Speaker 1: Welcome to text 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? Well? We made it mostly.
Speaker 1: Now that we're creeping up to the very end of
Speaker 1: twenty two, it is time to look back over the
Speaker 1: past year and reflect on some of the big tech
Speaker 1: news stories that unfolded over the previous twelve months. And gosh,
Speaker 1: there were a ton of them. So when I started
Speaker 1: just putting together a bullet list of stories that I
Speaker 1: felt were particularly important, that list quickly stretched to a
Speaker 1: couple of pages. And this was just a bullet list, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't give like context or anything. So this week
Speaker 1: we're going to look back and talk about what happened
Speaker 1: in two and why it was important, both in the
Speaker 1: text sphere and beyond. So this is just the first
Speaker 1: of those episodes. I'm taking a little more time to
Speaker 1: kind of cover these and not just say, hey, look
Speaker 1: at this headline now before I jump into it. I
Speaker 1: also want to say I am not organizing these episodes chronologically,
Speaker 1: so it's not like we're gonna start in January and
Speaker 1: end up in December at the end of them. Instead,
Speaker 1: I grouped stories kind of thematically, so that way we can,
Speaker 1: you know, look at things that were unfolding that we're
Speaker 1: maybe not directly related to each other, but kind of
Speaker 1: give an indication of general trends that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, our first story does happen to
Speaker 1: be one that began early in two and that story
Speaker 1: is Microsoft's bid to acquire Activision Blizzard, the video game company. Now,
Speaker 1: first off, Microsoft is perhaps best known for the Windows
Speaker 1: operating system, more arguably the Office suite of products. Among gamers,
Speaker 1: it is widely known as the company behind Xbox and
Speaker 1: Xbox Game Pass, and Activision Blizzard is a video game
Speaker 1: company that traces its lineage all the way back to
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. In fact, Activision got started just four
Speaker 1: years after Microsoft launched, and that whole history is fascinating
Speaker 1: because Activision was a splinter group off of Atari. But
Speaker 1: the history of Activision Blizzard gets super complicated and has
Speaker 1: a lot of hairpin turns and dead ends, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I've done episodes about it in the past, so we
Speaker 1: won't go into a ton of detail. But then we
Speaker 1: also have to talk about Blizzard Entertainment, a much younger
Speaker 1: game company compared to Activision. It had been founded in
Speaker 1: nine and Activision acquired Blizzard in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and the consolidated power of these companies allowed it to
Speaker 1: perform quite well. In fact, depending upon how you want
Speaker 1: to measure it, Activision Blizzard is one of the top
Speaker 1: five largest video game companies in the world. But again
Speaker 1: this depends on how you measure largest, right. Do you
Speaker 1: measure it by revenue? Do you measure it by market capitalization?
Speaker 1: But no matter how you look at it, Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: is a very big, influential company in the video game space. Now,
Speaker 1: we first heard of Microsoft's plan to purchase Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: in mid January twenty two. Microsoft's offer was to buy
Speaker 1: out Activision Blizzard for nine dollars per share in an
Speaker 1: all cash transaction, and that would amount to around sixty
Speaker 1: eight point seven billion dollars billion with a B. That's
Speaker 1: a yawlsa right there. This was actually a hefty premium
Speaker 1: on Activision Blizzard stock, which over the last year hit
Speaker 1: a high of eighty six dollars ninety cents and a
Speaker 1: low of sixty dollars sixty cents, so bucks per share
Speaker 1: pretty attractive price, right, So you tell shareholders, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna pay you a premium on every single share you own.
Speaker 1: You just have to less know if you're cool with it.
Speaker 1: And the shareholders were like, we're totally cool with it.
Speaker 1: But let's get a little more backstory, because this whole
Speaker 1: thing has a lot of complications. So first up, in
Speaker 1: one last year, several former and some current employees at
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard came forward with accusations that the company was
Speaker 1: fostering a culture that allowed for sexual harassment, pay disparity,
Speaker 1: and discrimination. Further, that the CEO of the company, Bobby Codek,
Speaker 1: had been aware of these problems for years and had
Speaker 1: failed to do anything about them. We heard many stories
Speaker 1: that were familiar to anyone who was paying attention during
Speaker 1: the Me too movement that the company's HR department was
Speaker 1: serving more as a shield for the company than as
Speaker 1: a department looking out for employees. That's something that the
Speaker 1: more cynical folks out there will say is the real
Speaker 1: reason HR exists in the first place, not to protect employees,
Speaker 1: but to protect the company. Now in retrospect, it was
Speaker 1: clear that this Microsoft deal was moving behind the scenes
Speaker 1: while this Activision Blizzard scandal story was unfolding back in
Speaker 1: but while the scandal was unfolding, folks were wondering why
Speaker 1: the company was being so reluctant to address the concerns
Speaker 1: that were being brought forth. Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard was also
Speaker 1: accused of trying to discourage employees from unionizing. There were
Speaker 1: pockets of employees in the company who wanted to organize
Speaker 1: into a union and in order to negotiate better working
Speaker 1: conditions and compensation. It's illegal in the United States for
Speaker 1: a company to try and prevent that from happening, so
Speaker 1: that was also unfolding at the time. Microsoft's announcement was
Speaker 1: a bit of a relief for some people. The reaction
Speaker 1: among certain folks was that Microsoft was probably going to
Speaker 1: clean house if it took possession of Activision Blizzard, that
Speaker 1: it would do what the leadership at Activision Blizzard had
Speaker 1: seemed reluctant to do. But others worried that this would
Speaker 1: just mean employees would have an even harder time organizing
Speaker 1: because Microsoft was not exactly known for championing the rights
Speaker 1: of workers. And then there were questions about whether or
Speaker 1: not various regulatory bodies around the world would resist this acquisition.
