Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jothan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And before we get started,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say I hope that all of you
Speaker 1: are all safe and well and that your loved ones
Speaker 1: are as well. Here in the United States, we've seen
Speaker 1: Hurricane Ida cause enormous damage along the coast of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Large parts of that region are without power. There are
Speaker 1: emergency situations all over there. If any of y'all are
Speaker 1: out that way, please stay safe and take care of
Speaker 1: yourselves and of each other. And really that goes out
Speaker 1: to everyone. A little kindness goes a long way. But yes,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm definitely thinking of all of you out there,
Speaker 1: hoping that you're staying safe. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the tech news for Tuesday, August thirty one, twenty one.
Speaker 1: Here in America, there's a brewing battle between the US
Speaker 1: government and companies like Apple and Google over whether or
Speaker 1: not requiring app developers to use the Apple and Google
Speaker 1: in app purchasing systems for all in app purchases is
Speaker 1: anti competitive. Now, this gets a little muddled, so we're
Speaker 1: going to use an example to kind of clear things up.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you are a developer, an app developer,
Speaker 1: and you create a SimCity like game, and in that game,
Speaker 1: players can you know, zone and build out virtual cities.
Speaker 1: And in this game, maybe you've built some in app purchases,
Speaker 1: and that way players can pay to access say certain
Speaker 1: types of resources or types of buildings, or they might
Speaker 1: be able to speed up construction or otherwise take you know,
Speaker 1: shortcuts in the game, which without these shortcuts would take
Speaker 1: a really long time to play out. Well, right now,
Speaker 1: both Google and Apple take a cut that's anywhere between
Speaker 1: fifteen tot of all in app purchases for stuff like
Speaker 1: that is if it's a smaller developer, is if they
Speaker 1: are you know, considered to be a larger developer, and
Speaker 1: you have no other option but to go that route, Like,
Speaker 1: you have to play by those rules because both Apple
Speaker 1: and Google say that trying to work around that means
Speaker 1: your app will not be allowed in those app stores. Also,
Speaker 1: this is different if your app is used to purchase
Speaker 1: real stuff out in the real world. So for example,
Speaker 1: let's say you run a taco restaurant and you develop
Speaker 1: an app so people can order tacos to pick up
Speaker 1: at your store. They just use the app, they say
Speaker 1: what they want, it goes to you, They pay for
Speaker 1: it and everything. They just come in and pick it
Speaker 1: up and go. Well, Apple and Google don't take a
Speaker 1: cut of those kinds of purchases. It's only for things
Speaker 1: that are in app. Also, I would like some of
Speaker 1: your finest tacos. I don't know why you've been holding
Speaker 1: out on me for so long. Anyway, here in the
Speaker 1: United States, government offices and congress people are beginning to
Speaker 1: push back on this practice, saying it is any competitive
Speaker 1: and it traps developers and systems that they have no
Speaker 1: control over. While that's playing out here over in South Korea,
Speaker 1: things have taken a more drastic turn. The South Korean
Speaker 1: government passed a bill that now bands Apple and Google
Speaker 1: from forcing developers to use this kind of in app
Speaker 1: purchasing system. They can use it if they want to,
Speaker 1: but they're not forced to according to this new band.
Speaker 1: So now companies like Epic Games, which makes the game Fortnite,
Speaker 1: could do the thing that got Epic in hot water
Speaker 1: with Apple in the first place, and that was that
Speaker 1: Epic gave players a way to buy in game Fortnite
Speaker 1: currency without going through Apple's in app purchase system. Also,
Speaker 1: while it doesn't get much coverage, Google was equally miffed
Speaker 1: at Epic for the exact same reason. It will be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how Apple and Google respond to this.
Speaker 1: According to CNBC, the Apple App Store grows more than
Speaker 1: sixty four billion dollars in twenty twenty, a princely some now.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, that's what the app store brought in.
Speaker 1: Not all of that money actually is going to Apple.
Speaker 1: Apple gets a chunk of it, but a lot of
Speaker 1: that money is also going to various developers. However, it
Speaker 1: still represents a major source of revenue for Apple. Also,
Speaker 1: Apple doesn't actually report on how much the app store
Speaker 1: makes in particular in its quarterly earnings reports. Instead, the
Speaker 1: company lumps that into a category called Apple Services, and
Speaker 1: that includes other stuff as well. But however you slice it,
Speaker 1: the app store is one of the contributing factors to
Speaker 1: Apple's colossal success as a modern tech company. I should
Speaker 1: add that the company also sees a lot of revenue
Speaker 1: from its physical products like iPhone and mac computers, so
Speaker 1: it's not like Apple's just turning into an app store,
Speaker 1: kind of like how a lot of people point to
Speaker 1: Valve and say Valve very rarely makes any games these days.
