Origin, and I guess maybe figuring out what 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.280 he's gonna do with that more than five billion dollars 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.560 he has in wealth. Now, based on this reporting, you 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.640 might think that I envy Jeff Bezos, and you would 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.440 be right. But he's a business genius and I'm not. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.680 So I also understand that I'm just not the type 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:09.200 of person to a mass that kind of wealth. Also, 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.320 as we'll be talking about in a little bit, I 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.880 probably don't have the stomach to do some of the 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:19.560 things that billionaires do in order to become billionaires. And 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.880 now for a few more Amazon stories, we could think 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.040 of this as being lost in the Amazon. So next 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.720 up our plans that Amazon has for a new glass 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.720 tower high rise building in Arlington, Virginia. This would be 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.040 part of Amazon's HQ two headquarters project. You might remember 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.520 that several years ago all of the United States was 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:47.120 in a bidding war to become the place for Amazon's headquarters, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.120 and a lot of people, myself included, assumed that Amazon 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.560 was just playing the long game, trying to you know, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.560 put some leverage on the choices that were already at 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.240 the top of its list to get them to give them, 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.920 you know, much better tax and syntoms and stuff. This 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.800 is the outcome of that. So the design of this 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.480 tower calls for it to be three fifty feet or 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.920 around a hundred six meters tall, and around this tower 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:17.040 will be three twenty two story buildings that will also 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.240 be part of the HQ two campus now. According to 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:22.960 a press release, the tower is meant to connect people 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:27.760 with nature and have a vertical forest arranged in a 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.400 couple of spiraling walkways that go from the base all 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.360 the way to the top of the tower. There will 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.680 be some public spaces incorporated, though not throughout the whole structure, 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.480 and Amazon plans to offer public tours of the building, 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.280 which will be called the Helix. Now. That sounds like 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.919 a setting in an Assassin's Creed game to me, but 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.960 Amazon says the inspiration for the design comes from the 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.120 helix shape found and everything from conk shells to DNA. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.839 Inside the space will be a massive meeting area capable 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:04.200 of holding people, and there will be an artist in 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.640 residence program there. And spiraling around that exterior is that 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.599 green space allowing people to kind of stroll up a 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.320 wooded spiral walkway. Looks like it might be stairs all 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.120 the way up, so it might be a little rough 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.880 if you aren't like used to climbing a lot of steps, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.280 and you can go all the way to the tippy top. Apparently, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.800 my favorite description of the artist rendering for the helix 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:34.440 comes courtesy of Jacob Krastanaki's of The Verge, who calls 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:40.280 it a quote glass poop emoji covered in trees end quote. Also, 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.160 I should point out that as of this recording, this 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.960 whole thing is just a proposal for Amazon to move forward. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.360 They will need to get clearance from Arlington City government 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.360 before they can break any ground on the structure. In 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.880 a previous news update, I talked about how workers at 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.040 an Amazon warehouse and Bessemer, Alabama, which I just want 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.719 to call Bessame, was that they were attempting to unionize 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.000 and if they manage that, they will be the first 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.320 of Amazon's US based warehouses to do it. The company 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:17.080 isn't exactly backing down from this development, however. The Seattle 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.000 Times reports that Amazon has funded a pr campaign against 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.600 the unionization efforts that employees are pursuing with the retail, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.720 wholesale and department store union. According to the papers sources, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.960 Amazon employees have been ordered to attend mandatory meetings in 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:39.080 which managers present quote anti union propaganda thinly veiled as 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.520 factual information end quote. These meetings are pretty small. There 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.479 are about fifteen employees per meeting and they last about 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.480 half an hour. While I'm sure the meetings aren't much fun, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.400 I also imagine managers must have a pretty tough message 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.520 to sell. After all, if you work for a company 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.800 that makes one hundred billion dollars in just three months, 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.200 I figure you might start asking yourself questions like, Hey, 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.800 couldn't you afford better compensation and benefits for us? According 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.920 to the Seattle Times piece, Amazon hasn't had to worry 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.720 about unions a lot due to the fact that the 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.040 company pays a little bit better than most