Speaker 1: After all, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are both involved in
Speaker 1: the video game business, and you could argue, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just one part of Microsoft's overall business. It's not
Speaker 1: their primary foecus. But it's still a major company in
Speaker 1: the video game industry. So would regulators view the acquisition
Speaker 1: as a reduction in overall competition within the market? Would
Speaker 1: they worry that this newly merged entity would end up
Speaker 1: hurting consumers down the line and discouraging competition. Now, over
Speaker 1: the course of these concerns started bubbling up. Now he
Speaker 1: first really started seeing some resistance in the European Union.
Speaker 1: There were reports that Sony, another big player in the
Speaker 1: video game space, was bending the ear of regulators in
Speaker 1: the EU and the UK. That there were concerns that
Speaker 1: these merged companies would hold certain popular titles like Call
Speaker 1: of Duty and not publish them to Sony's PlayStation platform. Now,
Speaker 1: Microsoft representatives said repeatedly that there were no such plans
Speaker 1: to withhold titles from Sony players. They were arguing that
Speaker 1: if they were to do that, they would be leaving
Speaker 1: money on the table and that it would make no
Speaker 1: sense financially to prevent them from going to to the PlayStation.
Speaker 1: But then over here in the United States, the Federal
Speaker 1: Trade Commission or f TC, got involved. It has brought
Speaker 1: a case against Microsoft an Activision Blizzard to prevent the merger,
Speaker 1: and the analysts that I follow say that the cases,
Speaker 1: in their opinion, a fairly weak one, that while Microsoft
Speaker 1: and Activision Blizzard our competitors, that this merger does not
Speaker 1: necessarily indicate a reduction in competition for the overall market.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that the general consensus is this
Speaker 1: deal will go through, but it will take longer than
Speaker 1: what Microsoft had hoped for originally. Now I say it
Speaker 1: seems because I just don't know. It may very well
Speaker 1: be that Microsoft will abandon its deal because on a
Speaker 1: similar note, this past year we saw one proposed merger
Speaker 1: fall through in the tech space due to regulatory obstruction.
Speaker 1: In Video, the chip making company that's best known for
Speaker 1: its graphics processing cards, had announced way back in that
Speaker 1: it intended to purchase the British semiconductor company ARM, best
Speaker 1: known as the company that designs arms CPUs. So what
Speaker 1: ARM usually does is it designs the CPU architecture and
Speaker 1: then license that design out to fabricators that actually make
Speaker 1: the chips well. Way back in a Japanese conglomerate, soft Bank,
Speaker 1: which is a truly enormous company, purchased ARM for lots
Speaker 1: and lots of money, like many billions of dollars. So
Speaker 1: in Nvidia was going to buy ARM from soft Bank
Speaker 1: for forty billion dollars, pending regulatory approval. That approval did
Speaker 1: not come. UK regulators were concerned that ARMS operations are
Speaker 1: a matter of national security. Keep in mind, ARM is
Speaker 1: a British company. Obviously, this is already complicated by the
Speaker 1: fact that ARMS current owner is a Japanese company, so
Speaker 1: it's interesting that national security became a big concern for
Speaker 1: this particular transaction. Uh I will say that soft Bank
Speaker 1: reportedly is preparing ARM for a public offering next year,
Speaker 1: so in other words, ARM will again become a a
Speaker 1: traded company on the stock market like it was before
Speaker 1: soft Bank took possession of the company back in. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: companies that rely on ARM processors, which include competitors to
Speaker 1: in Vidia, we're worried that in Video's acquisition of ARM
Speaker 1: means that they would get cut off from access to
Speaker 1: those ARM processors, or that they would see a big
Speaker 1: price hike, and thus this would be bad for competition.
Speaker 1: So those companies were objecting to this proposed merger, and
Speaker 1: the myriad of concerns from different sources ultimately led to
Speaker 1: Nvidia and ARM walking away from this deal that happened
Speaker 1: way back in February twenty two. By my reckoning, that
Speaker 1: was fifty years ago. It might just feel like that now.
