Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? It's time for the tech News for Thursday,
Speaker 1: July twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. And y'all, I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to having a week or maybe two when hopefully
Speaker 1: the X news will die down a bit and I
Speaker 1: can skip talking about Elon Musk. But today is not
Speaker 1: that day. In fact, Musk shows up for multiple reasons today.
Speaker 1: So the Wall Street Journal reports that X dot com
Speaker 1: formerly known as Twitter, is allegedly adding a new requirement
Speaker 1: for brand accounts on X. So companies that have maintained
Speaker 1: an account on X will have to meet a new requirement,
Speaker 1: and that is to spend a minimum of one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per month on advertising or else they'll lose their
Speaker 1: verification status. Once again, we see that verification is not
Speaker 1: verification on X. Or maybe you could argue it does
Speaker 1: verify you. It verifies that you paid for a checkmark. Now,
Speaker 1: I will note there are exceptions. There are some people
Speaker 1: who had truly massive followings on Twitter, and they were
Speaker 1: gifted their checkmarks back after initially having them stripped away,
Speaker 1: and most of those accounts will very quickly tell you,
Speaker 1: in no uncertain language that they did not pay to
Speaker 1: get the check mark back anyway. According to Musk, this
Speaker 1: is really about protecting those brands, that the one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per month fee is high enough to prevent rap
Speaker 1: scallions from creating accounts posing as a brand, and so
Speaker 1: it cuts down on scammers who weren't really a thing
Speaker 1: before you could just pay for a check mark anyway.
Speaker 1: Skeptics argue that Musk's company is scrambling for revenue, having
Speaker 1: lost a significant amount, like fifty percent of the advertising
Speaker 1: dollars that were coming into the company over the last
Speaker 1: several months, and that this play is similar to making
Speaker 1: users pay a subscription fee for that check mark, plus
Speaker 1: you know, some other features that come with it, and
Speaker 1: that it's really just a way to slow down losses.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see which brands continue to stick
Speaker 1: around on X. Some of them are big enough where
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a month isn't really that big of
Speaker 1: a commitment, but others are smaller and that you know,
Speaker 1: that's a significant investment, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: brand managers are going to start asking themselves if there's
Speaker 1: even enough value associated with being on X to go
Speaker 1: to the trouble or if they should just you know,
Speaker 1: ditch and go to threads or some other platform instead
Speaker 1: speaking of X. You won't be speaking of X in Indonesia,
Speaker 1: or at least you wouldn't have been. Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: Al Jazeera reported that on Tuesday, Indonesia more or less
Speaker 1: accidentally blocked Musk's platform because of the domain name x
Speaker 1: dot com because in Indonesia they associated that domain with
Speaker 1: sites that would host adult material and Indonesia has strict
Speaker 1: laws against pornography. The Ministry of Communication and Informatics reached
Speaker 1: out to x dot com to confirm that it is
Speaker 1: in fact meant solely to host Twitter and not a
Speaker 1: platform for pornographic material. But this meant that twenty four
Speaker 1: million people living in Indonesia were unable to access x
Speaker 1: slash Twitter that day unless they were using like a
Speaker 1: VPN or something I guess. Not long ago, I talked
Speaker 1: about how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA
Speaker 1: here in the United States is investigating a car crash
Speaker 1: that happened back in twenty eighteen actually, and one of
Speaker 1: the cars involved in that was a Tesla vehicle that
Speaker 1: allegedly was in advanced driver assist mode autopilot or full
Speaker 1: self driving mode in other words. Now, according to CNBC,
Speaker 1: California's Attorney General's Office has launched its investigation into Tesla,
Speaker 1: and this investigation is looking into both the issue of
Speaker 1: safety with Tesla's autopilot system, as well as seeking comment
Speaker 1: from Tesla owners about whether or not they feel they
Speaker 1: were the target of false advertising when it came to
Speaker 1: Tesla's driver assist features. This might also include Tesla customers
Speaker 1: who paid into the full self driving system, which is
Speaker 1: still an advanced driver assist feature. It's not, as the
Speaker 1: name seems to suggest, an actually fully autonomous method of
Speaker 1: operating your vehicle. So this is still very early on
Speaker 1: in the Attorney General's office investigation into Tesla. It's early
Speaker 1: enough that CNBC wasn't able to get any confirmation from
Speaker 1: the the office that it's actually engaged in such an investigation.
Speaker 1: They did, however, talk with people who say they had
Speaker 1: been in contact with the Attorney General's Office and answered
Speaker 1: some questions about their experience with Tesla. It is too
Speaker 1: early to assume any kind of outcome here or what
Speaker 1: the office might demand of Tesla. Shouldn't find evidence of
Speaker 1: false advertising or other issues. So it's just the earliest
Speaker 1: days of this investigation and it may end up not
Speaker 1: turning into anything. We'll just have to wait and see.