Speaker 1: Now it's more of an online game store. If other
Speaker 1: countries follow South Korea's lead, Apple and Google could see
Speaker 1: important revenue streams diminish as a result. And now for
Speaker 1: a curious story about Apple that shows how serious the
Speaker 1: law he is is. Here in the United States, So
Speaker 1: more than a decade ago, Apple was in a long,
Speaker 1: ugly legal battle with the telecommunications company Nokia, the Finnish company.
Speaker 1: Nokia was at the time the largest worldwide smartphone and
Speaker 1: mobile phone manufacturer, and at the heart of the legal
Speaker 1: battle were a series of patent disputes, and each company
Speaker 1: was claiming that the other company had violated one or
Speaker 1: more patents that they they held. So Nokia saying hey
Speaker 1: you violated X, Y and Z, and Apple saying hey
Speaker 1: you violate A, B and C. And it all was
Speaker 1: going into all these different court cases. Now it recently
Speaker 1: came to light that in one of these court cases,
Speaker 1: and this case happened way back in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: the judge who was presiding over the case turned out
Speaker 1: to actually have held some stock in Apple. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much stock the judge held that has not
Speaker 1: yet been reported as of the recording of this podcast,
Speaker 1: but it was at least some stock. Typically, in cases
Speaker 1: like this, if a court judge has a conflict of interest,
Speaker 1: they are required to recuse themselves from the case. They
Speaker 1: cannot over see the case because clearly they might otherwise
Speaker 1: find their judgments swayed by their own personal, you know,
Speaker 1: financial interest in one of the parties involved in the case.
Speaker 1: This judge did not recuse himself. Now it sounds to
Speaker 1: be like the judge might have held Apple stock and
Speaker 1: perhaps just forgotten about it. That could be the case
Speaker 1: if the judge had a pretty wide stock portfolio, right like,
Speaker 1: the judge might not have been aware of it. Moreover,
Speaker 1: in that particular case, the end result actually favored Nokia
Speaker 1: more than it favored Apple. So even if the judge
Speaker 1: had been aware of the stock, I mean, he should
Speaker 1: have disclosed that, but it didn't seem to impact his
Speaker 1: decision upon the case. However, rules are rules, and these
Speaker 1: rules state that if a judge discovers a conflict of interest,
Speaker 1: then that judge is required to report on it, even
Speaker 1: if the case happened a decade ago or longer. So
Speaker 1: on August, this particular judge filed a letter revealing the conflict,
Speaker 1: and now both Apple and Nokia have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: respond to this revelation by October. But here's some other
Speaker 1: interesting things to consider. Nokia's smartphone and cell phone business
Speaker 1: entered into a state of decline not long after these lawsuits,
Speaker 1: and Samsung overtook Nokia to become the the global leader
Speaker 1: in smartphone and mobile phone manufacturing UH, and of course,
Speaker 1: Apple has grown in popularity year over year. Eventually, Microsoft
Speaker 1: swooped in and purchased Nokia's mobile phone divis Vision and
Speaker 1: had it for itself, and so these days Nokia doesn't
Speaker 1: even have its own mobile phone division. It's got a
Speaker 1: couple that are related to Nokia, but not like its
Speaker 1: own in house mobile phone manufacturing department. So Microsoft would
Speaker 1: then go on to sell off the Nokia assets after
Speaker 1: it became clear that Microsoft's own mobile phone efforts were
Speaker 1: flailing against Android and iPhone handsets. Fox con took ownership
Speaker 1: of those assets. At that point. The Nokia brand, which
Speaker 1: did not go along with this whole Microsoft Fox Cotton
Speaker 1: transaction UH, is actually licensed to another company called hm
Speaker 1: D Global. So Nokia is not Nokia anymore. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a brand name that's held by a different company,
Speaker 1: and Nokia doesn't really have a a financial stake in
Speaker 1: him D Global. So while this disclosure is interesting, it
Speaker 1: sounds to me like there's not really going to be
Speaker 1: any big brew haha to come out of it, because
Speaker 1: that's kind of all water under the bridge at this point.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if anyone would hold any specific objections
Speaker 1: at this stage, and as far as I know, the
Speaker 1: judge doesn't stand to face any um, you know, any
Speaker 1: any punishment for this. Uh. Like I said to me,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it came out of an oversight as
Speaker 1: opposed to a purposeful uh you know, obfuscation of a
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. Next, any of y'all who have listened
Speaker 1: to my show for years will know that I have
Speaker 1: had conflicting feelings when it comes to stuff like autonomous
Speaker 1: cars and smart infrastructure. I was really hot on it
Speaker 1: for a while. Then I became a little more hesitant. Uh,
Speaker 1: not like resistant to it, but more more like someone
Speaker 1: who went in bright eyed and bushytailed and then thought, oh,
Speaker 1: the reality of this is different. For um the ideal. Now,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, if you assume everything works properly,
Speaker 1: technologies like autonomous cars and smart city infrastructure would drastically
Speaker 1: reduce the number of accidents that happened on the road,
Speaker 1: and that also means a big reduction in injuries and fatalities.