Speaker 1: Some may point to this failed merger as one of
Speaker 1: the signs that the world in general is starting to
Speaker 1: push back against big tech, and I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: more about that in just a second. But the Nvidia
Speaker 1: and ARM deal had a lot of complicating and unique factors,
Speaker 1: from concerns about competition to that national security angle, which
Speaker 1: you know most mergers in tech don't involve. And then
Speaker 1: there was a further monkey wrench thrown into the works
Speaker 1: in the form of a Chinese subsidiary of ARM, Armed
Speaker 1: China that really did not want to see the parent
Speaker 1: company change hands to an American owner. So you actually
Speaker 1: had a part of ARM itself that was objecting to
Speaker 1: this merger. So, in other words, this Nvidio ARM deal
Speaker 1: had a lot of factors that I don't think translate
Speaker 1: to the industry at large. They were unique for that
Speaker 1: specific set of circumstances. But all that being said, twenty
Speaker 1: two undeniably was a year in which we saw growing
Speaker 1: scrutiny and resistance to so called big tech around the world.
Speaker 1: By the way, big tech that's just a phrase that
Speaker 1: refers to obviously the largest, most influential companies within the
Speaker 1: tech space. And sometimes people who use big tech are
Speaker 1: really being more precise in that they're being imprecise in
Speaker 1: their language, but they're specifically referencing four or five companies,
Speaker 1: in particular Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, and if they're referring
Speaker 1: to five, they throw Microsoft in there too. But big
Speaker 1: tech can also refer to other influential companies like Nvidia,
Speaker 1: or Oracle, or or ten Cent or Intel, those kind
Speaker 1: of things. So when you read the phrase big tech,
Speaker 1: just keep in mind a lot of journalists use that
Speaker 1: as shorthand for those five companies I first mentioned. Others
Speaker 1: will use it to just reference big, powerful, influential tech
Speaker 1: companies in general. And here in the United States we
Speaker 1: saw some progressives but into positions of authority with regard
Speaker 1: to ensuring that markets stay fair and competitive, which was
Speaker 1: a real change of pace from the last I don't know,
Speaker 1: like forty years. So they include Lena Kahn, who is
Speaker 1: the chair of the Federal Trade Commission or f TC,
Speaker 1: so she's the one leading the US charge against Microsoft
Speaker 1: and the Activision Blizzard merger. And there's also Jonathan Canter,
Speaker 1: who leads the Antitrust Division at the Justice Department. Figures
Speaker 1: like these are starting to throw roadblocks in the way
Speaker 1: of large tech companies which have long been used to
Speaker 1: being able to get their own way. For example Meta.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk way more about Meta later
Speaker 1: on in this series of episodes about the big stories
Speaker 1: of two, but within this context, regulators have moved to
Speaker 1: block Meta from acquiring a tiny little VR company called
Speaker 1: Within Unlimited and it's fitness app called Supernatural. They're saying
Speaker 1: that because the VR industry in general is a pretty
Speaker 1: small one, there are not that many players in the
Speaker 1: VR space, that Meta acquiring another VR company reduces competition
Speaker 1: in that space, and that this would be bad for
Speaker 1: VR moving forward. If VR and Meta becomes synonymous with
Speaker 1: one another, that could mean a reduction in competition and innovation,
Speaker 1: and that's a bad thing. Now, we've also heard politicians
Speaker 1: float the idea of forcing Meta to break up into
Speaker 1: smaller companies, similar to how the US government broke up
Speaker 1: a T and T many years ago. Though I should
Speaker 1: point out a T and T kind of recombined over
Speaker 1: the years, like Terminator one thousand style, like all those
Speaker 1: little drops of mercury. So we'll see if that happens. Okay,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot more to talk about with this
Speaker 1: line of tech stories from two, but before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. We're back, Okay. So we
Speaker 1: were talking about regulations and the tech industry and sort
Speaker 1: of a pushback on big tech. Well we really saw
Speaker 1: that take form over the European Union. Uh, they have
Speaker 1: been pushing back against big tech quite a bit this year,
Speaker 1: including Meta. At the end of this year, in two,
Speaker 1: a story that's unfolding as I'm recording this, the European
Speaker 1: Commission launched an antitrust investigation into Meta, specifically over how
Speaker 1: the company handles classified ads on Facebook. So the regulators
Speaker 1: are arguing that Meta gives preferential treatment to its own
Speaker 1: Facebook marketplace classified ads over other types of classified ads
Speaker 1: that could be posted to Facebook. This aligns with a
Speaker 1: similar case against Meta brought by the Competition and Markets Authority,
Speaker 1: which is the regulatory authority in the UK. Similarly, we
Speaker 1: saw more arguments against Apple and also Google's policies of
Speaker 1: taking a cut of all in app purchases made in
Speaker 1: iOS or Android apps, respectively. Now Apple tends to get
Speaker 1: a lot more focus about this, perhaps because until very recently,
Speaker 1: the company was strictly focused on only allowing users to
Speaker 1: download apps through the official Apple App Store, whereas Google
Speaker 1: via Android has allowed sideloading since the very beginning. Uh
Speaker 1: Android sideloading is when you are able to load an