Speaker 1: In certain sections of the Chinese city Chingdu, there are
Speaker 1: no Tesla's allowed right now now. The reason for this
Speaker 1: is that the city is hosting the World University Games
Speaker 1: this week, and Chinese President Shi Jinping will visit the
Speaker 1: city as part of the opening celebration, which is tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The concern is that Tesla vehicles, which rely on optical
Speaker 1: camera systems for the purposes of things like that collision detection,
Speaker 1: could end up operating as a surveillance threat, so police
Speaker 1: have been told to turn away drivers in Tesla's if
Speaker 1: they should approach certain venues now. Elon Musk in the
Speaker 1: past has said that Tesla obeys whatever local data laws
Speaker 1: are in place in all the regions where Tesla's are
Speaker 1: on the roads, but it sounds like Chinese authorities don't
Speaker 1: want to take any chances, and have subsequently demanded that
Speaker 1: cameras on wheels not be allowed near the places Shi
Speaker 1: Jenping will visit. I suspect we won't see any official
Speaker 1: outcry from Tesla the company because the Chinese market is
Speaker 1: a critical one for Tesla, so it would shock me
Speaker 1: if the company made any noise about this. What do
Speaker 1: the following companies have in common? BMW, Honda, General Motors, Yundi, Mercedes, Benz,
Speaker 1: Kia and Stalantis. That last one might not sound familiar
Speaker 1: to you, but they own a whole bunch of car companies.
Speaker 1: And if you in fact said, oh, those are all automakers,
Speaker 1: you get partial credit. But beyond that, if you had said,
Speaker 1: those are seven companies that are aiming to build out
Speaker 1: an EV charging network to rival that of Tesla's in
Speaker 1: North America, well then you get full marks. Because these companies,
Speaker 1: which you could argue, really drag their collective feet. While
Speaker 1: Elon Musk was directing Tesla to build out supercharger stations
Speaker 1: all over the place, are now trying to push back
Speaker 1: against Tesla's dominance in the space. So right now, Tesla
Speaker 1: has approximately twenty two thousand supercharger stalls in North America.
Speaker 1: This is according to Business Insider, that puts them by
Speaker 1: far in the lead for EV charging stations. They have
Speaker 1: completely eclipsed everyone else. But this coalition of automakers hopes
Speaker 1: to build out more than thirty thousand charging stations. And
Speaker 1: if you're wondering who currently holds number two in North
Speaker 1: America for EV charging stations, that would actually be Volkswagen
Speaker 1: backed company Electrify America. But they just have three, five
Speaker 1: and ninety two. That is a far cry behind the
Speaker 1: twenty two thousand now. Obviously, the need for charging stations
Speaker 1: are one of the big reasons why EV adoption is
Speaker 1: facing an uphill battle. Right, you have to have confidence
Speaker 1: among consumers that they can actually recharge their cars and
Speaker 1: not get stranded somewhere. And so this is a real need.
Speaker 1: But you might ask, well, why are automakers rushing forward now?
Speaker 1: I mean, this need has existed ever since people started
Speaker 1: to talk about electric vehicles again. Well, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of big reasons why it's happening now. One is
Speaker 1: that evs are going to become increasingly common in North
Speaker 1: America moving forward because a lot of automakers are moving
Speaker 1: away from internal combustion engine vehicles. There's this global migration
Speaker 1: away from those and for the purposes of manufacturing it
Speaker 1: makes sense, and also, I mean it's cheaper to manufacture
Speaker 1: evs than it is internal combustion engine vehicles. They are
Speaker 1: simpler in design. Another reason is that the automakers would
Speaker 1: rather be able to create their own charging standard than
Speaker 1: to allow Tesla to dictate that standard, because if Tesla's
Speaker 1: technology becomes the universal charging technology, that would mean automakers
Speaker 1: would have to pay a license fee to Tesla in
Speaker 1: order to make use of that tech, and that would
Speaker 1: be great news for Tesla to rake in money for
Speaker 1: licensing out its technology to other companies, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: companies would rather not have to do that if they
Speaker 1: can find a workaround. So it sounds like the group
Speaker 1: wants to build out charging stations that lift some of
Speaker 1: the ideas that Tesla incorporates in its technology. For example,
Speaker 1: to pay for charging, you would just plug in your vehicle,
Speaker 1: and when you do that, the vehicle communicates with the
Speaker 1: charging station, identifies itself, Your account automatically gets deducted whatever
Speaker 1: the charge was for the juicing up your vehicle, and
Speaker 1: you go on your way. You don't have to take
Speaker 1: out a credit card or anything. That's a great feature
Speaker 1: and it's one that I think these automakers are looking
Speaker 1: to incorporate in their own solutions, so you could say
Speaker 1: that they're going to be copying a lot of Tesla's features,
Speaker 1: maybe not in operation, but in effect. My guess is
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to see. Now, we're not done
Speaker 1: with Tesla just yet. Reuter's reports that the company overpromised
Speaker 1: how far its vehicles could drive on a single charge, and,
Speaker 1: in an effort to avoid festen up to that issue,
Speaker 1: would cancel appointments of drivers who were concerned that their
Speaker 1: car wasn't performing up to standard. So, as a driver,
Speaker 1: you would get behind the wheel of your Tesla, started up,
Speaker 1: and you would see an estimate of how far you
Speaker 1: could go on the current battery charge of your vehicle.
