Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? So before I talk about the news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: March seven, twenty twenty three, I want to give y'all
Speaker 1: a heads up that tomorrow a special guest host takes
Speaker 1: over the show, Bridget Todd, also known as the host
Speaker 1: of There Are No Girls on the Internet, among many
Speaker 1: other things, And I'm really excited to have y'all hear
Speaker 1: this special episode. I don't want to spoil anything, but
Speaker 1: I'm definitely looking forward to everyone getting a chance to
Speaker 1: hear it. So make sure you tune in tomorrow to
Speaker 1: get that special episode, and I'll be back on the
Speaker 1: following Thursday. But now let's get to the news for today.
Speaker 1: And first up, for a change, I really just have
Speaker 1: one story explicitly about AI today, and it's about Microsoft's
Speaker 1: incorporation of AI. This one was developed by open Ai
Speaker 1: and it has to do with Microsoft's products for enterprises
Speaker 1: for businesses. All right, So, first off, Microsoft had previously
Speaker 1: invested a billion dollars in open ai and more recently,
Speaker 1: the two organizations I've entered into a type of partnership,
Speaker 1: Though details are scarce as to the extent of that partnership,
Speaker 1: some folks estimate that the agreement has Microsoft investing ten
Speaker 1: billion dollars with open AI over the next several years. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this week, Microsoft has unveiled how it is integrating AI
Speaker 1: into suits like power Platform, which is a platform with
Speaker 1: tools for developers that kind of stuff, as well as
Speaker 1: Dynamics three sixty five, which is used for enterprise resource planning. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, these aren't not consumer facing products. You know,
Speaker 1: if you don't happen to work in these fields, you'll
Speaker 1: never really encounter them. They are meant to be tools
Speaker 1: that businesses can use to optimize processes and stuff. So
Speaker 1: the idea is that the AI will assist companies and
Speaker 1: employees to do jobs, particularly those that are highly repetitive.
Speaker 1: In other words, Microsoft's pitch is that this AI augments
Speaker 1: what you're already doing, and thus the name they picked
Speaker 1: copilot really makes sense. These tools are not intended to
Speaker 1: replace decision makers. Instead, it's supposed to make their jobs
Speaker 1: easier and less repetitive. And side note my own personal
Speaker 1: opinion is. I think Tesla could probably take notes on
Speaker 1: how Microsoft's naming approach went this way, because I think
Speaker 1: Copilot is a much more responsible naming convention than say,
Speaker 1: full self driving, when the actual technology is not full
Speaker 1: self drive. Anyway, that being said, I haven't personally had
Speaker 1: any experience using Copilot. It's really for stuff that's outside
Speaker 1: my job duties, so I can't actually comment on the
Speaker 1: quality of the tools performance, but supposed to do things
Speaker 1: like help marketing departments identify new customers. For example, let's
Speaker 1: say you've got a product or a service. Then you're
Speaker 1: doing pretty well, but you're leaving money on the table
Speaker 1: because you haven't identified people who would be really good customers.
Speaker 1: You you never reached out to them because you weren't
Speaker 1: aware of them or whatever. This tool is meant to
Speaker 1: help people identify those potential customers and then craft communications
Speaker 1: that are likely to resonate with them. That sort of thing. Further,
Speaker 1: when building, say a message to potential customers, Copilot will
Speaker 1: clearly label all the pieces of that communication that had
Speaker 1: been crafted by AI, which will give real human beings
Speaker 1: in whatever organization we're talking about a chance to review
Speaker 1: these communications to make sure that everything's accurate and appropriate,
Speaker 1: and you know, it doesn't end up just being a
Speaker 1: message that says that, you know, robots should kill all
Speaker 1: humans or something. Last week, I talked about how there's
Speaker 1: a bill in the US House of Representatives that could
Speaker 1: potentially call for the ban of TikTok. Well, the Senate,
Speaker 1: which is the other branch of the US Congress, plans
Speaker 1: to unveil a similar bill today. In both cases, the
Speaker 1: aim really does go beyond TikTok. I mean, obviously the
Speaker 1: app is a big reason for these proposals in both cases,
Speaker 1: but in neither case is it exclusively the target. So
Speaker 1: the Senate version is said to give the President of
Speaker 1: the US the authority to restrict technology from foreign countries
Speaker 1: if it's reasonable to suspect that those companies might be
Speaker 1: using the tech to compromise the US's national security. And y'all,
Speaker 1: this does get super tricky. I talked last week about
Speaker 1: how the ACLU claims that banning TikTok would amount to
Speaker 1: violating the First Amendment, which is the right to free speech,
Speaker 1: and I honestly don't know about that one way or
Speaker 1: the other. There's no doubt that as technology gets more advanced,
Speaker 1: and starts to lean heavier on stuff like cloud computing
Speaker 1: and has the potential to serve as a data gathering system.