Speaker 1: app that's not in the official app store, and while
Speaker 1: Google makes it possible, the company does warn users that
Speaker 1: this particular ability could lead to problems because you might
Speaker 1: end up downloading an app that is malicious, so there
Speaker 1: are risks involved. But Google says, hey, you're adults, you
Speaker 1: can make these decisions for yourself. Apple says, you know what,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's good for you. We're going to
Speaker 1: prevent that from happening, so you can only get them
Speaker 1: through the app store there too. I'm being a little
Speaker 1: facetious with this, but they are These are two fundamentally
Speaker 1: different approaches to how you allow your customers to get
Speaker 1: access to apps to run your devices. Apple wants a
Speaker 1: much more con trold ecosystem that's not likely to run
Speaker 1: a foul of Apple's other policies and procedures. So at
Speaker 1: the end of two we learned that Apple is now
Speaker 1: preparing to change this policy. It's going to open up
Speaker 1: iOS devices to third party app stores in order to
Speaker 1: be compliant with EUS Digital Markets Act, which I'll talk
Speaker 1: about later in this episode. So this is not going
Speaker 1: to happen immediately, but it should become a reality next year,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing because this particular EU requirement
Speaker 1: will go into effect in T four. Now, you might
Speaker 1: remember that this issue really made headlines. The issue of
Speaker 1: in app payments really made headlines when Epic Games, the
Speaker 1: company behind the massively popular title Fortnite, attempted to circumvent
Speaker 1: Apple's ecosystem by allowing players who play Fortnite on iOS
Speaker 1: devices to kind of have a work around so that
Speaker 1: they can make purchases within the game, but not through
Speaker 1: Apple's official in app payment system. This was back in
Speaker 1: and then you had this massive battle between Apple and
Speaker 1: Epic that stretched into several court cases and lasted more
Speaker 1: than a year. Neither side was totally victorious by the
Speaker 1: end of it, but it's snowballed in. Over the last
Speaker 1: two years, we've seen growing resistance to this in app
Speaker 1: payment policy, though apparently it was news to Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: as he made a big stink over it while pushing
Speaker 1: Twitter's subscription tier Twitter Blue. But we'll talk way more
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk and Twitter in another episode, not this one.
Speaker 1: I just don't have it in me. Plus, there's an
Speaker 1: ongoing story that is unfolding as I'm recording these, so
Speaker 1: I kind of want to see how it turns out anyway.
Speaker 1: To be clear, the issue isn't so much that Apple
Speaker 1: and Google take a cut of every in app transaction.
Speaker 1: That's not really the problem. I mean payment processors as
Speaker 1: a rule take a cut of every transaction. That's how
Speaker 1: they make money. The problem is that Apple and Google
Speaker 1: prevent any alternative in app payment systems on their platforms.
Speaker 1: So the argument is that when there are no alternatives,
Speaker 1: there's no competition. And Apple tried to kind of be
Speaker 1: a little cheeky about this earlier this year and allowed
Speaker 1: some third party payment systems for certain types of apps,
Speaker 1: but they also charged a premium for merchants to use
Speaker 1: these alternatives. So that meant that the app developer would
Speaker 1: actually see even more money diverted away from them and
Speaker 1: to the payment processor and to Apple, and would receive
Speaker 1: even less of every single transaction if they went with
Speaker 1: an alternative to Apples in app payment system. And you
Speaker 1: can bet that move did not go over well. Everyone
Speaker 1: said like, hey, we totally see what you're doing. Apple,
Speaker 1: cut it out now. It will be interesting to see
Speaker 1: how these stories unfold next year. The EU and the
Speaker 1: UK in particular are taking a really tough stance. The
Speaker 1: US also is, but the US has had, like I said,
Speaker 1: decades of being very hands off, very uh almost lassa
Speaker 1: fair about how how companies have been able to conduct
Speaker 1: themselves and to consolidate. So this is like trying to
Speaker 1: act against a lot of momentum that had been building
Speaker 1: up for for years and years and years. In the
Speaker 1: United States, it's a little different here all right. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Use Digital Services Act and the
Speaker 1: Digital Markets Act. These are two pieces of legislation that
Speaker 1: are shaking things up for tech in general, and both
Speaker 1: of them were put into effect this year, or at
Speaker 1: least enacted this year. The the actual rules end up
Speaker 1: having kind of a rolling effect on when they come
Speaker 1: into full power, so there will be time for the
Speaker 1: tech industry to comply with all the different rules. The
Speaker 1: European Commission to the European Parliament proposed both of legislation
Speaker 1: way back in December, so it wasn't until this year
Speaker 1: that they were both passed into law after receiving lots
Speaker 1: of revisions and tweaks and whatnot. Now, in both cases,
Speaker 1: the acts helped bring into alignment the laws that the
Speaker 1: various member countries of the European Union have had in
Speaker 1: place relating to specific Internet matters. So what the heck
Speaker 1: did these laws say? Well, the Digital Services Act or
Speaker 1: d s A is primarily focused on illegal content on
Speaker 1: the Internet and IT and related issues like content moderation policies.