Speaker 1: No pun intended. The drivers saw that their actual driving
Speaker 1: range was lower than what the estimate was, and then
Speaker 1: it was frequently, i mean like always lower. So naturally
Speaker 1: some of the drivers sought an appointment with a Tesla
Speaker 1: service center to see what was up, just assuming, oh,
Speaker 1: something is wrong with my vehicle, because I'm never able
Speaker 1: to achieve the driving range that is estimated when I
Speaker 1: get in my vehicle. So, according to Reuter's, Tesla had
Speaker 1: a team in place dedicated to canceling those types of
Speaker 1: service appointments, because ultimately the only thing that was going
Speaker 1: wrong was that the algorithm estimating the driving range was
Speaker 1: way too optimistic. I suppose they could have tried to
Speaker 1: fix the algorithm, but then the driver would likely notice
Speaker 1: that their car now was estimating lower ranges than before,
Speaker 1: and that if you're a driver, you would say, well,
Speaker 1: they fixed the wrong dang part of the car. They
Speaker 1: should have made the car be able to do what
Speaker 1: it said it could do, not change what it said
Speaker 1: it could do to something less Reuters couldn't find information
Speaker 1: on when, or what, how or how all that algorithm
Speaker 1: could have changed over the years, but Business Insider offered
Speaker 1: up the encouragement that Tesla vehicle driving performance has actually
Speaker 1: improved significantly over the years, so chances are you don't
Speaker 1: encounter the same issue now. But doesn't change the fact that,
Speaker 1: if this investigation is accurate, Tesla arguably engaged in false
Speaker 1: advertising for years. Okay, we've got a lot more news
Speaker 1: stories to go. It was a busy week. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We're back.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reports that the US Federal Trade Commission is preparing
Speaker 1: an enormous antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, and that the FTC
Speaker 1: may even seek to break Amazon up a bit in
Speaker 1: a corporate restructuring, and Amazon would have to spin off
Speaker 1: parts of its business that would be huge. It's something
Speaker 1: that we really haven't seen in the tech sector for decades.
Speaker 1: Like the last time I remember them attempting to do
Speaker 1: this was with Microsoft in the nineties, and ultimately that
Speaker 1: decision was reversed, but initially that was going to happen
Speaker 1: to Microsoft. So at the heart of the matter with
Speaker 1: this particular case is Amazon's policies that appear to reward
Speaker 1: merchants who rely on Amazon tools and then restrict merchants
Speaker 1: who do not. That can mean that a merchant that
Speaker 1: plays ball with Amazon will find itself popping up in
Speaker 1: relevant searches more often or appearing as a suggested product.
Speaker 1: You know, when you buy something or you've got something
Speaker 1: in your cart and you see a message that says
Speaker 1: people who bought this also bought this other kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that kind of thing, And merchants who do not
Speaker 1: use Amazon tools and services that are optional will find
Speaker 1: that their products get buried deep in search results. That's
Speaker 1: what the allegation is, and customers are not likely to
Speaker 1: see the results at all, so they don't buy those products,
Speaker 1: and the merchants who either can't afford or don't want
Speaker 1: to use Amazon services end up being punished as a result.
Speaker 1: So the FTC says, one, this is happening, and two
Speaker 1: this practice is clearly anti competitive because Amazon owns the marketplace,
Speaker 1: it dictates the terms, It awards advantages to people who
Speaker 1: pay those optional Amazon services, and denies those advantages to
Speaker 1: merchants who do not. I will keep an eye on this.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reports that the FTC's plan is to bring this
Speaker 1: litigation against Amazon in August, and if that happens, it
Speaker 1: might well warrant a full Tech Stuff episode to kind
Speaker 1: of talk about this and previous antitrust suits that were
Speaker 1: brought against tech companies, and maybe even talk about why
Speaker 1: there was a very long gap between the efforts in
Speaker 1: the nineties and what we're seeing play out today. One
Speaker 1: story I did not cover on Tuesday, honestly because I
Speaker 1: just needed more time to read up on it to
Speaker 1: get it my head wrapped around it was that Google
Speaker 1: has introduced a new specification called the Web Environment Integrity
Speaker 1: spec so this specification would create an application programming interface
Speaker 1: or API. The purpose of this API is that websites
Speaker 1: could enable it to inform them if the browser and
Speaker 1: the device running the browser is trusted by a third
Speaker 1: party that would be called the a tester. So in
Speaker 1: other words, the website could say, hey, is this person
Speaker 1: or thing that's visiting my site? Is that trustworthy or not?
Speaker 1: And this third party would say either yes or no.
