WEBVTT - TechStuff Reviews 2016 Part One 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.480 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:14.320 works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:18.279 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today we're going to 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:23.079 start our yearly look back on the previous twelve months. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.400 I'm gonna talk about some of the big tech news 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.479 stories of and there were a lot of them. So 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.160 I'm dividing this up into two episodes. Today we're gonna 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.120 look at January through May. And I know that's not 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.599 fully half a year, but some of these stories are 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.000 really heavily front loaded. So instead of just saying, hey, 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.320 the story began in say, February, and then in September 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.760 this happened, and then in December this happened. For for 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.520 big stories, I'm doing it all at the front. So 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.720 the second half is a little more sparse. I don't 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.960 go back and recover stories I had already talked about. Also, 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:04.200 let's get out there was kind of crappy for lots 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.880 of reasons, and I'm going to talk about some of them, 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.800 and yeah, you can't get it around it. I mean, 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:17.319 you just gotta accept it and move on, I guess. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:24.360 So we're gonna start in January with what set the 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.360 tone for the rest of the year. I am, of 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.119 course talking about c e S. And this is where 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.839 my producer Dylan gets to feel a sense of dread 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.759 creep into his very bones, because he will be going 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.679 to c e S ten along with several of us 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.760 here at How Stuff Works. So Dylan, I'm sorry, you're 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.880 gonna have to hear this man he's he's just grinning 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.400 at me, but but his eyes are dead, all right. 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.320 So it was my eighth time attending c e S 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.000 and it was a bit different. Three other people from 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.520 How Stuff Works went with me, and I got to 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.400 see ce S through their eyes, and they were excited 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.080 and impressed by something that I had really begun to 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.240 feel like it was old and stale and and therefore 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.440 it was something to dread. It was actually a little 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.480 fun to see it through the eyes of people who 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.320 had never been there and then just kind of slowly 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.280 shake your head and just say, these children, but what 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.520 was going on there? While VR was a big hit 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.560 at c e S and at that time, the Oculus, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.080 the HTC Vibe, and the PlayStation VR had yet to 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.800 make their debut, everyone was anticipating that the year was 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.440 going to be the year for virtual reality, but more 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.680 on that a little bit later. We also saw a 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.560 lot of drones, including ones that have ultra high definition 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.840 camera systems, and that blew my mind because just a 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.320 few years ago, buying just an ultra high definition camera 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.560 would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty dollars, and 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.600 now today, for less than a grand, you can buy 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.480 a remote controlled drone that flies through the air and 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.280 has a u h D camera on it, which is 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.919 crazy to me. It also really shows how electronics can 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:19.160 can drop dramatically in cost. Also, drones can drop dramatically 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.840 from the air when I have the controls in my hands. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.160 That's a different story. Over in the auto world, it 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.000 was all about AI and connected cars. Nearly every auto 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.400 maker at CS had something to show off in those arenas, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.320 and uh I was at CS covering a lot of stuff, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:40.040 including Toyota's press event. Full disclosure, Toyota is the sponsor 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.840 of the show I host called Forward Thinking, and their 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.160 big announcement revolved around the company's billion dollar investment into 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.960 research and development of AI, and I think we're gonna 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.640 hear a lot more about that in seventeen, so stay 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.680 tuned to Forward Thinking to find out more about that 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.520 in the near future. Over at Intel, the emphasis was 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.760 on small processors that can track various points of data 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.280 and other products. So Intel makes the chips that go 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.840 into other things, and they they explored this with a 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.599 lot of different applications. One was a an electronic bracelet 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:18.840 you would wear that would allow you to interact with 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.039 giant display and control elements on the display by waving 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.600 your hand around. Another was a mountain bike, and the 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.360 processors had things like accelerometers and and gyroscopes that could 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.479 track movement and orientation and give real time feedback to 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.479 another device. So you could have a smartphone open with 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.600 the appropriate app and get real time information about the 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:47.159 forces that were being uh felt by a rider on 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.039 one of these bicycles, and uh so you do like 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.520 a crazy you know, flip or or some other trick 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:56.640 on these bikes and you would get the real time 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.800 data feedback, which was kind of neat to actually see 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.840 this working in real time. One item over at Intel 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:07.960 was the Segue Advanced Personal Robot, which was a project 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:12.320 that was formed from a partnership between Segue, Intel and 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.359 a company called shoo Me, and it's part Segue device 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.400 you know, like the personalized mobile devices and part Butler, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.240 so you could write it around kind of like a hoverboard. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.640 I know those are terrible names for those things because 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.760 they don't hover, but you know what I'm talking about 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.039 those electronic scooters that are kind of like skateboards in 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.920 a way. Uh. They were all really popular for a 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.360 while until they started catching fire. But anyway, this one 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.200 was like a hoverboard, but you could also attach a 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:42.880 screen to it, and the screen would have like a 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.159 little simple face and turn it into an assistant robot. 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.040 It's really cute. It could respond to commands and talk 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.360 to you, and it was adorable. Didn't get a chance 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.440 to write on it, though. Actually I think I'd feel 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.800 a little conflicted stepping on something that was that adorable 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.279 and then commanding it to take me places. Uh. I 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.880 don't know how. I probably have a complicated relationship with 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.360 that kind of technology. Another thing that our team in 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.880 particular was interested in was a new Super eight camera 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.760 from Kodak. In fact, two of the guys who went 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.400 with me are from the video team, and both of them, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.719 as soon as they saw it, thought we have to 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.280 shoot a video about this thing because it reminded us 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.520 all of our childhood and how we got into film 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.559 when we were kids, and it shoots both on film 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.120 and digital form formats, which is really neat. Also, this 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.160 gave me the opportunity to eat some crow because my 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.520 friend i As and I had done an episode of 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.120 Tech Stuff where we talked about obsolete technology, and one 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.520 of the things we talked about was eight millimeter film. 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:47.480 And there I was at c e S looking at 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:52.720 a brand new super eight camera. So that was awkward 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.360 but super cool. I really liked the design of it. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.240 It definitely had that retro look and yet included a 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.200 lot of modern conveniences that you would find in digital 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.880 cameras these days. So it was neat. Uh. But that's 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:06.919 enough about ce S. There was tons of other stuff 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.840 going on. Those were the things we were specifically looking at, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.080 but we also saw a lot of focus on wearables, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.720 on health tech, on mental health tech, a lot of 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.400 technology meant to help you try and relax or relieve 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.800 stress or anxiety. Lots of stuff in that realm. I'm 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.080 betting we're gonna see a lot more of that this 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.360 coming year. But January seen also saw some rough news 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.560 for Twitter, which would pretty much follow throughout the rest 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.040 of the year for that company, top executives began to 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.960 jump ship and Twitter stock price struggled throughout twenty sixteen 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.640 and rallied briefly when there was talk of Twitter looking 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.680 for a buyer, but then no one stepped forward to 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.680 buy it, and the stock price began to struggle again. 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.440 So it's been pretty rough. We don't know what Twitter's 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.200 long term prospects are at this point. It's crazy because 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.880 it's still a huge platform that a lot of people 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.160 use and a lot of people depend upon it in 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.920 order to maintain their brand. But at the same time, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.640 it's still not really a revenue generator, so it may 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:14.120 be that it's living on borrowed time. We'll see. Also 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.440 in January, Uber, which is always a controversial company, saw 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.080 resistance in several markets as it tried to expand services 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.680 into various countries. For example, in France, cab drivers began 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:32.000 to set fire to tires in protest. So yeah, Uber 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:38.520 definitely has seen a lot of resistance, particularly among cab 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.840 driving unions and companies in various regions where it's tried 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.680 to move in. And uh, I mean, it's it's the 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.160 sign of progress. You could argue it may not be 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.160 progress for the cab drivers, but for consumers who want 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.680 to have that choice. UH, it frequently is viewed as 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.440 progress and an early example of a problem that would 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.679 pop up throughout the year. Hackers managed to take down 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.480 power plants in the Ukraine through malware. That particular threat 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.800 was relatively easy to thwart. It wasn't something that was catastrophic, 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.960 but it certainly got people's attention. The idea that malware 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:24.200 could affect critical infrastructure. I mean, it's something we've known about, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:29.120 but to see it actually happened was pretty sobering. Also 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.120 in January, Time Warner suffered one of the earliest security 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.360 breaches of UH. You might remember I think I called 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.839 the Year of security breaches. Well seen gave it a 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.880 run for the money. According to a Reuter's report, up 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.839 to three twenty thousand Time Warner customers had their email 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:53.000 passwords stolen in an attack. Lenovo in January officially ditched 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.760 the Motorola name. Lenovo had acquired Motorola Mobile from Google. 