Speaker 1: Now there are some policies that are going to sound
Speaker 1: very familiar to my fellow Americans. At least, my fellow
Speaker 1: Americans are up to speed on concepts like safe Harbor
Speaker 1: and section to thirty of the Communications Decency Act, namely
Speaker 1: that a platform or an intermediary as the EU calls them,
Speaker 1: is not liable for the content that users post to
Speaker 1: that platform, meaning a platform is not to be held
Speaker 1: as the responsible party for a user posting something illegal
Speaker 1: to that platform. So, for example, if I were to
Speaker 1: post illegal drug information like maybe I'm trying to sell
Speaker 1: drugs on Facebook, and I post that to Facebook in
Speaker 1: the EU, and it's against the law that Facebook would
Speaker 1: not be held accountable for the fact that I did that,
Speaker 1: except that this protection does have strict limits. Namely, once
Speaker 1: a platform becomes aware of the illegal material, it has
Speaker 1: to act to remove that material. Failure to act means
Speaker 1: the platform will be held responsible for allowing the illegal
Speaker 1: material to stay up online and they can face some
Speaker 1: really hefty fines like ten of their overall revenue in
Speaker 1: the EU. That's massive. So also, because the EU is
Speaker 1: applying these rules to sites and services that have more
Speaker 1: than forty five million EU users, it's pretty clear that
Speaker 1: regulators are really aiming this at big tech. This is
Speaker 1: a more strict stance than what we see here in
Speaker 1: the US with Section to thirty of the Communications Decency Act.
Speaker 1: The Digital Services Act also aims to strip away the
Speaker 1: mystery behind how sites and services like Facebook and TikTok
Speaker 1: and YouTube work algorithmically. So essentially, the d s A
Speaker 1: says companies have to be able to explain how their
Speaker 1: recommendation algorithms work and and to do so, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond just hey, it just suggests things that things you'll like.
Speaker 1: So they have to explain how the algorithms pick and
Speaker 1: choose what contents is served up to users. They also
Speaker 1: have to be clear on how the company decides what
Speaker 1: content to remove and when to remove it. So for
Speaker 1: companies that have policies they will remove certain types of material,
Speaker 1: they have to be very transparent in how they make
Speaker 1: these determinations. The d s A requires companies to explain
Speaker 1: how they match advertisers to users, you know, and what
Speaker 1: goes into targeted advertising, what kind of data gets pulled
Speaker 1: and used for that purpose. Now, considering the e use
Speaker 1: protective stance around citizen data in the European Union, I
Speaker 1: suspect that last bit is going to end up shaking
Speaker 1: things up considerably for companies that depend heavily on ad
Speaker 1: revenue like Meta and Google. All right, well, let's switch
Speaker 1: over to the Digital Markets Act or d m A.
Speaker 1: So while the d s A is focused on illegal
Speaker 1: content online, the d m A aims to make e
Speaker 1: commerce more fair and equitable. As such, it is aimed
Speaker 1: to encourage competition and to prevent monopolies and anti competitive practices.
Speaker 1: So the goal of the d m A is to
Speaker 1: put a check on big text so that the larger,
Speaker 1: morris ablished companies can't just push around, or gobble up
Speaker 1: or stamp out smaller companies. Now, considering that several tech
Speaker 1: companies got to where they are largely through numerous acquisitions,
Speaker 1: this could also be a huge blow to certain corporations
Speaker 1: out there. Uh. If you were to search any of
Speaker 1: the Big Tech five and include the word acquisitions or mergers,
Speaker 1: you'd probably end up with a pretty lengthy list. Over
Speaker 1: the years, Meta in particular has a reputation for acquiring
Speaker 1: companies that would otherwise pull attention away from metas platforms.
Speaker 1: The company is known for either buying up potential competitors
Speaker 1: or attempting to copy them in an effort to minimize
Speaker 1: their ability to pull Meta users away to other platforms.
Speaker 1: It is, by no means the only company to follow
Speaker 1: this philosophy, I should add, it's just notorious for doing it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious that Meta is in the crosshairs in
Speaker 1: particular with the d m A. One of the acts
Speaker 1: measures is to make it illegal for any company that
Speaker 1: owns more than one platform from combining data from the
Speaker 1: two or more platforms about the same users. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, if you're Meta and you have users on
Speaker 1: Facebook and on Instagram and they live in the EU,
Speaker 1: you cannot take the data of those users from Facebook
Speaker 1: and the data from those users on Instagram and combine
Speaker 1: them into one big database of information about those specific people. Right.