Speaker 1: The idea here is this would help websites differentiate real traffic,
Speaker 1: you know, like traffic coming from actual human beings on
Speaker 1: actual consumer devices or whatever, or if the traffic was
Speaker 1: coming through some automated system like a bot. That One
Speaker 1: of the use cases they mentioned would be to determine
Speaker 1: if an interaction with an AD was one that was
Speaker 1: taken by a real world, hure human being or if
Speaker 1: someone just program bots to do it and artificially run
Speaker 1: up the ads click through. But critics are calling this
Speaker 1: approach akin to putting DRM on the web. DRM, in
Speaker 1: case you're not familiar, stands for digital Rights management. If
Speaker 1: you've got any sort of negative associations with that term,
Speaker 1: it is totally understandable. DRM not always but frequently makes
Speaker 1: it harder for legitimate consumers to actually enjoy the products
Speaker 1: they legitimately bought, and it only stands as a minor
Speaker 1: inconvenience to people who are determined to steal stuff because
Speaker 1: invariably they find a way to break the erm. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, most of the time, maybe just much
Speaker 1: of the time, let's be kind, much of the time,
Speaker 1: it fails to solve the problem it was designed to stop,
Speaker 1: i e. Piracy And meanwhile, it makes the normal experience
Speaker 1: worse for everyone who's playing by the rules, which is
Speaker 1: doubly bad, right, and yet it's still a thing anyway.
Speaker 1: A big concern about Google's approach is that this could
Speaker 1: mean and a tester, the third party that tells you
Speaker 1: whether or not something is trustworthy or not, could arbitrarily
Speaker 1: decide that a particular browser or platform is untrustworthy and
Speaker 1: just blacklist it. And if that a tester is like Google,
Speaker 1: because Google suggested that Google Play would serve as the
Speaker 1: a tester for Android platforms, well that means Google effectively
Speaker 1: becomes a gatekeeper. And if you are a developer who
Speaker 1: has created an alternative browser, it may mean that you
Speaker 1: no longer have a business because no one can use
Speaker 1: your tool to access anything, at least not on an
Speaker 1: Android device because the third party a tester, has determined
Speaker 1: that your tool is not trustworthy. So if Google decides
Speaker 1: a particular browser is untrust trustworthy, can effectively block them
Speaker 1: from accessing the web. That seems more than a little
Speaker 1: like overreach. If you ask me now, Similarly, you would
Speaker 1: assume that Google would name like Microsoft to be the
Speaker 1: gatekeeper or the a tester for Windows based machines, and
Speaker 1: Apple would undoubtedly be the gatekeeper for iOS and macOS devices.
Speaker 1: Considering the conversation these days often circles around the problem
Speaker 1: of a centralized web that is the realm of just
Speaker 1: a few powerful tech companies, this seems like a supremely
Speaker 1: bad move. It's like a direct strike against the open web.
Speaker 1: I think it is likely that we will eventually see
Speaker 1: regulators oppose this approach. I think that's most likely to
Speaker 1: happen first in places like the EU the European Union,
Speaker 1: because they are very quick to spot and oppose things
Speaker 1: that are anti competitive or monopolistic. Switching gears, Meta has
Speaker 1: had a great week financially. The company showed that it
Speaker 1: had increased ad engagement and sales figures dramatically beating industry estimates,
Speaker 1: and they leaned heavily on AI tools to do so.
Speaker 1: So this is like a double win for Meta, right
Speaker 1: one they're able to show how well their business worked,
Speaker 1: and two they were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of
Speaker 1: AI in this particular application. The improved performance led to
Speaker 1: a surge in the company's stock price, and just like that,
Speaker 1: Meta saw sixty billion dollars tagged on top of its
Speaker 1: market value. World's turn on such things. Meta also showed
Speaker 1: that it had improved ad engagement and sales on its
Speaker 1: Reels product within Instagram, which of course is another big deal,
Speaker 1: and investors are very much encouraged and advertisers are flocking
Speaker 1: to Meta. I meanwhile, you know x dot Com over
Speaker 1: there is saying brands need to cough up a grand
Speaker 1: a month to stay checked on the site. It's like
Speaker 1: night and day these companies. Anyway, while Meta the company
Speaker 1: is doing great, I think it is really important for
Speaker 1: users to remember that this increase in performance ultimately comes
Speaker 1: back to the fact that Meta is very good at
Speaker 1: collecting your data. It's very good at sussing out what
Speaker 1: you like and what you want and then serving that
Speaker 1: up to you. By sharing the information with advertisers. Just
Speaker 1: something to always keep in mind, you know, because we
Speaker 1: are the product here. So while if you're an investor
Speaker 1: in Meta, you're probably happy to hear that the company
Speaker 1: had such a great turnout this week, but if you're
Speaker 1: a user, you need to remember, like there's a there's
Speaker 1: a dark side to all of this. Here's another story
Speaker 1: about anti competitiveness. This time we've got three big tech
Speaker 1: companies that are banding together to compete against two other
Speaker 1: big tech companies. In fact, the story involves the big
Speaker 1: five tech companies. It involves Google and Apple, who are
Speaker 1: kind of in the dominant positions on one side, and
Speaker 1: the combined might of Meta, Microsoft and Amazon on the other.