competing retail 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.320 and warehouse based jobs, and to the employee turnover is 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.560 so high that there aren't a lot of people who 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.560 are in a position for long enough for any real 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.920 momentum to build. But the pandemic really change things. Not 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.960 only did it spur on more consumer activity well a 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.040 lot more folks buying stuff online, and also more cloud 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.000 based activity, with more businesses having to move to the 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.200 cloud to conduct business, but it also brought to light 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.680 work conditions in these warehouses that included a higher risk 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.119 of spreading COVID nineteen. In addition, the black Lives Matter 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.800 movement has played a part. Many of the employees at 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.760 Amazon's Bessemer where house are black. Employees, will vote on 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.680 whether to unionize later this month. That voting process actually 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:11.160 extends all the way through March, and employees should expect 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.240 to see a lot more anti union rhetoric from Amazon 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.320 in the meantime. And we're not quite out of the 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.960 Amazon yet. The company will pay a settlement of sixty 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.840 one point seven million dollars over allegations brought against it 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:29.120 by the US Federal Trade Commission, or f TC. The 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.079 reason well, according to the FTC, Amazon didn't pay its 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.520 Flex delivery driver force the full amount of tips that 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.199 were received from customers. Flex drivers, by the way, our 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.000 delivery personnel who pick up shifts on demand to deliver 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.760 stuff like Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods orders, as well 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.240 as help with particularly heavy delivery days. And who boy, 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.640 this thing, I mean, it really makes my blood boil. 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.640 I'm in a position in which I can afford to 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.840 tip delivery personnel, and because I did penn upon them 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.200 so much, and because these workers are in a much 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.480 more risky position than I am, I feel like tipping 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.880 is away from me to support them and to thank 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.440 them for doing a tough and demanding job. So to 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.960 hear about companies pocketing money from tips from customers, money 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.600 that customers expect will go to the delivery employee, not 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.120 you know, the machine that is profiting from that employee's work, Well, 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.840 that just burns my biscuits, y'all. Now, granted, I'm talking 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.560 about kind of the situation that we're in right now, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:37.200 but these allegations are actually from before the pandemic. In sixteen, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.880 the FTC says that Amazon made a policy change. Drivers 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.280 had been earning between eighteen to twenty an hour plus tips. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.560 Amazon pushed them to a lower hourly rate, and, according 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:55.320 to the FTC, quote intentionally failed end quote to tell 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.840 drivers about the change and then use the tips from 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.640 customers to pad out the difference between the new lower 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.920 hourly rate and the old higher hourly rate, the one 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.199 that people were promised. So, in other words, Amazon, according 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.160 to the FTC, was using tips to subsidize what had 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.240 been the promised hourly rate before they changed it, which 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.120 is pretty dang scummy. Amazon of course, disagrees with the 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:28.760 FDC's conclusions, stating that there was never any intentional miscommunication 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.600 and then the company added quote additional clarity in two 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.920 thousand nineteen end quote and just to be clear, while 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.120 I am dunking on Amazon right now. Other companies have 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.320 similarly used tips to subsidize worker wages in the past. 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.400 Door Dash did that up to two thousand nineteen, at 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.520 which point the CEO of the company said that door 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.920 Dash would stop doing that. Instacart also had a similar 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.880 approach until the company was called out on it. So 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.080 if you are someone who tips still have refolks, and 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.360 if you use delivery folks and you can afford to tip, 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.760 you probably should be doing that. It's good to also 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.680 do a bit of research on the various companies to 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.079 make sure that those tips are actually going to the 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.199 people who are doing the work, not subsidizing a company's payroll. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.640 Let's move over to Google. For the first time, Google 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.360 revealed how much revenue it generated through its cloud services business. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.880 The division brought in thirteen point oh six billion dollars 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:33.160 in twenty twenty. However, it also reported an operating loss 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.800 of five point six one billion dollars, so it costs 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.520 more than they made that those losses don't indicate a 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.080 floundering business. Rather Google has been pouring a lot of 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.240 money into expanding its cloud services division, including hiring on 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.560 more sales personnel. As I mentioned earlier, cloud services are 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.559 a big business. I mean, they represent more than half 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.360 of Amazon's revenue for twenty twenty, and Google is pressure 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.240 to diversify as its chief source of revenue is through 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.959 online advertising. That's a sector that was hit very hard 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.240 in twenty twenty as companies across various industries began to 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:16.040 scale back marketing efforts during the pandemic. I'm sure we'll 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.360 see a lot more about Google being a cloud services 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.360 company moving forward. And rounding out this first segment of 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.199 our news episode is the story of India issuing a 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.320 warning to Twitter. Now, the heart of the matter is 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.320 the issue of ongoing protests among farmers in India. That 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:39.560 whole political situation is incredibly complicated, and I am no 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:45.640 expert on Indian politics or agricultural policies, but basically, if 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.680 I'm interpreting it correctly, I believe the main concern is 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:53.000 that a trio of farm acts that were passed by 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.920 the Indian government in September twenty twenty might set the 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.280 stage for big corporations to dominate the farming into street 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.040 in India and muscle out all the independent farmers. That 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:09.080 appears to be the interpretation now. While the majority Indian 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:14.280 government has kind of dismissed such concerns, calling this misinformation 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:19.960 or a misunderstanding, members of the opposition have voiced concerns 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.800 and farmers in India have organized some pretty massive and 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.920 sometimes violent protests. Part of the government's response to the 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.520 protests has been to pressure Twitter to block high profile 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.920 accounts in India that support the protests, as well as 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.480 you know, restrict certain hashtags that allow people to easily 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:46.360 share online ideas about protests. Initially, Twitter did block requested profiles, 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.920 but then a few hours later they lifted the ban, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.960 and the Indian government says that Twitter is acting like 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.360 some sort of social arbiter that's acting like it's above 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.120 the law, and so India is threatening legal action against Twitter. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.160 Some internet advocacy groups are pushing back against the Indian government, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.880 such as Rahman Chimah, who works for the advocacy group 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.440 Access Now. Chima says that the Indian government needs to 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.720 explain how their actions against Twitter are not a violation 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.200 of India's own constitution. This is a very big story 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.440 that is very much still playing out right now, and 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.960 I'm sure I will be following up on this again 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.640 in the future. Well, that wraps up our first round 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.520 of news. When we come back, we'll talk a little 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.000 bit about some other stuff, including an update on the 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.080 good old solar Winds hack. But first let's take a 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:49.600 quick break. We're back, and as I said before the break, 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.920 we're going to start this segment with some updates on 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.880 the solar wind hack. Now, as a quick refresher, solar 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.680 wind is a software vendor that makes products for big 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.920 companies and government agencies. The software is mostly geared around 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:07.120 stuff like I T resource management, monitoring network systems. Hackers, 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:12.080 likely backed by Russia, compromised a software product called Orion 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.560 and inserted some malware that allowed the hackers to get 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.560 access to compromise systems, that is, you know, the customers 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.400 using Orian software. So when solar Winds pushed out updates 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.800 to Orion and customers installed those updates, the malware essentially 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.840 went along for the ride. Now we've heard that security 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:36.080 analysts have identified three previously undisclosed vulnerabilities in solar Winds products. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.960 Two of those are also in Orion and one is 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.360 in a separate piece of software. These vulnerabilities could allow 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.600 hackers to get access to secured credentials in networks or worse, 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.720 and Solar Winds has already addressed the vulnerabilities. They have 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.000 patched them out, and they've issued a patch. They've sent 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.280 it out, which means that analysts are suggesting that network 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:03.280 administrators install these patch is right away. Of course, this 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.040 gets to the really insidious nature of the supply chain hack, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.400 as Shannon Morrise pointed out when she was on the 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:15.040 show earlier this week, because you're you're talking about an 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.320 attack that takes advantage of a trusted partner that ends 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.520 up undermining the trust. So now the analysts are saying, hey, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.280 you know that thing you did that burns you, well, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.120 you kind of want to do it again because this 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.720 will solve some problems. But you know a lot of 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.080 people have been burned already. It's a scary thing. In 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:40.720 the USA USA section of our news, Bloomberg reports that 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.440 the United States has dropped off the top ten list 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:48.400 of the Bloomberg Innovation Index, which quote analyzes dozens of 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:53.720 criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development, spending, 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:59.440 manufacturing capability, and concentration of high tech public companies end quote. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.880 South Korea is at the top of the list, taking 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.639 the title away from Germany, which has fallen to fourth place. 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:10.680 In places two and three, you've got Singapore in Switzerland respectively. Now, granted, 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.000 this is one index. This is one way of looking 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.560 at innovation, and it's from one media outlet. So depending 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.080 upon your point of view, you either think, yeah, this 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.000 is right on the money, or you might think this 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:32.080 is a load of ludicrous, meaningless analysis. Somewhere in that 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.080 is the truth, and I can't tell you where it is. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.000 I'm just reporting it. So before anyone writes to me, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.200 just remember I'm the messenger here. But another news Bibo 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:47.560 is coming back in some form. Do you remember Bibo? 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.840 You might not. Uh. It was really popular in the 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.480 UK and in a few other places. It came out 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.560 of the United States, but it didn't get a whole 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.040 lot of traction here compared to some other places. Bibo 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.080 was a social network site founded by a husband and 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.720 wife team of Michael and show Chee Birch in two 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.399 thousand five in San Francisco, California, and it had the 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:16.119 motto blog early blog often you know Bibo. The profiles 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.320 were kind of modular in nature. You had a module 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.280 where you could add friends. You had one that would 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.919 let you receive and send messages with those friends. But 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:25.879 you can also switch things up. You could put in 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.879 modules to include photos or videos and other stuff. It 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.840 was like a more customizable Facebook or MySpace page. Bibo 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.960 also allowed users to link their social accounts from other 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.560 services to Bibo, so that Bibo would become a type 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:46.160 of aggregator. So if Bibo were around today in that form, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.679 imagine that instead of having to find out what your 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.919 buddy Susan is doing on Instagram and then over on 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.560 Twitter and so on, you would just go to Susan's 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.320 Bibo page. Then you could see all of her activities 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.560 aggregated there, assuming that Susan had set up a profile 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.119 that way, of course. And it was a pretty nifty 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.800 little site, but a O L must have thought it 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.280 was super duper nifty, as a O L shelled out 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.840 eight hundred fifty million dollars to acquire it in two 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.360 thousand eight. This, by the way, has often been cited 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.800 as one of the worst acquisitions of all time, not 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.680 because Bibo wasn't good, but because A o L didn't 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:26.560 really have any idea of what to do with it 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.520 and they spent way too much money on it. The 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.679 CEO who was responsible for that decision wasn't around for 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.359 very long, and the Bibo acquisition is one of the 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.600 reasons for their hasty departure. But A O L would 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:44.760 unload Bibo in for ten million dollars, which really doesn't 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.280 make that hundred fifty million dollar acquisition look pretty dumb 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.679 in you know, retrospect. But a couple of years after that, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.920 the company that bought Bibo from A O L itself 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.119 had to file for bankruptcy, and that husband and wife 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.840 team who started at all were able to acquire Bibo 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:05.080 for one million dollars, so they sold it for fifty million. 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.959 They bought it back for one million. Talk about a 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.320 short sell. That's amazing. Now, they tried to switch things 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.320 up again. They changed it into more of an e 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.600 sports streaming service. But then Amazon comes along, and Amazon 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.040 owns Twitch, and Amazon says, hey, we want that technology, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.440 so they purchased the tech of Bibo for twenty five 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.480 million dollars. So now you've got this husband and wife 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.160 team who were able to sell at least the technology 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.960 of their company for a big profit twice well. While 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.000 the tech went to Amazon, the couple retained the rights 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.639 to the name Bibo, and now we know that Bibo 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.520 is on the way back. Michael Burch says it will 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.280 be a live social networking tool which will tell you 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.679 which of your friends are currently online and allow for 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.879 more real time interactions between