Speaker 1: You can't combine these sources, and it's likely going to
Speaker 1: cause some technical challenges for some of these companies, which
Speaker 1: presumably have kind of developed into being an enormous data funnel,
Speaker 1: just gobbling up all the information from every outlet and
Speaker 1: combining it into like a a tasty data stew. The
Speaker 1: d m A concerns itself with gatekeepers. These are tech
Speaker 1: company that dominate in one or more areas within the
Speaker 1: tech industry in general. So, for example, Google is indisputably
Speaker 1: the dominant force in Internet search, and as such it
Speaker 1: is a gatekeeper in that respect. Apple is a gatekeeper
Speaker 1: for payment services on iOS. Meta is a gatekeeper for
Speaker 1: social networking. These are the kind of ideas Amazon also
Speaker 1: big gatekeeper for online shopping. So the d m A
Speaker 1: says it is against the rules for any gatekeeper in
Speaker 1: whichever realm of tech they're looking at, to give its
Speaker 1: own services preferential treatment over competitors. Amazon has been accused
Speaker 1: of doing this sort of thing in multiple places around
Speaker 1: the world, in India here in the United States. So
Speaker 1: the accusation is that Amazon tends to promote Amazon owned
Speaker 1: or Amazon affiliated brands over the belonging to competitors. So
Speaker 1: the d m A is saying, hey, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: That's not fair. It would be kind of like if
Speaker 1: you were to go into a grocery store and all
Speaker 1: the store owned products are prominently displayed and they're easy
Speaker 1: to reach, and then all the other brands from anyone
Speaker 1: else are tucked out of the way and they're like
Speaker 1: place really high up on the shelves or whatever. That's
Speaker 1: an unfair practice, and that's what the d m A
Speaker 1: is looking to prevent in the future. The d m
Speaker 1: A and the d s A have a lot more
Speaker 1: in them, but I am probably gonna do full episodes
Speaker 1: about each of them. The important thing for this episode
Speaker 1: is that these two massive pieces of legislation unify the
Speaker 1: use approach to online content and business, and they send
Speaker 1: a message to the big tech companies that they aren't
Speaker 1: going to have quite as much freedom to do whatever
Speaker 1: they please moving forward. Okay, still got some more stories
Speaker 1: to cover before we conclude this particular episode, But first
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. We're back, and you know what,
Speaker 1: We're still going to talk about the EU. But now
Speaker 1: let's talk about another measure that has forced one of
Speaker 1: the big tech companies to make some pretty significant changes
Speaker 1: in the near future. The European Parliament passed a measure
Speaker 1: that will require all mobile devices, including phones and cameras
Speaker 1: and things like that, to adopt the us B C
Speaker 1: charging port by the end of so In other words,
Speaker 1: if you make a mobile device and you want to
Speaker 1: sell it in the EU, it has to have a
Speaker 1: USBC charging port equipped by It's also going to apply
Speaker 1: to laptop computers. Now, this law passed by overwhelming majority,
Speaker 1: her six hundred and two votes in favor of the measure.
Speaker 1: There were only thirteen votes against it, and then there
Speaker 1: were eight members that abstained from the voting. And this
Speaker 1: measure means that one company in particular has to make
Speaker 1: a big change. In that company is Apple. Now, Apple
Speaker 1: has long leaned on proprietary charging ports and cables for
Speaker 1: many of its products since Apple iPhones as well as
Speaker 1: several other Apple products have used what Apple calls the
Speaker 1: lightning connector. By using a proprietary approach, Apple could achieve
Speaker 1: a few goals. For one, the company could actually design
Speaker 1: ports and cables that had features that the USB standard
Speaker 1: didn't at the time anyway, So that includes the ability
Speaker 1: to plug a lightning cable into a charging port in
Speaker 1: either direction. In other words, there's no right side up
Speaker 1: or anything like that. That's a good thing for consumers.
Speaker 1: It makes it easier to use the the cables. I
Speaker 1: don't know how many times I've had like a USB
Speaker 1: micro or USB Mini cable and I spent the first
Speaker 1: minute trying to figure out if I was trying to
Speaker 1: plug it in upside down or not. So, yeah, plugging
Speaker 1: an older USB cables can be kind of a pain.
Speaker 1: So this was a good thing. But Apple had other
Speaker 1: reasons for doing this approach. Whether we're a lot more
Speaker 1: self serving. So a proprietary approach gives Apple more control
Speaker 1: over the supply chain, right and any company that wanted
Speaker 1: to make its own lightning cables would have to pay
Speaker 1: Apple a licensing fee in order to do it, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, locking down the ecosystem created revenue streams
Speaker 1: for Apple. You couldn't just go and buy a generic
Speaker 1: lightning cable and Apple gets no cut. Apple would get
Speaker 1: a cut no matter what, whether it came from Apple
Speaker 1: or it came from a company that was paying a
Speaker 1: licensing fee to Apple. Now it might be more convenient
Speaker 1: for Apple users if their tech worked with industry standard cables,
Speaker 1: right like if it worked with the same cables that
Speaker 1: everything else works with. But that would mean Apple would
Speaker 1: be leaving money on the table. So Apple had resisted
Speaker 1: this for quite some time. Let the use regulations now
Speaker 1: require Apple to play ball. The EU regulators said that
Speaker 1: by adopting the standard, there will be a reduction of
Speaker 1: E waste. People won't need to keep different incompatible cables
Speaker 1: in like a junk drawer, and then when one cable
Speaker 1: wears out, they have to go and hunt for the
Speaker 1: right one in order to have a replacement. Now they'll
Speaker 1: be able to grab any USBC cable they happen to have,
Speaker 1: and that will work just fine. Apple has said that
Speaker 1: forcing the company to adopt the standard is going to
Speaker 1: hurt consumers, But I don't think that very many people
Speaker 1: took those arguments seriously. And so Apple looks like it's
Speaker 1: going to conform to the US wishes, which also means
Speaker 1: that we will likely see the same thing happen worldwide,
Speaker 1: though who knows. Maybe Apple will try to keep two
Speaker 1: separate line some products going where it keeps the lightning
Speaker 1: port everywhere else and it just does USBC for the EU.