Speaker 1: And what is the battleground? Map apps digital maps, So
Speaker 1: currently on Apple and Google dominate the digital map space,
Speaker 1: right Like, if you're using an iOS device, chances are
Speaker 1: you're probably using Apple Maps. If you're on Android, you're
Speaker 1: probably using Google Maps. If you're on Apple and you're
Speaker 1: fed up with Apple Maps, you may be using Google Maps.
Speaker 1: Although that's unfair. Apple Maps was very bad when it
Speaker 1: first launched, but they fix that and in some cases,
Speaker 1: Apple Maps gives much better directions than Google Maps. I've
Speaker 1: had that happen a couple of times where my partner
Speaker 1: their map would end up bringing us to a location
Speaker 1: much more efficiently than my Android Google Maps navigation would
Speaker 1: take us. So it goes both ways anyway. App developers
Speaker 1: that want map functionality in their apps frequently they have
Speaker 1: to pay one or the other, or maybe even both
Speaker 1: Google and Apple to access their map data to help
Speaker 1: populate the app that the developer is creating. Meanwhile, these
Speaker 1: other three big companies are saying, why can't we get
Speaker 1: some of the money. So these three companies in partnership
Speaker 1: with tom Tom are releasing data that app developers can
Speaker 1: use to build out their own map functions, and that
Speaker 1: way they could bypass the need to pay Google or
Speaker 1: Apple for that information. Now, these groups are not building
Speaker 1: their own map app. We're not getting a third contender
Speaker 1: against Google and Apple Maps. Instead, what they're doing is
Speaker 1: they're giving developers the opportunity to access this mountain of
Speaker 1: underlying data, and it's up to the developers to build
Speaker 1: the map software that they want and the experience they
Speaker 1: have in mind. Personally, I think it's a good move.
Speaker 1: Competition is important, Competition inspires innovation. Competition can keep prices lower.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see if this initiative actually challenges
Speaker 1: the existing duopoly in the digital map space. However, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got, oh my gosh, so many more stories. We're
Speaker 1: going to do one more before we do a break.
Speaker 1: I'm calling an audible y'all, cause gosh, there's so many stories.
Speaker 1: So in Hollywood, strikes continue with the Writer's Guild of
Speaker 1: America and sag AFTRA unions. One of the many issues
Speaker 1: that these two unions are facing in Hollywood centers around
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence and its place in Hollywood and if it
Speaker 1: even should have a place. If it does, where should
Speaker 1: the restrictions be. Meanwhile, Netflix pulled focus when Netflix's search
Speaker 1: for an AI product manager became public knowledge. So, according
Speaker 1: to Netflix's you Know job opening, they're offering up to
Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand dollars per year as a salary for
Speaker 1: a suitably qualified person to be an AI product manager. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: sag AFTRA argues that nearly ninety percent of working actors
Speaker 1: earn less than two twenty six thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's the threshold an actor must meet
Speaker 1: if they are to receive medical benefits from the union, right,
Speaker 1: they have to get twenty six thousand dollars from acting. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think it's twenty six four hundred and seventy. You
Speaker 1: have to make at least that much just from acting
Speaker 1: in order to qualify for medical benefits. So you might
Speaker 1: supplement your acting with other jobs and you might make
Speaker 1: more than twenty six thousand, but the union only counts
Speaker 1: it if it is derived from your work as an actor.
Speaker 1: So the argument here is that the vast majority of
Speaker 1: actors are being exploited. And meanwhile, here's Netflix putting out
Speaker 1: an ad for an AI expert who will be making
Speaker 1: nearly a million dollars a year. So the narrative emerging
Speaker 1: from this labor strike has largely been on the side
Speaker 1: of writers and actors, as they point out that there's
Speaker 1: not actually a shortage of money in Hollywood. Rather, studios
Speaker 1: are attempting to withhold as much money for things like
Speaker 1: executive compensation and for shareholder return, while the people who
Speaker 1: are responsible for actually making the stuff that Hollywood profits
Speaker 1: off of are left out of the conversation, or worse,
Speaker 1: their work is actively being threatened by a predatory use
Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence. Okay, one more, the US Securities and
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission, or SEC, has some new rules that are
Speaker 1: bound to hit publicly traded companies hard. These rules state
Speaker 1: that if a company detects a cybersecurity breach that could
Speaker 1: affect the company's bottom line, it has four days to
Speaker 1: publicly disclose that breach. Now, you're probably aware that many
Speaker 1: times a company will detect a breach, but then keep
Speaker 1: that information under wraps for weeks or sometimes months, or
Speaker 1: maybe even up to a year, as people within the
Speaker 1: company determine how best to respond and to try and
Speaker 1: limit the amount of damage that could be done to
Speaker 1: the company by revealing it. The SEC has taken a
Speaker 1: stance that this approach hurts investors. That's the primary concern
Speaker 1: for the SEC. I mean, it also hurts consumers. But
Speaker 1: they're saying no, investors deserve to know this because that
Speaker 1: has a direct effect on their investment. So the only
Speaker 1: exceptions the SEC will consider to this four day rule
Speaker 1: are cases where revealing the breach could impact national security
Speaker 1: or public safety, or if a company could successfully argue
Speaker 1: that the breach did not affect the company's bottom line.