Speaker 1: We should be concerned, In fact, we should already be
Speaker 1: concerned about this, because it's already happening all around us,
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about companies that are foreign or domestic.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is happening. That's what's going on with Meta,
Speaker 1: it's what's going on with Google. Pretty much any big
Speaker 1: tech company is doing this. But here, obviously, the concern
Speaker 1: is tech companies that are ultimately located outside the United States.
Speaker 1: From a national security perspective, I can understand that there's
Speaker 1: a fear that foreign companies could potentially pose a threat.
Speaker 1: We've already seen similar movements the US against foreign companies. So,
Speaker 1: for example, the US banned telecom companies from using tech
Speaker 1: from the Chinese company Huawei out of concern that that
Speaker 1: could be used as a massive surveillance system. So Huawei
Speaker 1: makes all sorts of networking equipment, among other things, and
Speaker 1: the fear was that if telecom companies were integrating Huawei
Speaker 1: systems within their infrastructure, that it could turn the telecommunications
Speaker 1: industry in the United States into a giant espionage service
Speaker 1: for the Chinese government. That was the fear. And you know,
Speaker 1: we in the United States would much rather the NSA
Speaker 1: do all the spying on communications within our country. Now
Speaker 1: keep an American anyway. I haven't seen the proposed bill
Speaker 1: yet because it wasn't released while I was writing this.
Speaker 1: By the time you hear it, it may have already
Speaker 1: been released. I will say that according to reports, it
Speaker 1: does have bipartisan support, and we've seen other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, like the EU, to a stronger stance against
Speaker 1: letting information flow out of a region to foreign countries
Speaker 1: without restriction. Right. The EU guards citizen data very carefully
Speaker 1: and is quick to jump on companies that don't follow
Speaker 1: the regulations within the EU, and I have long said
Speaker 1: that the United States kind of fell behind on this.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, I think this is correcting a
Speaker 1: problem that has been around for ages. And of course,
Speaker 1: if you look at China, it actually takes this whole
Speaker 1: concept to an extreme right. It doesn't just limit what
Speaker 1: goes out, it limits what comes in. You know, it
Speaker 1: limits what citizens are able to access. And see you
Speaker 1: can't even access lots of different Western based tools within China.
Speaker 1: So there's clearly a spectrum here between letting everything go
Speaker 1: flow in and flow out, everyone access everything and let
Speaker 1: everything access us, and then the extreme of China, where
Speaker 1: you take really authoritative control over what can be seen
Speaker 1: and accessed. And I don't think either extreme is good.
Speaker 1: I think you need to find someplace in the middle
Speaker 1: where things work out properly. And I honestly don't know
Speaker 1: where this Senate bill is going to fall along that spectrum.
Speaker 1: I haven't had chance to read it yet, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure i'll talk about this later on this week once
Speaker 1: we have more information, and I definitely want to see
Speaker 1: moves that will protect citizens without escalating into an issue
Speaker 1: where the United States just becomes even more isolationist and
Speaker 1: insular than we already are. Okay, do you remember Cambridge
Speaker 1: Analytica and that scandal, So essentially a political marketing company
Speaker 1: was using data that had been collected by an app developer,
Speaker 1: a Facebook app developer who had crafted a survey app
Speaker 1: for Facebook. Now, back in the days when this app
Speaker 1: was created, Facebook's API was not particularly careful about the
Speaker 1: kinds of information and app could gather, so it was
Speaker 1: possible to design an app to scoop up all sorts
Speaker 1: of data even if that information had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with whatever the app was doing. In the Cambridge Analytica case,
Speaker 1: this included getting a look at folks who hadn't even
Speaker 1: used the app themselves. And here's how it would work.
