WEBVTT - Tech News: Spaaaaaace Tacos 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.760 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.840 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.800 love all things tech. It's time for the tech News 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.599 for Thursday, November four, twenty one, and we're gonna start 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.280 off with kind of a funny story. So on Tuesday, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.680 we talked about how Facebook, the company, has adopted the 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:39.080 name Meta as a rebrand for the overall corporation. So, Facebook, 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.800 the social media platform is just one part of that 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.120 business and it's not changing its name. But now it 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.600 turns out that another company disputes Facebook's right to the 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.000 meta name Meta. PC, a company that's been around for 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.880 around a year, applied for a trademark for the name 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.760 Meta back this past August, which was obviously a couple 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.319 of months before rumors popped up that Facebook was going 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.320 to even rebrand. However, the company has not yet actually 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.520 received a trademark from the trademark office. Assuming there are 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:18.160 not other conflicts, you would think that the PC company 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.200 would get the trademark due to being what we call 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.000 in the biz firstees. If they do get the trademark, well, 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.480 then Facebook would not be allowed to just adopt the 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:35.280 name without getting permission first. Now see, Facebook wouldn't have 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.760 necessarily known about this issue because the trademark had not 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.039 yet been registered. So I don't think the company was 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.880 bullishly trying to take over the Meta name from Meta PC. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.920 I just don't think they even realized Meta pc was 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.560 a thing, uh, And they just probably assumed there were 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.640 no impediments in the way of getting a new name. 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.720 I mean, if if there was no register trademark, then 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.480 it looks like there's no foul, right. But the owners 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:08.239 of Meta PC, Zack shut and Joe Darger, say they're 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.600 willing to part with the rights to the name of 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:15.240 Meta for a cool twenty million dollars. And they also 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.360 tweeted a photoshop picture of Mark Zuckerberg holding a Meta 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.120 pc in his hands, and they said that if they 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.239 do sell the name, they'll make sure to pick something 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.960 new that suits their PC company, and maybe they just 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.919 go with the name Facebook. That seems like that's coming up, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.200 which is, you know, kind of a funny, little like 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:39.360 tongue in cheek response. Whether this actually goes anywhere largely 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.440 depends upon the trademark office and whether or not they 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.560 allow Meta pc to have Meta registered as a trademark. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.760 If the Trademark office denies that, well, then Meta pc 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.560 really doesn't have any leverage. However, it would also presumably 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.000 mean that Facebook slash meta would also have issues registering 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:02.680 the trademark. Otherwise the office is really playing favorites. So 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.880 I'll have to see how this all turns out. And 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.680 now for less whimsical Facebook news, because of course there's 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:14.360 gonna be some first up Facebook, the social network site 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.120 is giving up on facial recognition technologies, and that's a 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.440 good thing. I mean, we've talked a lot about how 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.240 facial recognition technology is often flawed in its implementation, and 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.600 that frequently we see that the tech tends to work 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.360 pretty well for certain ethnicities and not so great for others. 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.280 Misidentifying people, you know, you get a lot of false positives, 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.960 that kind of thing. And we also know that this 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.880 technology can lead to serious problems, such as certain populations 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.480 being disproportionately harmed by it. You know, if if police 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:53.200 forces are reliant upon a technology that routinely makes mistakes 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.200 when it comes to identifying people of of certain ethnicities, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.360 that's a real problem. So Facebook saying no to facial 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.680 recognition algorithms. That's a good thing. What's less good is 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.280 that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is totally not 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.400 making that same commitment. Meta plans to continue to rely 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:18.520 on facial recognition technology as it builds out it's metaverse products, 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.919 and I get the feeling that Zuckerberg is really pushing 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.719 for the metaverse stuff to be the future of the company, 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.120 and considering the fact that Facebook is having trouble attracting 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.960 young users, I think that that's kind of all signs 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.440 point that way. So while I'm glad to see Facebook 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.920 move away from facial recognition, I worry that we're really 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.640 just putting that problem on hold. Then again, I have 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.839 no idea how popular this metaverse concept is going to be. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.800 If the metaverse is dependent upon users having access to 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.520 expensive hardware, it may be that only a subset of 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.080 people will ever really have access to it. Anyway, I 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.120 think it's clear that Facebook slash that doesn't really view 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.479 facial recognition tech as being a problem, or at least 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.880 not a deal breaking one. A Facebook investor named Roger 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.680 mcnammy addressed an audience at the Web Summit event and 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:19.120 recommended that governments conduct criminal investigations into Facebook, even calling 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.680 for executives to face jail time should they be found 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:27.120 to be responsible for crimes. Mcnami first invested in Facebook 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.680 around and held onto that stock through to two thousand 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.880 nineteen before he began to start selling it off, and 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.880 he has criticized Facebook multiple times in the past. He 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.839 outlined four areas he believes deserve criminal investigation, and he 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.880 also