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.360 It kept the brand name motto for high end phones, 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.920 along with that bat wing m logo that Motorola made famous, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:11.480 but Motorola as a mobile brand is a no more. 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.000 Early rumors in January stated that the next iPhone would 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.079 not have a headphone jack, and as we learned later 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.680 on the year, those turned out to be absolutely true. 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:27.000 But I'll talk about the iPhone more in the next episode, 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:32.440 since that did not debut until late Nielsen put out 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.760 it's twenty fifteen year in report on digital music, and 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.920 it showed that sales of digital music were down, but 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:45.079 streaming service subscriptions were way up, and more people were 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.840 using streaming services to access music than ever before. This 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:53.160 would continue to be a big story in twos and 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.800 on January, Oh man, I'm gonna have to do this 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.840 so many times. In this episode January tenth, David Bowie 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.880 passed away. So you might wonder why I talk about 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.960 David Bowie when I'm talking about technology. Well, he his 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.040 influence in popular music is tangential to technology, but he 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.400 was also heavily influenced by and subsequently became an influencer 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.880 of science fiction, which in turn has a very close 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:25.320 relationship with technology. So seeing the news about him passing 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.440 away so shortly after his final album came out was 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:36.400 really sobering and would become one of many stories of 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.400 beloved figures in pop culture as well as technology who 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:46.360 we lost in So let's move on to February, which, 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.000 at least, if nothing else, has the benefit of being 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.760 the shortest month in the tech world. Was a buzz 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.920 in February about startups competing to bring Elon Musk's hyper 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:04.840 loop proposal, which he first unveiled back in a Reality Now. 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:09.240 One of those companies was called hyper Loop Technologies and 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.840 later hyper Loop One, and that became ground zero for 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.280 serious drama among its co founders. One of those co founders, 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.040 formerly named Kevin Brogan now known as Brogan Bam Brogan 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.760 and no, that's not a joke, would be forced out 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.880 of the company. He was essentially ousted from the company 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.880 he co founded, and he would later on sue that company. 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:38.800 The company would then counter sue Brogan bam Brogan, saying 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.240 that he was passing off untruths that he was slandering 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.679 the company. Uh. For one thing, Bam Brogan said that 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.880 another executive at the company had at one point attempted 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.440 to intimidate him by laying a noose on his desk. 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:01.200 Doesn't sound like a very healthy corporate culture if true. Uh. 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.559 Eventually those lawsuits were settled out of court. So look 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:07.800 forward to a future tech Stuff episode where I'm going 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.040 to look at that whole story in much greater detail 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.880 in the future. I think it's too crazy not to. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.400 It's something that I really want to explore. Also in February, 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.199 Nature dot Com ran an article stating that the semiconductor 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.800 industry would formally announce it would no longer strive to 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.680 keep up with Moore's Law. Now. I know most of 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.600 you know this, but just in case some of you 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.960 aren't unfamiliar, Moore's Laws really about an observation that a 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.960 man named Gordon Moore made. He's a co founder of Intel. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.560 He made it several decades ago about the tendency for 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.559 the number of discrete components on a semiconductor chip to 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.520 double every two years or so. And by discrete components, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.480 we're really talking about transistors. Now. The important thing to 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.480 remember about this, as always, is that this was more 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:04.000 or less observation about the financial viability of adding more 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.240 transistors to a semiconductor. It wasn't that there was some 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.880 magical law dictating this, but rather that the economy of 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:18.000 scale and the improvement in UH in manufacturing technologies would 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.920 allow for this to happen, and that there would be 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:25.600 a demand for more powerful semiconductors and microprocessors um and 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.640 as a result, uh, well not as a result. But 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.000 it turns out this has been a true observation and 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.160 a lot of companies have been striving to keep it 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.760 true over the years, and we've sort of fudged with 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.240 the definition a bit. Looking at it more as every 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:46.560 two years microprocessors essentially double in processing power, maybe not 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.280 necessarily in components or transistors, but in the ability to 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:56.680 actually process information. According to this report, however, the semiconductor 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.400 industry is essentially ready to give up on that, saying 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:03.200 it is no longer feasible to try and keep Moore's 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.400 law active. And this is because of two different things. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.160 One of the factors that is a problem when you're 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.720 talking about sustaining More's law is that the smaller the 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.880 components get, the more they're affected by quantum mechanics. One 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.440 of the aspects of quantum mechanics is something called electron tunneling, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:25.960 and you can really think of it in this way. 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.520 Electrons have a probability to exist in any given location 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.240 around uh, kind of like a cloud. Think of it like, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.240 you can't really dictate exactly where the electron is going 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.280 to be. It's gonna be within a cloud, and there's 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.040 a probability for it to be anywhere inside that cloud. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.000 If that cloud were to overlap a gate like a 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:50.320 transistor gate, then that means there is a probability, however small, 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.560 that the electron could be on the opposite side of 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.000 the gate that it's supposed to be on. And if 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.520 there is a probability, that means sometimes it happens that way. 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.440 So when you make these components smaller and smaller and smaller, 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.320 it becomes more challenging to figure out the materials you 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.560 need and the architecture you need to prevent electron tunneling 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.800 from becoming a big problem, because if you can't control 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.200 the flow of electrons, you can't really have logic gates. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.080 Otherwise you're gonna have errors passed through and then you 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.640 just keep having mistakes pop up and your programs won't run. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.840 The other issue is that the more components you cram 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.160 onto a chip, the more heat it generates, and in general, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.120 heat and electronics don't work so well together, so trying 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.800 to manage heat becomes a bigger and bigger challenge. Anyway, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.120 it looks like we're getting towards the end of Moore's 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.320 law using conventional semiconductor chips. That doesn't mean we won't 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.200 come up with some alternative, but it may mean that 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.200 we'll see progress slow in the short term as we 0:16:54.240 --> 0:17:01.000 start to explore other ways of increasing that processing power. Now, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.280 one of the biggest stories of in tech began in February. 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.560 That's when the FBI and Apple got into a real 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.160 tiff with one another. In February, a court case made 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.800 headlines when the FBI pursued an order against Apple to 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.320 force the company to deactivate a feature on the iPhone 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.760 five C, and the key point was the FBI wanted 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.200 to be able to deactivate the feature that would erase 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.679 and an encryption key after ten failed password attempts. In 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:37.600 other words, you lock your iPhone, use a password to 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.320 unlock it. If someone else gets hold of your phone 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.560 and tries brute force attacks to unlock your phone after 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.240 ten failed attempts, the key that would decrypt all the 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.440 information on your phone would delete itself, and then you 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.160 would have an even harder time being able to decrypt 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.359 that information like you could you might be able to 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.040 finally get access to it, but it would all be gibberish, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.120 and then you would have to go through the process 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.560 of trying to decrypt the information. Now, the phone in 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.640 question belonged to a couple that committed the December two 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.520 thousand and fifteen attack in San Bernardino, California, which resulted 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.560 in fourteen deaths and twenty two serious injuries. So there 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.720 was a very emotional case and very politically charged, and 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.119 it also brought up serious questions about security, privacy and 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.359 the boundaries of law. Apple resisted the FBI's requests, and 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.360 later in March, the FBI claimed it had found another 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.080 way to reach the security without Apple's participation. The Washington 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.520 Post would later report in April that professional hackers had 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:50.359 sold a zero day exploit to the FBI in order 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.359 to unlock the phone. But for that month and a 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.720 half in February and and March, everyone chimed in on 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.680 the case, including representatives from Google and Microsoft and Bill 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.760 Gates himself. Now, some of them felt the FBI's request 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.359 constitute a back door into a secure system, which is 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.639 a terrible idea. It's always a terrible idea because if 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.720 you create a backdoor into a secure system, you've created 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.159 a potential vulnerability that others can exploit. Other people, however, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:23.840 felt that the FBI's request was specific for one particular 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.719 phone and that nothing more would come of it, and 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.240 so therefore it would have made more sense for Apple 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.560 to acquiesce to the FBI's demands. Uh. But it ended 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:36.840 up being a moot point because the FBI eventually was 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:42.439 able to access the phone without Apple's participation. Also in February, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.240 HTC would open up pre orders for the Vibe headset. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.879 It's a virtual reality headset and had the goal of 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:55.240 shipping headsets out starting April one, and the headsets cost seven, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.680 which does not include the beefy computer you would need 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.280 to run the software the HTC Vibe uses at a 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.280 decent clip. But the Vibe is pretty cool and he 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.439 uses external sensors called lighthouses to provide additional tracking and 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.520 orientation station data, which means you can actually move around 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.880 inside a physical space while the the things you see 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.600 and here would be within a virtual space. And that's 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.800 pretty neat. I actually like it a lot. I got 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.240 to try it out not too long ago, and I 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:33.119 really like the htc vive experience in UH In February, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.880 Joshua Browder would launch a bot that can contest parking 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.440 tickets in the United Kingdom. So Browner has created a 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.560 few algorithms that work really well within structured environments, things 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.480 where you have a limited number of choices and there 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:51.560 are you know, different pathways. You can almost think of 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.320 it as choose your own adventure, and online forms like 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.560 the ones you would use to contest a parking ticket 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:02.479 in the UK fit that bill. So the AI can 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.879 actually argue on behalf of the person ticketed, and they 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.600 actually has a decent chance of success for contesting tickets 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:15.840 assuming that you have a valid case. So essentially, people 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:17.840 who would receive a parking ticket that they felt was 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.200 unfair could go through use this AI. The AI would 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.399 fill out all of the paperwork necessary based on a 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.919 few questions that would ask the person to fill in 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.080 a little bit of information and then it would take 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.320 care of all the forms, send the forms to the 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.280 appropriate office, and often that was enough to get the 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:40.000 ticket thrown out. So pretty cool use of AI, and 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:45.040 it shows that if you have a very structured system, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.080 AI can navigate it pretty well. The more unstructured the 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.520 system is the more challenging it is for AI to 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.760 be able to complete a task successfully. But something like 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.760 a government bureaucracy is, by its very nature very a structured, 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:02.600 so it turned out to be a good use for 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:08.200 AI around that time. In February, consumer advocacy groups, advertisers, 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:12.919 and content companies began to butt heads over online advertising 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.720 and ad blockers, and since then we've seen cases of 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:21.800 advocacy groups arguing that anti ad blocking strategies amount to 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.800 an invasion of privacy, meaning that if a web browser 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.440 or a website rather is telling you, hey, I see 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:33.359 that you're using ad blocking software, then the advocacy groups 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:35.720 argue that's an invasion of privacy on the part of 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.720 the person browsing that web page. Uh. Content creators, on 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:41.960 the other hand, say well, we have to make money 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.840 or else we can't create content. If we don't make money, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:48.440 then we can't afford to pay people to make the content, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:50.600 we can't afford to pay people to host the content, 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.399 and the content goes away. So it's a complicated issue, 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:56.919 and there are a lot of people who have valid 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:00.280 points on both sides. Um and a lot of people 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.399 are making very emotional arguments in order to try and 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.840 support their side of it um. But as for my 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:10.040 own personal opinion, it's complicated. I work in a in 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:14.520 an industry where I want to make a living, which 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.720 means I want to have revenue coming in so that 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:23.760 I can, you know, get get paid. So on certain levels, 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.959 I definitely think online advertising is necessary. I think there 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:29.199 are good ways and bad ways to implement it, and 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.320 I've seen plenty of bad ways, and I much prefer 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.879 the non intrusive good ways. But it is a complicated landscape. 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:41.720 At the end of February, Microsoft began taking pre orders 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.600 for the Hollow Lens, it's augmented reality headset. Now these 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.439 were for developer editions of the headset, so they weren't 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:51.680 meant to be a consumer product, which is a good 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:56.160 thing because they cost three thousand dollars a pop, expensive 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:59.560 for an augmented reality headset. But again it was more 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:03.159 meant as a developer tool, not as something for the 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:06.520 average consumer, and in fact, we may never see a 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.760 consumer version of the Hollow Lens ever offered. It may 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:14.280 be that the augmented reality applications that the Hollow Lens 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.639 can support will end up finding their way into other products, 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.320 but not specifically a consumer version of the hollow lens. 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.760 That's a possibility. All Right, We've got a lot more 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.800 to talk about with two thousand and sixteen, but before 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:30.520 we jump into that, let's take a quick break to 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:42.440 thank our sponsor. Alright, we're back, and that means we're 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:46.560 moving into March two thousand and sixteen. That's when south 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:50.320 By Southwest happened and how Stuff Works was there. We 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.159 ended up having several panels at south By Southwest. We 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:57.320 hosted several events in a house that was rented by 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:00.840 the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and it was a pretty 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:03.760 interesting experience. We also got to see a lot of 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:09.520 cool companies talk about really cutting edge ideas, particularly in 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.359