Speaker 1: Person A decides that they want to install this app
Speaker 1: and take the survey, partly because it's a paid survey,
Speaker 1: so they have an incentive, a monetary incentive to participate.
Speaker 1: So they install the app on Facebook and they take
Speaker 1: the survey. Now, persons B through Z, who happened to
Speaker 1: be friends with person A, they don't download the app.
Speaker 1: They don't install the app and take the survey. However,
Speaker 1: the app gets access to person A's views as if
Speaker 1: it were person a. So in other words, it can
Speaker 1: actually look at all the profiles of all the friends
Speaker 1: that person A has as if it were person A.
Speaker 1: So it can collect all this information on persons B
Speaker 1: through Z, even though none of them consented to have
Speaker 1: their data shared. They didn't have a say in this. Well,
Speaker 1: now Australia, nearly a decade after all this happened, is
Speaker 1: hearing a case about this. The High Court is going
Speaker 1: to hear a case that claims that as many as
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand people in Australia had their data harvested
Speaker 1: thanks to just fifty three people using the quids. Think
Speaker 1: about that, fifty three people use this app and in
Speaker 1: the process, around three hundred thousand people have their information
Speaker 1: exposed and gathered by the app developer. And further, the
Speaker 1: case claims that Facebook should be held accountable for allowing
Speaker 1: this data harvest to happen. Now, since this incident that
Speaker 1: happened nearly a decade ago, Facebook has subsequently beefed up
Speaker 1: its restrictions. Further, the company is challenging the validity of
Speaker 1: the case brought against it because at the time of
Speaker 1: the incident, Facebook says it didn't have any commercial business
Speaker 1: set up in Australia, no staff, no offices, no real
Speaker 1: means of generating revenue within the country, nothing, and that
Speaker 1: as such, the law that concerns this whole case, the
Speaker 1: law that Facebook has been alleged to have broken, would
Speaker 1: not apply because it has a prerequisite that the company
Speaker 1: that carried out that broke the law rather carried out
Speaker 1: business within Australia. So Facebook is saying, we didn't carry
Speaker 1: out business in Australia, we didn't have any offices here,
Speaker 1: we offered our platform here, but we weren't generating revenue.
Speaker 1: There was no business being done. Now, there have been
Speaker 1: lower courts that have disagreed with that conclusion, but Facebook's
Speaker 1: pushing it as part of their defense. Now, if it
Speaker 1: loses the case, the company faces a two point two
Speaker 1: million dollars fine, which for Facebook that's not that much.
Speaker 1: So even if the High Court ultimately rejects Facebook's arguments
Speaker 1: and finds the company guilty, Facebook is not going to
Speaker 1: be taking a massive hit when it's compared to its
Speaker 1: overall revenue. And speaking of Facebook slash Meta, numerous outlets
Speaker 1: like Bloomberg have reported that more layoffs are imminent at
Speaker 1: the company. So if you remember Meta downsized by thirteen
Speaker 1: percent late last year and actual numbers of employees, that's
Speaker 1: around eleven thousand people who lost their jobs. According to Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: that initial round of layoffs was really related to a
Speaker 1: reorganization effort, which largely included cutting entire teams and also
Speaker 1: managerial levels. The idea being that they wanted to flatten
Speaker 1: out the hierarchy, so they didn't want to have as
Speaker 1: many vertical levels between entry level employees and top brass.
Speaker 1: So this was like a middle management clearinghouse kind of situation. However,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg says that the upcoming layoffs will be more about
Speaker 1: financial results than a reorganization, So it's possible we'll see
Speaker 1: departments that are not heavily associated with revenue affected the most.
Speaker 1: But time will tell a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: this is going to unfold within the week or early
Speaker 1: next week, so we'll just have to keep an eye out.