Speaker 1: And to be clear that for daytimer only starts ticking
Speaker 1: once a company has made that determination. So if a
Speaker 1: company you know, takes it's real sweet time to determine
Speaker 1: if that breach actually is going to have a bottom
Speaker 1: line effect. That four days doesn't start until you know,
Speaker 1: the conclusion is arrived at, which seems like it's a
Speaker 1: possible loophole to me. But anyway, if it's a publicly
Speaker 1: traded company, it is obligated to come forward within four days. Obviously,
Speaker 1: private companies are exempt from this. They have their own
Speaker 1: private shareholders, they are not beholden to these rules. The
Speaker 1: adoption of these rules came down to a three to
Speaker 1: two vote. The SEC is made up of five people
Speaker 1: on the board, and it split right down party lines.
Speaker 1: You had three Democratic appointees and two Republican appointees. The
Speaker 1: three Democrats voted in favor of the two Republicans voted against.
Speaker 1: And there are arguments both for and against these rules,
Speaker 1: and maybe one day I'll do a full episode to
Speaker 1: talk about those. It does get more involved and complicated
Speaker 1: than we can chat about here. Okay, I still have
Speaker 1: several news stories to get through, so let's take another
Speaker 1: break and then we'll get back and get through this
Speaker 1: epic news episode. We're back so Reuter's reports that Google's
Speaker 1: sister company, Weimo, the autonomous vehicle company, has parked to
Speaker 1: use a pun and at least temporarily its efforts to
Speaker 1: create self driving trucking technology. Instead, Weimo will focus on
Speaker 1: ride haaling services, you know, essentially an alternative to things
Speaker 1: like Uber and Lyft. I'm honestly really surprised by this.
Speaker 1: I had assumed that the trucking application would be the
Speaker 1: one more likely to steal focus. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: like that would be a more achievable goal to me.
Speaker 1: But perhaps I'm just way off base here. The company
Speaker 1: is forming a strategic partnership with Diamler Truck North America,
Speaker 1: so Diamler's going to take over the trucking operations aspect.
Speaker 1: Weimo will attempt to dominate the autonomous ride hailing services
Speaker 1: industry in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles out
Speaker 1: in California, as well as Phoenix in Arizona. Some scientists
Speaker 1: at the Quantum Energy Research Center in South Korea, as
Speaker 1: well as a researcher at the College of William and
Speaker 1: Mary in Virginia in the United States, have claimed that
Speaker 1: they made a monumental breakthrough which is putting it lightly.
Speaker 1: They say they've created a material that can achieve super
Speaker 1: conductivity at room temperatures and room pressure air pressure. So
Speaker 1: let's break this down. So you can pass electricity through
Speaker 1: an electrical conductor. Right, conductors can allow electricity to pass
Speaker 1: through them, whereas an insulator resists electricity passing through it.
Speaker 1: But under most circumstances, the amount of electricity you put
Speaker 1: into a conductor is going to be more than the
Speaker 1: amount of electricity you'll measure at the other end of
Speaker 1: the conductor. You're going to lose some energy in the
Speaker 1: process because some of the electricity gets lost in the
Speaker 1: form of heat. This is why you have to have
Speaker 1: all those cooling systems and things like super powerful gaming computers,
Speaker 1: because they end up losing a lot of energy in
Speaker 1: the form of heat, and you got to dissipate that heat.
Speaker 1: Because of the wise things go wrong, but it ultimately
Speaker 1: means you have an inefficiency in your system due to
Speaker 1: this loss of energy in the form of heat. But
Speaker 1: a superconductor is a material that, under the right conditions,
Speaker 1: can conduct electricity with zero loss. There's no electrical resistance,
Speaker 1: there's no loss in energy. You get the same electricity
Speaker 1: coming out as you got putting into it. But to
Speaker 1: achieve this, typically you need to do stuff like super
Speaker 1: cool the conductor down to a wicked cold temperature, like
Speaker 1: getting close to absolute zero. That's how cold you need
Speaker 1: to get. And or you may need to use really
Speaker 1: incredible pressure in an effort to create a super conductive material.
Speaker 1: So this is difficult, it is dangerous, it is expensive.
Speaker 1: But if someone were to create a material that was
Speaker 1: a perfect conductor at room temperature and room pressure, that
Speaker 1: would be beyond astonishing. That is what this team is
Speaker 1: claiming to have done. They say they've made this new material.