Speaker 1: We'll have to see. I don't think that would happen,
Speaker 1: just because I would imagine that that really complicates the
Speaker 1: supply chain and the manufacturing process, and it's just easier
Speaker 1: to adopt it worldwide. But we'll have to see. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about another technological battle between government agencies and
Speaker 1: industries and tech companies. And this time, really we're looking
Speaker 1: at two tech industries that are in a battle with
Speaker 1: one another. That would be the telecommunications industry and the
Speaker 1: aviation industry. So the United States Federal Aviation Administration or
Speaker 1: f a A is involved in this as well. Now,
Speaker 1: this all has to do with five G wireless communication,
Speaker 1: and this requires a bit of explanation. First of all,
Speaker 1: let's demystify five G for a second. It's very easy
Speaker 1: to refer to five G as being this super fast
Speaker 1: wireless internet connectivity solution, but really that's kind of misleading.
Speaker 1: For one thing, we're not so much talking about data speed,
Speaker 1: we're talking about bandwidth. So in other words, it's not
Speaker 1: how fast the zeros and ones are zooming around. Rather,
Speaker 1: it's how many zeros and ones can zoom around at
Speaker 1: the same time and be accepted by your device or
Speaker 1: sent from your device. There's also the matter of latency,
Speaker 1: that's the delay between an action and its reaction. Now,
Speaker 1: you want latency to be really low for certain operations. Actually,
Speaker 1: really you typically want latency to be low for everything
Speaker 1: because we've really grown impatient. We hate watching delays. But
Speaker 1: some operations low latency is absolutely critical, and one of
Speaker 1: five G s promises is a reduction in latency. But
Speaker 1: five G itself actually comes in a few different flavors.
Speaker 1: To be more accurate, there are a few different frequency
Speaker 1: bands within the electromagnetic spectrum that are called five G,
Speaker 1: and at the lower frequencies, five G isn't super duper fast,
Speaker 1: or rather doesn't have this enormous bandwidth, but it can
Speaker 1: work over long distances, has a longer transmission range. Not
Speaker 1: the highest of five GS frequencies. You've got incredible bandwidth,
Speaker 1: but you have a very short range of transmission. Plus
Speaker 1: at the very high frequencies, the waves have trouble penetrating
Speaker 1: solid surfaces. So if there happens to be a wall
Speaker 1: or a ceiling or something like that between you and
Speaker 1: the transmitter, you're not going to be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: those fibro light connections on your device through that particular transmitter. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason I say all this is because the marketing
Speaker 1: of five G can leave out some of these details,
Speaker 1: and so the basic consumer might expect to have an
Speaker 1: incredible wireless connection on their five G device, but in reality,
Speaker 1: when they actually use their device, they find the speed
Speaker 1: that they're enjoying isn't necessarily that much more impressive than
Speaker 1: what they had with LTE. But anyway, not all five
Speaker 1: G is equal. That's kind of what I'm getting at now.
Speaker 1: The bit about five G that's important for this story
Speaker 1: is that high power, high frequency five G has the
Speaker 1: potential to interfere with specific older aviation equipment, in particular
Speaker 1: radio altimeters. These are used by aircraft to determine altitude,
Speaker 1: in other words, how far from the ground the plane is,
Speaker 1: and as you can imagine, that data is pretty darn important,
Speaker 1: particularly for takeoffs and landings in low visibility situations specifically,
Speaker 1: so pilots kind of need to know how close they
Speaker 1: are to the ground in those situations. So then you
Speaker 1: have the us f a A, which is looking out
Speaker 1: for airlines and airports and such, essentially looking up for
Speaker 1: the aviation industry. Then on the other side, you had
Speaker 1: the telecommunications companies like A, T and T and Verizon.
Speaker 1: They were looking to expand five G C band services
Speaker 1: across the country, including in areas that are around airports,
Speaker 1: and that's where you get our initial conflict. You had
Speaker 1: the telecommunications companies that were looking to tap into more
Speaker 1: customers selling them five G services, and you had the
Speaker 1: airline industry concerned that these services could potentially interfere in
Speaker 1: aircraft operations. Now, the solution to this problem is actually
Speaker 1: fairly straightforward. Aircraft need a retrofit to shield radio altimeters
Speaker 1: from five G interference. Essentially, they need to swap out apart.
Speaker 1: They need the old radio altimeters to be pulled out
Speaker 1: and new and improved radio altimeters that are resist sent
Speaker 1: to this kind of interference to be installed. That's the solution.