Speaker 1: All right, we've got more news to cover, but first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. We're back. UDN reports that
Speaker 1: Intel has finalized its design of two nanometer and one
Speaker 1: point eight nanimeter fabrication processes. Remember a nanometer is a
Speaker 1: billion of a meter. However, when you hear these numbers,
Speaker 1: it does not actually mean that Intel is about to
Speaker 1: churn out chips that have components that measure two nanometers
Speaker 1: or one point eight nanometers in size. It's actually just
Speaker 1: a naming convention at this point. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: the numbers actually did refer to the size of the
Speaker 1: individual components on a chip, but we abandoned that several
Speaker 1: generations back. We kept the naming convention, which is odd
Speaker 1: because it's a naming convention where the numbers keep going down,
Speaker 1: but those numbers don't actually refer to the size of
Speaker 1: anything on the chip anymore. Also, I should mention that
Speaker 1: these processes have been designed but not actually built out.
Speaker 1: So in other words, Intel has come out up with
Speaker 1: the approach they're going to take, but they haven't actually
Speaker 1: created the manufacturing process itself. So we're not going to
Speaker 1: get chips right away that have these new features on them.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering why we don't go smaller anymore, really,
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, I mean, some stuff
Speaker 1: does get shrunk from generation to generation, but not as
Speaker 1: much as what the Naming Convention would have you think.
Speaker 1: And the big reason for that comes down to quantum physics.
Speaker 1: If you make components small enough, then quantum mechanics come
Speaker 1: into play and electrons will decide to do whatever the
Speaker 1: heck they want to do instead of following these careful
Speaker 1: pathways you built for them with your transistors and whatnot.
Speaker 1: That's being a little flippant, but it's also true anyway.
Speaker 1: Intel is introducing a lot of stuff all at once
Speaker 1: with the one point eight nanimeter fabrication process, also known
Speaker 1: as the eighteen A process. The A stands for Angstrom
Speaker 1: because you know, you have to go down from the
Speaker 1: nanoscale to the Angstrom scale. Intel has a new transistor
Speaker 1: design with this eighteen A approach. It is shrinking some
Speaker 1: components so some things are getting smaller, and also has
Speaker 1: added backside power delivery. And as Tom's Hardware point out,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that has been incorporated into
Speaker 1: this new design. It's a bold and potentially risky approach.
Speaker 1: So typically what Intel does is follow a pretty standard
Speaker 1: tick talk pattern, which means it comes up with a
Speaker 1: new design for chip architecture, and then it builds a
Speaker 1: chip based on that design. Then in the next generation
Speaker 1: it optimizes that design, and then after optimizing the previous design,
Speaker 1: Intel goes and makes another new design. So it goes
Speaker 1: talk tick talk, So new architecture optimization, new architecture optimization.
Speaker 1: Once upon a time, the architecture really did refer more
Speaker 1: to shrinking things down, Like you would design an architecture
Speaker 1: and then the next generation you would shrink it down.
Speaker 1: The next generation you would build a new architecture based
Speaker 1: on that new size you had reached, then you would
Speaker 1: shrink it down. That kind of thing. We're kind of
Speaker 1: beyond that at this point anyway, we're not likely to
Speaker 1: see any chips based off this new process for at
Speaker 1: least a year. Intel hopes to have it in place
Speaker 1: by early twenty twenty four. Earlier on in this episode,
Speaker 1: I talked about how Huawei has come under suspicion by
Speaker 1: the US government, which then pushed telecom companies to ditch
Speaker 1: Huawei equipment in their networks. Well, in another Huawei related story,
Speaker 1: the company recently participated as an exhibitor at the Mobile
Speaker 1: World Congress event in Spain, and visitors to Huawei's booth
Speaker 1: were given personal security badges. They had to wear them
Speaker 1: while they were in the booth, and they were meant
Speaker 1: to hand the badges back when they were ready to
Speaker 1: leave the booth. Only some folks forgot to hand the
Speaker 1: badges back and they ultimately walked off with them, and
Speaker 1: then some of them just left their badges lying around,
Speaker 1: And then of course people got a little curious and
Speaker 1: they took the badge which was on a lanyard, one
Speaker 1: of those extending lanyards where you got the little plastic
Speaker 1: clip that has the spool in site it so you
Speaker 1: can extend and retract your badge. Well, someone found out
Speaker 1: that inside that plastic clip, there was a tiny circuit board,
Speaker 1: like they popped the clip open, and besides the spool
Speaker 1: for the lanyard there was a chip, And so folks
Speaker 1: started to speculate what this circuitry could be. Was Whahwei
Speaker 1: trying to track people? So the company said, essentially yeah,
Speaker 1: because those badges were meant to track where people were
Speaker 1: going within the booth and how much time they were
Speaker 1: spending at specific parts of the booth, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: This in turn would inform Huawei about what people were
Speaker 1: most interested in. Folks were expected to hand over the
Speaker 1: badges after the end of their visit, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: like Huawei was trying to bug someone and track all
Speaker 1: their movements throughout all of Mobile World Congress. They were
Speaker 1: just really, according to what they're saying, interested in what
Speaker 1: people were doing when they were actually visiting Huawei's booth.