Speaker 1: They took stuff like lead and sulfur and phosphorus and oxygen,
Speaker 1: and they baked it all together at super high temperatures
Speaker 1: and ended up with this dark gray solid material that
Speaker 1: they claim can perform as a superconductor at temperatures as
Speaker 1: high as eighty six degrees fahrenheit or thirty celsius, which
Speaker 1: is unthinkable. Now their work has yet to be accepted
Speaker 1: by a peer reviewed journal. There are plenty of scientists
Speaker 1: who are skeptical of these results for very valid reasons.
Speaker 1: There have been previous reports of similar achievements from others,
Speaker 1: and it always has turned out to have been a
Speaker 1: mistake or a hoax, and not something that anyone else
Speaker 1: could replace Kate. So we need to wait for independent
Speaker 1: teams to either verify or refute these results, to essentially
Speaker 1: try and do the exact same thing this team says
Speaker 1: they did and see if they get the same results
Speaker 1: before we can draw any kind of scientific conclusion about this.
Speaker 1: It is way too early to get excited about this possibility.
Speaker 1: The team will have a very high threshold of proof
Speaker 1: they have to meet before the scientific community will accept this.
Speaker 1: So it's probably not true because it is just it's
Speaker 1: such a huge leap. But if it were true, it
Speaker 1: would lead to massive advancements and lots of areas of
Speaker 1: engineering and science. So I am very skeptical, but man,
Speaker 1: I hope it's true. Like I don't think it is,
Speaker 1: but I hope it is, because that again would mean
Speaker 1: that you could do things like create superconductors to power
Speaker 1: things like particle accelerators without the need for these massive
Speaker 1: cooling systems to keep all the powerful magnets you need
Speaker 1: at the correct temperature in order to operate the particle accelerator.
Speaker 1: That suddenly makes particle accelerators cheaper to build, which means
Speaker 1: you can make more powerful ones and learn way more
Speaker 1: about the universe. Like you see how it could be
Speaker 1: incredible if it is true. I just doubt it is.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm wrong. I hope other independent teams end
Speaker 1: up replicating those responses or results, and that we see
Speaker 1: that the research team was right on the money. That
Speaker 1: would be amazing. Now I've said this many times on
Speaker 1: this show, but space is hard. Also, it's trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. So it should come as little surprised that Boeing,
Speaker 1: which has been working on the Starliner spacecraft, which is
Speaker 1: a capsule size spacecraft, smaller than the Orion but bigger
Speaker 1: than the Apollo capsule of the old Space Race days,
Speaker 1: Boeing has lost a lot of money developing the star
Speaker 1: Liner because of lots of unforeseen problems they've run intwo
Speaker 1: so far on this project. Like we're talking one point
Speaker 1: one billion dollars worth of losses now, in case you
Speaker 1: weren't familiar, Boeing's star Liner is one of two space
Speaker 1: capsules the NASA had tapped as being a way to
Speaker 1: transport astronauts to and from the space station, as well
Speaker 1: as other platforms that would be in lowerth orbit. So
Speaker 1: the two were Boeing's Starliner, which has yet to become
Speaker 1: a thing, and SpaceX's Dragon two capsule. So Boeing had
Speaker 1: to scrap a test launch recently. It was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a launched this month with two astronauts aboard a
Speaker 1: Starliner capsule, but Boeing discovered that one of the components
Speaker 1: in the capsule is flammable, which is bad, and in
Speaker 1: that case it's a kind of tape that can be
Speaker 1: removed from the capsule, but it was a potential fire hazard,
Speaker 1: So that was one reason why it had to be scrapped.
Speaker 1: And the other is that they found that the links
Speaker 1: that connect the capsule's parachute to the capsule itself do
Speaker 1: not meet NASA's safety standards. These seem like valid reasons
Speaker 1: to cancel a test flight. The fact that NASA was
Speaker 1: getting this close to a launch date before Boeing revealed
Speaker 1: these problems has raised some red flags. So now the
Speaker 1: Space Agency is taking a much closer look at the
Speaker 1: star Liners designed to see what, if any other problems
Speaker 1: might be present. So this might mean that we might
Speaker 1: have to wait until twenty twenty four. Star Liners first
Speaker 1: test with astronauts aboard a capsule. Meanwhile, SpaceX has taken
Speaker 1: up the slack. Speaking of space, NASA announced a partnership
Speaker 1: with the Department of Defense here in the United States
Speaker 1: to launch a nuclear powered rocket by twenty twenty seven. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, the launch vehicle would use conventional chemically
Speaker 1: fueled boosters to lift off of Earth. You wouldn't have
Speaker 1: a nuclear reactor generating the thrust force to launch into orbit.
Speaker 1: But once you got far enough out, then the spacecraft
Speaker 1: would utilize what is essentially a nuclear reactor to generate heat.