Speaker 1: So it's literally about updating equipment to avoid the problem.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. That equipment is wicked expensive. We're
Speaker 1: talking like twenty grand per instance. And then when you
Speaker 1: think about the fleets of aircraft across different airlines or
Speaker 1: the number of aircraft that specific companies like Boeing sell,
Speaker 1: that mounts up really quickly. So there was another matter
Speaker 1: that needed to be settled. Who is going to pay
Speaker 1: for it? Now? As you can imagine, neither the aviation
Speaker 1: industry nor the telecommunications industry wanted to be responsible for
Speaker 1: holding the bag when it came time to pay for
Speaker 1: these upgrades. The telecommunications industry was like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: your technology, it's your responsibility to do the upgrades. The
Speaker 1: aviation industry was like, hey, we wouldn't need to upgrade
Speaker 1: if you didn't start blasting interference near airports, so you
Speaker 1: should pay for the changes and early. That's what this
Speaker 1: mostly boiled down to. So there was this kind of
Speaker 1: standoff between the telecommunications companies that were putting into place
Speaker 1: plans to launch these five G services around airports, and
Speaker 1: then you had the aviation industry that was saying, hey,
Speaker 1: if you do that, you're going to cause delays and worse,
Speaker 1: and it will be on your head. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like they were playing chicken with each other, and
Speaker 1: once you understood what was going on, it got a
Speaker 1: little frustrating. In January of twenty two, the telecommunications companies
Speaker 1: reduced the transmission power of five G towers that were
Speaker 1: near certain very busy airports in the United States. This
Speaker 1: was a concession to avoid safety problems, particularly in low
Speaker 1: visibility situations. While everyone started to work on a more
Speaker 1: permanent solution, the deployment of five G around airports in
Speaker 1: certain markets has been on hold in the meantime. This
Speaker 1: also has an impact on some populations that typically are
Speaker 1: underserved or sometimes unserved, because a lot of the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: around airports tend to be for you know, lower income
Speaker 1: areas of cities, and so part of the argument is
Speaker 1: that by delaying this, it is hurting those populations who
Speaker 1: don't have access to the technology they need in order
Speaker 1: to be connected productive members of society, which, you know,
Speaker 1: there's some validity to that argument. Things are supposed to
Speaker 1: be on track next year, because that's when A. T
Speaker 1: and T and Verizon are gonna lift their self imposed
Speaker 1: restrictions that they've placed on themselves in order to you know,
Speaker 1: comply with the needs of the aviation industry, but recently
Speaker 1: Boeing asked federal regulators to delay that to to essentially
Speaker 1: force A ten too and Verizon to hold off on
Speaker 1: rolling those technologies out because they still need more time
Speaker 1: to upgrade systems on planes to make sure that they
Speaker 1: are resistant to five G interference. So this is an
Speaker 1: ongoing struggle. Interestingly, meanwhile, in the EU, there are plans
Speaker 1: to allow passengers to use five G devices while they're
Speaker 1: actually on a flight. So here in the States the
Speaker 1: issue involves five G cell towers near airports. Like, we're
Speaker 1: not even talking about people in airplanes right now, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the actual physical infrastructure around airports. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: the EU, next year, passengers will be able to use
Speaker 1: their cellular phones while flying through the air. And you
Speaker 1: might wonder what makes it safe to do that in
Speaker 1: the EU, But it's unsafe in the United States. And
Speaker 1: a big part of that hearkens back to what I
Speaker 1: said earlier about there being different flavors of five G
Speaker 1: in the United States. The matter is about the so
Speaker 1: called C band of five G frequencies, these higher frequency,
Speaker 1: higher power UH transmissions than what you find in the EU.
Speaker 1: The EU uses lower five G frequencies than what we
Speaker 1: see around the United States, so it's not an Apple's
Speaker 1: Apples thing. Five G is not five G depending upon
Speaker 1: where you are, or at least it's not the same
Speaker 1: five G. Now, all that being said, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: the average person is going to get great reception on
Speaker 1: flights in the EU, even if they are allowed to
Speaker 1: use five G devices. Cell towers have a limited transmission range.
Speaker 1: This is why we need a lot of cell towers,
Speaker 1: because what happens is one cell tower will hand off
Speaker 1: service to the next, So as you move toward the
Speaker 1: edge of cell tower a's range of service, it can
Speaker 1: hand you off to cell tower B and your service
Speaker 1: isn't interrupted. But when you're way up in the sky,
Speaker 1: there's a distinct shortage of cellular towers around you, so
Speaker 1: you might not be able to get any signal anyway
Speaker 1: because you'll be at too high in altitude to do it.
Speaker 1: It would be passe sable to actually outfit planes with
Speaker 1: pico cell towers, essentially these tiny little cell towers, and
Speaker 1: they would be able to cover the range of the
Speaker 1: aircraft with cell signals and then it would beam a
Speaker 1: concentrated data stream at terrestrial towers on the ground, but
Speaker 1: that would require even more equipment updates to planes, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing how that's going so far. So all right,
Speaker 1: that is enough for this first episode about some of
Speaker 1: the big tech stories of two, and we're just getting started.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a bunch more of these episodes because
Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about. I mean, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and Twitter alone, I have a feeling is going to
Speaker 1: be at least half an episode. We'll see. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much my tolerance can handle at this point
Speaker 1: because it's been such a crazy story this whole year,
Speaker 1: and that's the story that's currently unfolding as I record this.
Speaker 1: We're all waiting to find out if Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: actually going to step down as CEO, because he all
Speaker 1: the poll about it and asked his his followers should
Speaker 1: he step down or not, and the majority said yes
Speaker 1: you should. So we're waiting to hear what that amounts to.
Speaker 1: I'm sure i'll talk about that and later on this week. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I hope you're all well. I hope your two was
Speaker 1: a good one. I hope three is even better, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech stuff is
Speaker 1: an i heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.