Speaker 1: Now there's concerned that individual badges could be connected to
Speaker 1: specific people, like if they were personalized. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they were personalized because the report I read it
Speaker 1: and go into detail, but if they were, then there's
Speaker 1: some concern about that data being linked to a specific individual.
Speaker 1: But huawehas said that they're following their privacy policy, they're
Speaker 1: going to protect that information. That that's not really what
Speaker 1: they're really focused on. They're looking at what parts of
Speaker 1: their booth design were effective and what wasn't. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: get the feeling this is a story that's more innocent
Speaker 1: than malicious. I didn't see anything to indicate that the
Speaker 1: circuitry could really do anything sinister. It looks like it's
Speaker 1: a passive RFID and Bluetooth system, so something that when
Speaker 1: it passes within range of an emitter can reflect back
Speaker 1: a response which just gives the system information of where
Speaker 1: someone is and how long they are there. It didn't
Speaker 1: look like it was capable of doing more than that
Speaker 1: to me, but that was at a casual glance based
Speaker 1: upon some photographs, and I just think that this one
Speaker 1: is probably not that big of a deal. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: think Huawei is pretty much telling the truth here. However,
Speaker 1: it does really illustrate how Huawei has a reputation associated
Speaker 1: with it. Whether that reputation is fair or not is
Speaker 1: up for debate, but I think it shows that there's
Speaker 1: this kind of cloud of suspicion that's associated with the company.
Speaker 1: In a new segment that I'd like to call y'all
Speaker 1: got to read this. I want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to Wired. Wired published a piece that's titled Inside
Speaker 1: the Suspicion Machine, and it's about governments using systems that
Speaker 1: reduce people to data points for the purposes of making
Speaker 1: really important decisions regarding those people. It opens talking about
Speaker 1: a welfare system in Europe and how such an algorithmic
Speaker 1: approach can be used by administrators of these systems to
Speaker 1: determine who is taking advantage of the system. As Wired
Speaker 1: points out, they said, it's not like it's being used
Speaker 1: to determine how much welfare a person requires, but rather
Speaker 1: how likely is it that this person is abusing the system,
Speaker 1: like it's taking an accusatory stance out of the gate. Well,
Speaker 1: this reminds me a lot about a story we covered
Speaker 1: recently about how a lot of HR leaders expect that
Speaker 1: they will at least partly be relying on AI and
Speaker 1: algorithms when it comes to making layoff decisions. So to
Speaker 1: do that, you kind of have to reduce people into
Speaker 1: a collection of data points so that an algorithmic system
Speaker 1: can actually make decisions, and compare this set of numbers
Speaker 1: against this set of numbers. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of dangers with this approach, including bias potentially leading to
Speaker 1: specific populations of people being disproportionately targeted and affected by
Speaker 1: these kinds of decisions. Now, the piece on Wired is extensive,
Speaker 1: it is thorough, it is a great read. So I
Speaker 1: recommend go check out the piece again. It's on Wired.