Speaker 1: That would be incredible. And then of secondary importance, it
Speaker 1: could also reduce traffic congestions, so folks would spend less
Speaker 1: time sitting in a car in order to get to
Speaker 1: where they're going, and that also means fewer carbon emissions.
Speaker 1: And obviously we're moving more toward electric vehicles, but that's
Speaker 1: going to take some time. So the benefits of this
Speaker 1: technology are really you know, they're enticing, they they're compelling. However,
Speaker 1: I did say, we have to assume everything's working properly,
Speaker 1: and that's where we are hit. You know, a really
Speaker 1: big sticking point. We're seeing that play out in the
Speaker 1: UK country that has deployed digital signs across hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles of roads that connect to a software platform and
Speaker 1: the signs are meant to display stuff like need limits
Speaker 1: or information about lane closures and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's part of the UK's smart Motorways initiative. Unfortunately, this
Speaker 1: past April that system crashed three times, the system that
Speaker 1: would send information to these digital signs across hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles of road, and that left the signs stuck in
Speaker 1: whatever their last message was, even if conditions were changing.
Speaker 1: So staff working for this department in the UK are
Speaker 1: reportedly worried that future computer crashes could lead to motorists
Speaker 1: getting the wrong information and that this could ultimately contribute
Speaker 1: to serious car accidents. And that sounds like it's a
Speaker 1: reasonable fear, because one of the things that Smart Motorways
Speaker 1: project is doing is not just putting out digital signs.
Speaker 1: They're actually removing the hard shoulder along the side of motorways,
Speaker 1: which is the place where you would normally pull over
Speaker 1: if your car were experiencing problems and that way you
Speaker 1: would be out of traffic. They are replacing those hard
Speaker 1: shoulders with an additional lane of traffic to be used
Speaker 1: just in normal day to day use. The digital signs
Speaker 1: are supposed to signal a large red X to indicate
Speaker 1: that a lane is occupied when a vehicle has to
Speaker 1: be pulled over because it's no longer operational for whatever reason. Right,
Speaker 1: So you've got a breakdown or a flat tire or something,
Speaker 1: well you would come to a stop in this lane
Speaker 1: of traffic, and then these signs are supposed to say, hey,
Speaker 1: don't travel in this lane of traffic because there's a
Speaker 1: car that's stopped up ahead. Maybe the driver is even
Speaker 1: out of the car trying to fix their vehicle. Maybe they're,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to change a tire or something. And
Speaker 1: if the system crashes during one of those incidents, which
Speaker 1: happened a lot by the way, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've seen as you've traveled, like it's pretty common to
Speaker 1: see at least a couple of cars pulled over on
Speaker 1: the side of the road in different places where motorists
Speaker 1: are having to deal with unexpected problems. Well, if the
Speaker 1: system crashes, then those signs don't update and you don't
Speaker 1: get those red exits, which means that you could have
Speaker 1: drivers traveling at full speed down that fourth lane of travel,
Speaker 1: and then you could have potentially cataclysmic collision. You could
Speaker 1: have fatalities as a result of this has gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where some of the staff have started giving
Speaker 1: the system a new name. The system has the proprietary
Speaker 1: name d Knack d Y n A C. And some
Speaker 1: of the staff have called it die now, which is
Speaker 1: pretty grim stuff. So here's an example where a technological
Speaker 1: solution could potentially make a problem worse. Now. I'd argue
Speaker 1: this is also because the decision to add that fourth
Speaker 1: lane and not have a hard shoulder there really contributes
Speaker 1: to the the problem at hand. So this is a
Speaker 1: combination of technological fails and I don't know, Hubris maybe
Speaker 1: so a lot of the staff are saying we need
Speaker 1: to have a backup, we need to have that hard
Speaker 1: shoulder and not to get rid of it, and I
Speaker 1: tend to agree with the staff on this one. We've
Speaker 1: got a few more stories to cover, but before we
Speaker 1: get to that, let's take a quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: So Patreon is making some interesting moves lately. The company
Speaker 1: has acquired a New York based recruiting firm called Clear Talent,
Speaker 1: and from what Reuters is reporting, it sounds like Patreon's
Speaker 1: goal is to expand beyond being a platform that creative