people, as opposed to the 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.719 more asynchronous approach of things like Facebook. Michael Birch has 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.359 said he's the only one coding the project right now, 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:07.040 which is both cool and bonkers. He hopes to start 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.080 sending out invites to a select group of people to 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.480 test it out by the end of the month, with 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.080 a full launch that would follow later in if things 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.119 are going well. So can Bibo make it in a 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.240 world dominated by Facebook? Or is it just doomed to 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.840 be a curiosity? I really hope it can make it, 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.600 assuming Birch is able to do some really important stuff 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.440 like make sure he can protect user data and all 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.520 that kind of thing. But who knows, maybe he'll get 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.760 a chance to sell Bibo for a third time. Our 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:42.240 next story is about gravitational wave detectors. Now gravity is 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.159 one of the four fundamental forces of our universe, the 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.040 four that we know about anyway, the other three being 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.000 the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and the 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:56.160 electromagnetic force. The force of gravity is the attraction between 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.080 two objects that have mass or energy. The magnitude of 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.640 that attractive force depends upon the relative mass and proximity 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.080 of the two objects. The bigger they are and the 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.240 closer they are together, the stronger the attraction of gravity 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.720 is between them, and it is the weakest of the 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:18.480 fundamental forces. There are gravitational waves moving through the universe 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.160 all the time, but detecting them on Earth is hard 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.800 because they are very weak, and we're talking about waves 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:30.280 that measure about Adam's nucleus in amplitude, So measuring that 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.960 is hard, and it falls into a realm of quantum 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:38.600 physics that gets real whibbly wobbly. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle plays 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.280 a role. I think I'm not really sure that was 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.200 an uncertainty joke. It it actually does play a part. 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.480 So the uncertainty principle tells us that for certain sets 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:52.600 of measurements, we can't know everything. For example, the classic 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.080 one is a particle's momentum and its position. The more 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.639 we know about one of those, the less we can 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:00.359 know about the other. So the more we know about 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:03.439 its position, the less we know about its momentum, and 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:08.240 vice versa. Now, because of this fundamental quantum effect that 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:12.080 I frankly do not really understand, there is a sort 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.600 of background noise that gravitational waves can get lost in. 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:18.840 So it's only when a wave has enough oo finite 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.520 that we can differentiate the wave from sort of background 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.879 quantum static. But physicists now say they've developed a method 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:31.080 that is six times more sensitive to gravitational waves while 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.320 still obeying the uncertainty principle. The method sacrifices the measure 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:38.360 of brightness of lasers in order to get a more 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:42.520 precise measurement than the researchers say, Well, the brightness of 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.080 the lasers is kind of not important to us at all, 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.160 so it's okay for us to sacrifice that. Now, I'm 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:50.640 going to be straight with you, All of this goes 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:53.960 way over my head. I just love that scientists can 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.359 look at fundamental limitations of our universe, you know, stuff 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:00.040 you cannot escape, and they figure out to do of 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.879 an approach that works within those limitations, which is really cool, 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:06.800 and all of this will be put to use so 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:10.440 that extremely smart people can learn more about how our 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:13.680 universe works. And I can't wait to learn more myself, 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.159 probably learning that I am incapable of understanding anything, but 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:21.280 I can tell it's really neat And moving from the 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:26.520 cosmological to the extremely terrestrial, TikTok announced that it has 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:29.320 a new warning message to put in front of videos 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:34.320 that could contain misinformation. Now, obviously, misinformation has been a 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.520 big topic of discussion recently, from the U S Election 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.760 to the pandemic. We've seen people make use of online 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.600 platforms to spread lies and misleading information that can have 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:50.320 devastating consequences. And likewise, we've seen companies like Twitter, Facebook, 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:53.320 and Google react to this in different ways and at 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:58.120 different speeds. They haven't necessarily been quick to action. Now, 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:03.320 TikTok will include a warning message saying caution video flagged 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.840 for unverified content. These are for videos that contain information 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.800 that has not been verified by fact checkers who work 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:15.280