Speaker 1: It's titled Inside the Suspicion Machine. Also, just for the
Speaker 1: interest of full disclosure, I do not know any of
Speaker 1: the people who contributed to that article. I do not
Speaker 1: have any connection with Wired other than being a subscriber.
Speaker 1: It's just my recommendation as someone who reads a lot
Speaker 1: about tech. You know, in the early days of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: when everyone was scrambling to find ways to work in
Speaker 1: a suddenly decentralized remote approach, conference tools like Zoom really
Speaker 1: took off, followed closely by people determined to disrupt work
Speaker 1: being done through these tools. Well, we haven't emerged from
Speaker 1: the disruption stage yet because recently a meeting that was
Speaker 1: being held by the US Federal Reserve had to be
Speaker 1: canceled in process due to a stream hijacker who blasted
Speaker 1: pornographic content to the attendees of the Zoom meeting, which
Speaker 1: was like a couple hundred people. I think now you
Speaker 1: might remember there were similar stories from just a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago about people who found that they could
Speaker 1: access corporate meetings that failed to protect their links, and
Speaker 1: also that didn't use any kind of password protection. I
Speaker 1: saw a rapid adoption throughout the industry of things like
Speaker 1: protected links and passwords after that kind of happened because
Speaker 1: it was easy to do. It was pretty easy to
Speaker 1: find links that were being shared publicly, but they weren't
Speaker 1: intended to be public meetings, and then people would just
Speaker 1: crash them. So this is kind of similar to that.
Speaker 1: The Federal Reserves Brent Jarks issued an apology for the
Speaker 1: incident and committed to finding out how the hijack happened
Speaker 1: and how to prevent it from happening again. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got a couple more news stories, but before I get
Speaker 1: to those, let's take another quick break. We're back. So,
Speaker 1: Engadget has a piece about Honda's newest robot, which, unlike
Speaker 1: the Tesla Optimus robot, and unlike Honda's own retired Asimo robot,
Speaker 1: isn't humanoid. It's not built to look like a human.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have legs and arms, no, Instead, Honda's robot
Speaker 1: is actually the third generation of its autonomous work vehicle
Speaker 1: or a w V design, So it's a type of
Speaker 1: kind of self guided electric wagon. It's meant to carry
Speaker 1: payloads and has a large enough surface flat surface that
Speaker 1: can carry two pallets worth of payload, and it can
Speaker 1: support up to two thousand pounds per go. It has
Speaker 1: a top speed of around ten miles per hour. That's
Speaker 1: actually fairly darned zippy for something like this, and it
Speaker 1: reportedly can go for twenty eight miles before needing a recharge.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's under a full load. It
Speaker 1: might be less time under a full load. But this
Speaker 1: is not the first automous work vehicle, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's actually the third generation, and Honda says it is
Speaker 1: capable of working either by remote control, so you could
Speaker 1: have someone actually steering this remotely, or it can operate
Speaker 1: completely autonomously. Honda anticipates that the AWV will have utility
Speaker 1: in environments like warehouses and construction sites and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. That it's designed to also be able to
Speaker 1: travel over rough terrain, so a construction site would be fine.
Speaker 1: So Honda now is looking to form strategic partnerships with
Speaker 1: construction companies to kind of test the AWV in the
Speaker 1: real world, Like, let's actually put this thing on real
Speaker 1: construction sites and see if it ends up being a
Speaker 1: useful tool. I think that this is actually a great
Speaker 1: example of a robot the engineer build to perform a
Speaker 1: specific function with a form that supports that function. I
Speaker 1: talked about this earlier when we chatted about the Optimus
Speaker 1: robot a few episodes ago. Where building a humanoid robot
Speaker 1: is cool, like it's neat to see humanoid robots, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. They are fascinating, they are incredibly complicated.
Speaker 1: It's impressive work, but it's not always or not necessarily
Speaker 1: the best tool for the job. Sometimes it's better to
Speaker 1: design a robot that is engineered to tackle a specific
Speaker 1: task as efficiently as possible, which may not have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the human form, and then you get
Speaker 1: great results. If you try to create a humanoid robot
Speaker 1: that can do anything, often it doesn't do anything very well,
Speaker 1: Like it can do lots of different stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily performing at the top level. Whereas if you
Speaker 1: build specific purpose built robots to do a small group
Speaker 1: of tasks, you can get much better results. Typically, we're
Speaker 1: just at that stage, like humanoid robots are really complicated
Speaker 1: and difficult to pull off. So I think Honda's approach
Speaker 1: makes way more sense than companies like Tesla that are
Speaker 1: pushing this humanoid approach, at least in the near term.