Speaker 1: types can use in order to monetize their talents. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with Patreon, the general way it works
Speaker 1: is that creators of all different kinds will establish an
Speaker 1: account and then they generally offer one of two things
Speaker 1: to their followers. Some creators will establish a monthly subscription fee,
Speaker 1: and you subscribe, you pay a certain subscription and sometimes
Speaker 1: this is and different tiers, with subscribers getting access to
Speaker 1: content that relates to those tears. So you might have
Speaker 1: like a five dollar per month charge and that provides
Speaker 1: you with access to a certain subset of content, and
Speaker 1: then if you were to upgrade to ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: you would get additional content and so on. Another way
Speaker 1: that creators can choose to go is to instead to
Speaker 1: have subscribers pay only when new content comes out, So
Speaker 1: instead of it being a flat fee every month, it's
Speaker 1: a let's say, let's say you're a video content creator.
Speaker 1: Every time a new video comes out, then a charge
Speaker 1: would go out to your followers. But otherwise, uh, if
Speaker 1: you went like several weeks without creating a new video,
Speaker 1: then no one would get charged. So there are different
Speaker 1: ways of going about it. Anyway. Now, Patreon seems to
Speaker 1: be heading in a direction to try and become more
Speaker 1: of a one stop shop as far as content creators go,
Speaker 1: and it's supposed to give them other ways to manage
Speaker 1: their businesses. So it's almost like a small business toolkit
Speaker 1: in a way. UH that could include stuff like ways
Speaker 1: to sell merchandise and other add ons in addition to
Speaker 1: the money that creators earn uh from subscription models, and
Speaker 1: it could be a really good way for creatives to
Speaker 1: manage their businesses. It's challenging to both be a creative
Speaker 1: content person and to oversee all the business elements of
Speaker 1: your endeavors. This does mean that creators will see some
Speaker 1: of that money go towards the platform rather than to themselves.
Speaker 1: That's just the nature of things. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: they get heightened visibility because Patreon is a visible platform,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the hassle of managing your business
Speaker 1: is removed from the operational standpoint. I think, based on
Speaker 1: the very little I know, that this could be a
Speaker 1: good move for all parties, but we're obviously gonna have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to make sure. In the past, we've
Speaker 1: covered how various online platforms have tried to tackle the
Speaker 1: huge problem of misinformation and disinformation campaigns. So Twitter tags
Speaker 1: labels on stuff and bands accounts that are repeat offenders.
Speaker 1: Facebook takes down groups, although you could argue they don't
Speaker 1: take them down as quickly as new ones pop up.
Speaker 1: But one platform I have not talked about is Reddit.
Speaker 1: Last week, a number of sub credits And if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with Reddit, uh, it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: user generated link farm in a way, but it's organized
Speaker 1: in various fields of interest, so you can think of
Speaker 1: subredits as sort of like channels of Reddit that focus
Speaker 1: on specific interests or topics. Anyway, a bunch of subredits
Speaker 1: petition the administrators of Reddit to do something about the
Speaker 1: proliferation of disinformation about COVID nineteen that is running rampant
Speaker 1: on the platform. The subredits claim that Reddit has done
Speaker 1: little to curtail disinformation campaigns about stuff like vaccines and
Speaker 1: masks in the spread of COVID nineteen, and thus is
Speaker 1: contributing to people getting a false view of how things work,
Speaker 1: which subsequently puts more people at risk of getting sick
Speaker 1: or worse. Reddit has effectively sequestered a subreddit that focused
Speaker 1: on these topics, so you could still access it if
Speaker 1: you were a member of it, but otherwise you wouldn't
Speaker 1: come across it. But according to the subredits, it really
Speaker 1: hasn't done much else to stop the spread of false
Speaker 1: information on the platform. So in protest, large groups of
Speaker 1: subredits have switched to private membership, which means you can't
Speaker 1: just pop in there and brows the posts in that subredit,
Speaker 1: or leave a message on there or anything like that. Effectively,
Speaker 1: to the outside world, these subredits are going dark, but
Speaker 1: they're not completely going dark, because anyone who actually is
Speaker 1: an existing member of those subredits can still access them.