Speaker 1: This heat would then in turn superheat a liquid hydrogen
Speaker 1: into a gas, so the gas would expand dramatically as
Speaker 1: it heats up, and then by passing through a nozzle,
Speaker 1: the gas would propel the spacecraft for it would provide
Speaker 1: the thrust. Then you got nuclear propulsion. Doing this, however,
Speaker 1: is going to be tricky. First of all, you got
Speaker 1: to work with some very strict rules about nuclear reactors.
Speaker 1: So any spacecraft that's going to have essentially a nuclear
Speaker 1: reactor on board it is going to have to meet
Speaker 1: those safety requirements. You also have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to make it super duper duper duper safe. So that
Speaker 1: if the launch were to go wrong, you don't end
Speaker 1: up dropping like a nuclear reactor on Florida or something.
Speaker 1: There are other challenges that are less doomsdayish. For example,
Speaker 1: eventually a nuclear powered rocket would run out of propellant,
Speaker 1: right if you're using liquid hydrogen as you're propellant. Well,
Speaker 1: first you're gonna have to keep that stuff at twenty kelvin,
Speaker 1: which is not that much higher than absolute zero, because
Speaker 1: above that hydrogen will boil from liquid form into a gas.
Speaker 1: So you have to manage that. You have to manage
Speaker 1: the temperature of the propellant or else you're going to
Speaker 1: be losing propellant. And then once you're out of propellant, well,
Speaker 1: the engine's not really doing anything. I mean, the nuclear
Speaker 1: reactor will be hot, but there's no propellant heat up,
Speaker 1: so it's not going to generate additional thrust. So you
Speaker 1: just have a nuclear reactor in space at that point.
Speaker 1: It would require refueling the propellant if it were to
Speaker 1: keep going. I'm sure engineers will encounter plenty of other
Speaker 1: challenges as they work to meet this goal. By twenty
Speaker 1: twenty seven, SETI aka the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, announced
Speaker 1: that researchers have uncovered a new method to separate signal
Speaker 1: from noise. So when it comes to searching for extra
Speaker 1: terrestrial intelligence, we mostly focus on detecting radio waves, but
Speaker 1: any radio waves from extraterrestrials would be pretty faint by
Speaker 1: the time they reached us, assuming that these extraterrestrials are
Speaker 1: a very far way away, which seems to be a
Speaker 1: pretty safe assumption. Meanwhile, we are pumping all sorts of
Speaker 1: radio waves out of Earth, so you have to tune
Speaker 1: out all the stuff we earthlings generate that's interference in
Speaker 1: this case, and then you can look for signs of
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, alien television programs or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it becomes a real challenge. So the researchers say
Speaker 1: that this new approach looks for repeated patterns in a
Speaker 1: saygals amplitude, which is called scintillation. They're looking for scintillation,
Speaker 1: and they propose that they can use scintillation to filter
Speaker 1: out human generated signals, because human generated signals do not scintillate,
Speaker 1: So you get rid of all the stuff that isn't
Speaker 1: scintillating and focus on the stuff that is. And by definition,
Speaker 1: those signals have to come from beyond Earth, because we
Speaker 1: don't generate those kinds of signals, so it must have
Speaker 1: come from somewhere else. Now that being said, that does
Speaker 1: not necessarily mean it will end up coming from intelligent
Speaker 1: life outside of Earth. There's a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: space that generates radio waves, and not all of it
Speaker 1: is sentient or intelligent. It's just that's one of the
Speaker 1: byproducts of the different celestial bodies out there. However, this
Speaker 1: approach would definitely cut back on the problem of radio interference,
Speaker 1: So if the truth is out there, this approach will
Speaker 1: make it a little less difficult to detect. And finally,
Speaker 1: I have an ar article recommendation for you. David Pierce
Speaker 1: wrote a piece for The Verge titled The Little Search
Speaker 1: Engine That Couldn't. This tells the story of some former
Speaker 1: Google programmers who left Google and created an alternative search
Speaker 1: engine called Neva n Eeva, and reportedly it's faster than
Speaker 1: Google Search. It also is ad free. So why have
Speaker 1: so few people heard about this, let alone used it.
Speaker 1: The article is well worth a read, and as always,
Speaker 1: I have no connection to the Verge and I do
Speaker 1: not know David Pierce, although I did once sit next
Speaker 1: to David Hyde Pierce the actor at a restaurant, but
Speaker 1: that's a different person. I don't even know why I
Speaker 1: brought it up anyway. That article again, it's on the
Speaker 1: Verge and it's called The Little Search Engine That Couldn't.
Speaker 1: And that's it for the Tech News for Thursday, July
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. Man, this was an epic
Speaker 1: news episode, tons of news. I was thinking that it
Speaker 1: would be fairly light. I usually think Thursdays will be
Speaker 1: lighter than Tuesdays, but man, we just got a ton
Speaker 1: of stuff in the second half of the week. I
Speaker 1: hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.