Speaker 1: Maybe in the future we'll get to a point where
Speaker 1: building a humanoid robot that's really good at everything will
Speaker 1: be a relatively trivial task. But right now, just making
Speaker 1: them walk or be able to open a door and
Speaker 1: walk through without falling over is harder than it sounds. Finally,
Speaker 1: Japan's H three rocket didn't do so well this week
Speaker 1: in its first test flight. So this is a new
Speaker 1: launch vehicle that Japan's government has developed to put payloads
Speaker 1: into orbit. Competitions getting really tight when it comes to
Speaker 1: putting satellites up into space. So during its first launch,
Speaker 1: the second stage of the vehicle failed to ignite, so
Speaker 1: the administrators of Japan's space program gave the order to
Speaker 1: the vehicle for it to self destruct. The vehicle did
Speaker 1: self destruct. It came crashing down the ocean off the
Speaker 1: coast of the Philippines, and Japan says there are no
Speaker 1: reports of any injuries or damage caused by the wreckage
Speaker 1: falling to Earth. But what it was meant to do
Speaker 1: was to put a satellite called the Advanced Land Observing
Speaker 1: Satellite three into orbit, and this satellite's purpose was to
Speaker 1: monitor conditions on the ground to help the government coordinate
Speaker 1: efforts in the wake of a disaster. And it also
Speaker 1: carried some other tools for the defense ministry that would
Speaker 1: be able to detect ballistic missile launches. And that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense because if you know about Japan
Speaker 1: and North Korea, you know that North Korea will occasionally
Speaker 1: hold test launches and fire missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Speaker 1: So having a system that detects those sorts of things
Speaker 1: totally makes sense. But all of that obviously was lost
Speaker 1: because the vehicle failed to attain orbit and had to
Speaker 1: be put into self destruct mode. Numerous administrators in Japan's
Speaker 1: space agency have expressed regret over the failure and apologies
Speaker 1: for the failed launch. There are even questions about how
Speaker 1: this might affect the government's space industry moving forward, which
Speaker 1: it sounds incredible to me because, I mean, obviously any
Speaker 1: failure is regrettable. Right, you don't want to ever see
Speaker 1: a failure, but technology does fail, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: rocket science. There's a reason you say, well, that's not
Speaker 1: rocket science because rocket science is hard. It is really hard.
Speaker 1: But I think this also is tough because it follows
Speaker 1: on Japan's previous launch vehicle, the H two A, which
Speaker 1: had a reputation for being extremely reliable, had a successful
Speaker 1: launch eight of around ninety seven point eight percent. So
Speaker 1: when you're following that track record and your first launch
Speaker 1: out of the gate is a failure, I could see
Speaker 1: how this could be a real black mark on the
Speaker 1: program as a whole. So I'm not sure where Japan's
Speaker 1: gonna go based on this failure, but yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: I would cover that. And that's it for the News today, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: March twenty three. Just a reminder tomorrow we have a
Speaker 1: special episode of tech Stuff coming out, hosted by bridget
Speaker 1: Todd of There Are No Girls in the Internet. I
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing your thoughts on that show, and
Speaker 1: I'll be back on Thursday with more tech news and
Speaker 1: then it's off to Austin, Texas, where I'll be at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest. So if you see me in Austin
Speaker 1: over the weekend. You can wave. I'll probably be on
Speaker 1: my way somewhere, probably Torchi's Tacos if I'm honest, because yes,
Speaker 1: I am basic. And the taco of the month is
Speaker 1: the Rosco, which is a chicken and waffles taco, and
Speaker 1: y'all I got to get one. Okay, okay, Sorry kind
Speaker 1: of lost the thread there. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: please reach out. You can do so on Twitter. The
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