Speaker 1: But clearly the admins of these subredits will be able
Speaker 1: to give the boot to anyone who tries to spread misinformation,
Speaker 1: essentially saying that's not welcome in this community. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: same subreddits are continuing to appeal to Reddit and to
Speaker 1: go beyond Reddit by talking about this in other forums
Speaker 1: and to news media outlets in order to take a
Speaker 1: more active stance against misinformation. The company's official stance is
Speaker 1: that red is a place where users can hash it
Speaker 1: out for themselves, and that sounds an awful lot like
Speaker 1: what Mark Zuckerberg said about Facebook, that it's not the
Speaker 1: platform's responsibility to take sides in this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: There is, however, a really big problem with this, because
Speaker 1: it's not just like a debate, and this is a
Speaker 1: problem that people have known about for centuries. And that's this.
Speaker 1: It's way easier for lies to spread than it is
Speaker 1: to get the truth to take hold. Or, as Mark
Speaker 1: Twain did not put it, a lie can travel halfway
Speaker 1: around the world before the truth puts on its shoes. See,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks actually attribute that quote to Mark Twain.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly fitting because it wasn't Mark Twain who coined
Speaker 1: that phrase. In fact, the earliest variation of this saying
Speaker 1: that I have found came from seven from a sermon
Speaker 1: delivered by a guy named Thomas Franklin. But that misinformation
Speaker 1: you know about Mark Twain allegedly saying this has traveled
Speaker 1: far and wide. In some other versions it's Winston Churchill
Speaker 1: who gets the credit rather than Mark Twain. But all
Speaker 1: of that just proves the point, right, It just proves
Speaker 1: the truth that these lies travel far and wide much
Speaker 1: easier than the truth does. So if you give equal
Speaker 1: ground to truth and falsehoods, as if falsehoods have some
Speaker 1: sort of legitimacy to them, falsehoods run away with it
Speaker 1: because they don't require the burden of reality. So I
Speaker 1: am fully on the side of the sub credits in
Speaker 1: this case. In semi related news, Axios reports that Facebook
Speaker 1: will be tweaking its ranking algorithm. That's the algorithm that
Speaker 1: determines which posts you and to see when you log
Speaker 1: into Facebook and you check out your news feed. Apparently
Speaker 1: this will include de emphasizing elements that lead to people
Speaker 1: figuring out how to you know, kind of gain the system,
Speaker 1: like a prediction of how likely someone is going to
Speaker 1: engage with specific content. So just as a quick refresher
Speaker 1: to remind yourselves how Facebook works. Facebook makes a lot
Speaker 1: of money. In fact, the vast majority of its revenue
Speaker 1: through advertising. So the more time you spend on Facebook,
Speaker 1: the more ads you will encounter. That means that Facebook
Speaker 1: will make more money based off your visit. Because you're
Speaker 1: spending more time, you're seeing more ads, Facebook makes more money.
Speaker 1: One way to convince you to spend more time on
Speaker 1: Facebook is for Facebook to serve up stuff that gets
Speaker 1: a big reaction out of you, so that you comment
Speaker 1: on things or you share them. If these posts are
Speaker 1: actually ads and you are engaging with them, that's even
Speaker 1: more valuable for Facebook. And you're also giving Facebook more
Speaker 1: information about yourself, which makes you easier to advertise to.
Speaker 1: Now a lot of the time this content that gets
Speaker 1: heavily engaged is pretty darn toxic stuff and frequently includes
Speaker 1: misinformation for the same reasons I was just mentioning in US.
Speaker 1: You know, the previous news item. So folks who wanted
Speaker 1: to spread certain messages, like a propaganda campaign, they could
Speaker 1: build that into their posting strategy to get more circulation
Speaker 1: of their work. Well, now Facebook is going to take
Speaker 1: away some of that, making these types of campaigns a
Speaker 1: little less effective. Facebook is likely to show less news
Speaker 1: content in general, and less political content in particular. Uh.
Speaker 1: The company has run numerous tests with focus groups that
Speaker 1: showed that users really liked it when less of that
Speaker 1: stuff was popping up in our news feeds. Now, these
Speaker 1: changes are likely to roll out gradually, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of over a long time frame. It's possible that we
Speaker 1: won't even notice the changes happening because they'll happen so gradually.
Speaker 1: But according to Axios, we should expect the Facebook of
Speaker 1: the future to be slightly less political, which I think
Speaker 1: is a good thing. There's a new rule in place
Speaker 1: to combat what the Chinese government says is an addiction
Speaker 1: among China's youth. And it's not drugs, it's video games. Yep,
Speaker 1: they come a long way since pac Man. So the
Speaker 1: Chinese government has ordered online gaming companies to build in
Speaker 1: time restrictions to prevent kids in China from falling into
Speaker 1: the deep void of video game addiction. According to the
Speaker 1: new rules, anyone under the age of eighteen will have
Speaker 1: their game time restricted to between eight pm and nine pm,
Speaker 1: so one hour a day, and the government issued a
Speaker 1: warning that the video game companies would need to put
Speaker 1: into place reliable verification processes to make sure kids weren't
Speaker 1: skirting the rule by like using adult ideas to log
Speaker 1: into games to get around the age gating system. The
Speaker 1: government says it will increase inspections to these companies to
Speaker 1: make sure that they are up to code on this stuff.
Speaker 1: And while I'm skeptical that the companies are going to
Speaker 1: be able to get around kids who are determined to
Speaker 1: find ways to circumvent the rules, I can at least
Speaker 1: sympathize with this initiative. And that's because games are built
Speaker 1: upon a reward system. You play a game, you achieve something,
Speaker 1: your brain releases a hormone that says, hey, good job you,
Speaker 1: and you feel nice, or maybe you get really close
Speaker 1: to achieving a goal. But the only you fall just short,
Speaker 1: and then your brain either says try again, you can
Speaker 1: do it, or if it's like my brain, it's as
Speaker 1: stupid game, stupid game, cheats. I hate it. I'll just
Speaker 1: play one more turn. Anyway, The whole addiction angle might
Speaker 1: be a bit extreme, but there is definitely an element
Speaker 1: of truth to it. Whether this was leading to a
Speaker 1: downfall of Chinese society or not is another matter. I
Speaker 1: suppose and find the mark your calendars for October five,
Speaker 1: Windows users, because that's when Windows eleven releases, the newest
Speaker 1: version of the operating system. It will be a free
Speaker 1: upgrade for PCs that are running qualified versions of Windows
Speaker 1: ten and are rated to support Windows eleven. It will
Speaker 1: come standard on new pecs as the official Windows OS
Speaker 1: moving forward. One thing that will not be included, at
Speaker 1: least not at launch, is support for Android apps. Microsoft
Speaker 1: says that support is coming, but did not give a
Speaker 1: precise date for when that will happen when Microsoft also
Speaker 1: has the system to determine when users will get to
Speaker 1: install OS on their machines, So apparently Microsoft is doing
Speaker 1: this on a gradual rollout, and they will prioritize newer systems,
Speaker 1: new or more powerful ones and older ones will be
Speaker 1: further back in the queue. Honestly, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1: New oss tend to have bigger resource demands, some older
Speaker 1: systems might not be a great fit for that, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like this rollout will be pretty ratual in
Speaker 1: that some systems, like perhaps the oldest ones that can
Speaker 1: still support Windows eleven, will not get the update until
Speaker 1: possibly sometime in the middle of next year. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily a bad thing. I often remind myself
Speaker 1: that it's typically wise to wait a little bit before
Speaker 1: jumping on a new operating system or even a new
Speaker 1: piece of hardware, because invariably there's going to be issues
Speaker 1: and problems that pop up that need to get worked out,
Speaker 1: and often it's less of a headache to just sit
Speaker 1: back and wait a bit for all of that to
Speaker 1: play out, rather than to jump on board early and
Speaker 1: to go through all of those issues in real time.
Speaker 1: I say this to you as much as I say
Speaker 1: it to myself, yet again, because recently I jumped on
Speaker 1: the Android twelve beta and ran into numerous little issues. Again,
Speaker 1: that was a beta, so it's to be expected. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's on me these days. I'm back on to
Speaker 1: Android eleven and happy as can be anyway. October, plan
Speaker 1: your part ease. Now you know those PC operating system
Speaker 1: release parties, they get wild Man. There's punch and that
Speaker 1: wraps up the news for Tuesday, August again. Stay safe,
Speaker 1: stay well, and I will talk to you again really soon.
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