alluded that he has two others on top of 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.960 those four, bringing the total up to six. And they 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.839 range from business issues like Facebook allegedly failing to disclose 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.400 information to the SEC, even though as a publicly traded company, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.320 is obligated to do that, but it also goes up 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:06.720 to charges that Facebook was potentially complicit in the political 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:11.080 riots that happened on January six, which, holy cow, that's 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.320 January six of this year. I mean, my ability to 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.240 remember dates in my own lifetime is notoriously bad. Like 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.320 I might be like, well, that happened a year ago, 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.360 and it really happened six years ago. But let me 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.120 tell you, the pandemic has made it nearly impossible for 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.080 me to keep things straight anyway. This is more of 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.240 a sign that there's a growing opposition to meta slash 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:36.039 Facebook on multiple fronts, and we're not done yet. The 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:41.440 Washington Post reports that in twenty Mark Zuckerberg himself approved 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.800 a request which was more like a demand from the 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.839 government of Vietnam, which wanted Facebook to take down posts 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.000 that were critical of the Communist party in in charge 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.640 in Vietnam. The government said that Facebook, you know, if 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.880 they didn't comply, then the government would for bid Facebook 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.760 and Vietnam and Zuckerberg reportedly caved into the demands and 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:09.720 authorized the removal of thousands of posts, and the Washington 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:14.200 Post says that Facebook's response was essentially, you know, when 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.200 asked about this, they said, you know, we did it. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.640 But if we didn't do it, then Facebook would have 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.320 gone away in Vietnam, and that would have been even 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.480 worse censorship. That would have meant people were cut off 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.320 from a tool that they were depending upon. And that's 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.920 a difficult argument for me. I mean, I get what 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.920 they're saying, but at the same time, this is predicated 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.720 on the idea that Facebook is providing a service. But 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:43.320 arguably you could say that service is to be a 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.880 pr arm for the Vietnam government, at least as far 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:52.280 as silencing any dissenting voices so that I don't know. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.200 That argument doesn't work so well for me. The Washington 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.640 Post also says that the Vietnamese government was effectively using 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:03.600 Facebook to track down activists and critics of the government, 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.960 claiming that even a post that levied just the tiniest 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.520 amount of criticism towards the Communist Party could result in 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.520 jail time for the user, which is a big Yike's 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.360 let's shift over to Google. The company is once again 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:24.560 throwing its corporate hat in the ring for defense contracts. Now. 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.000 A few years ago, Google was participating in the development 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.360 of Project Mayven, infected essentially one out a bidding war 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:38.160 for it, and Project Maven had a lot of controversial 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.960 stuff involved in it, including things that could potentially be 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.120 used in drone programs, and this in turn led Google 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:50.080 employees to walk out with a protest on Google Uh. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.480 They didn't really like the idea of their work being 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.760 used to help war efforts. Now Google has bid in 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.080 the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability can track that the Defense 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.640 Department has has put up. Now, this project is a 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.760 successor to a previously abandoned program, which was the Joint 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:15.000 Enterprise Defense Infrastructure or JEDI. Now you might remember that 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.079 JEDI saw a bidding war and it really came down 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:23.160 to between Microsoft and Amazon, and Microsoft ultimately won the 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.200 bid and was selected by the Department of Defense. But 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:31.559 then Amazon sued based upon this, uh, this particular agreement. 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.040 They challenged the contract and they claimed that then President 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:39.720 Trump had interfered in the whole process, and because Trump 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:44.760 had beef with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, Trump effectively scuttled 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:51.280 Amazon's bid and forced the Defense Department to go with Microsoft. Anyway, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.400 As a result of all that, that particular project fell through, 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.840 and now Google is competing to win a place at 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.679 the table for the new project. So JEDI was a 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.280 kind of winner takes all approach with one company winning 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.480 the full bid, but the Joint Warfighting project will actually 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.520 see the Defense Department work with multiple companies, so it's 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.520 not you know, winner take all solution. As for what 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.600 Google would do should it become part of this project, 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.440 it sounds like the main components for Google would be 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.920 to provide things like cloud storage and cloud computing services 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:31.199 and mostly be used in noncombat oriented applications such as developing, 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.760 you know, monitoring the developing situation with the pandemic and 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.679 making uh analysis of that, perhaps predicting where the pandemic 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.360 might develop in the future, as well as things like 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.439 climate change. So stuff that's not directly tied to combat activities, 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.760 at least based upon the initial descriptions. Nowhord yet on 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.840 whether Google employees are fine with this. Earlier this week, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.640 I talked about a crypto scam that referenced squid game. Well, 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.480 now the Verge reports on a different scam involving cryptocurrency. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.280 This scam plays on some old fishing tactics, that's fishing 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.200 with a pH And here's how it works. When you 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.040 come into possession of cryptocurrency, you know, whether you earn 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.120 it or you buy some or you're gifted it or whatever, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.640 that cryptocurrency needs to quote unquote live somewhere. It has 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.320 to be stored somewhere. It's code, but it has to 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.319 have a storage space. So one way to store it 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.600 is in a digital wallet that only the owner has 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.839 access to. So effectively, this is just a piece of software, 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.120 and that software will live on a computer or other device, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:43.520 and if you were to lose access to that device, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.800 you would also lose the digital wallet because it's the 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.760 software that's on that computer. It's it's on that physical device. 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.640 This is why you will occasionally hear those rough stories 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.520 about someone who's no longer able to access a hard 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.960 drive that might have like a hundred bitcoin on it 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.240 or whatever. Anyway, the digital wallet is a way for 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.840 you to hold cryptocurrency so that you can use it 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.440 in transactions. Well, the scam involves creating mock ups of 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:16.360 well known digital wallet companies, so copying them, uh, you know, 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.360 and these are companies that have a pretty decent reputation 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.199 or at least not a bad reputation, and the scam 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.960 artists make a copy of those sites to make it 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.080 look as realistic as possible, and then they buy out 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.440 ads on Google so that they rank in Google search results. 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.720 So when you search for digital wallet, the ad results 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.439 pop up above everything else. I mean, you know how 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.240 Google searches work. If you search for something, the ad 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.600 supported results are the first things to pop up. So 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.240 on a casual glance, you might just say, oh, I'll 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.200 just pick the first one. I need a digital wallet. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:50.840 I'm going to pick the first one that's probably the 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.320 best one. And you wouldn't even know that this was 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.880 a scam that was using the ads in order to 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.920 get this sort of placement. So then you go to 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.679 the scam site and the scammers might try to just 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.000 you know, get as much of your personal information as 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.839 possible and cleaning stuff like your bank account or your 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.679 credit card number, you know, your typical phishing attacks strategy, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.720 or they might be even more sneaky. They might have 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.280 you go through the process of creating a new digital wallet. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.320 But instead of actually creating a new wallet, what the 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.240 scammers do is they assign you an existing digital wallet 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:29.560 that belongs to the scammers, so it looks like it's yours. 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.439 They give you the access to it, but they control 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.400 the wallet. So then you spend some money, you purchase cryptocurrency, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:41.240 or you otherwise transfer cryptocurrency that you own into this wallet, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.400 you are effectively stuffing the scam artist's wallet full of 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:50.280 your own cash. The scheme works because Google adds acts 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.480 like a shortcut. It's cutting in line. So by creating 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.480 a convincing fake and then buying out ad space, the 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.960 scam artists have their bogus site appear above the real one, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.280 So security experts recommend that you make sure you scroll 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:07.120 down below the ad results on Google Search for that 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.760 very reason, because you can't be sure that the advertised 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.920 sites are legit, and Google seems unable or unwilling to 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.960 put in the work to protect consumers, which is pretty 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.920 ugly stuff. We've got more stories to cover after we 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:33.840 take this quick break. We're back, all right. At the 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.280 cop twenty six Climate Summit, more than forty countries have 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:43.000 committed to transitioning away from coal fired power plants. Uh, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.240 the countries that have large economies, large developed economies, they 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.600 plan on making that divide much earlier. They plan to 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.960 get out of coal firing by which is fairly aggressive 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.120 for developing economies. Those countries are looking more at the 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.680 twenty four these, which you know, makes sense because they're 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.280 not in a position to easily transition away as much 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.400 as those that have really big economies. The countries that 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:15.680 agreed included ones like Vietnam, Indonesia, Ukraine, Canada, Poland, and 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.600 several more, But there were also some really notable absences 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.880 from that list, like the United States, for example, or 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.320 India or China, you know, really big countries that still 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.360 depend heavily on coal powered power plants. So there's still 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.400 a lot of work that needs to be done, and 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.440 unfortunately a lot of that work depends on countries that 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.359 are you know, responsible for a lot of coal consumption, 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.880 but yet not they haven't yet committed to changing that. 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.920 On a related note, many countries and financial institutions agreed 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.760 to end overseas financing for fossil fuel projects, and the 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.440 United States was among those. So the US is saying, yeah, 0:15:55.520 --> 0:16:00.600 we won't, we won't help fund overseas fossil fuel prod jecks, 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.480 but um back off of us on our own home turf. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.280 I guess. The Australian government has issued a demand to 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.560 clear View AI, famous for its facial recognition database services. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.120 The company is to destroy all images and facial templates 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.400 related to Australia's citizens because the government has determined that 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.640 clear Views business violates Australia's privacy laws. So for a refresher, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.440 one way that clear View has built out its massive 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:33.160 facial recognition databases is that it's scraped social networking sites, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.160 using programs to collect and analyze images that were publicly 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.840 posted on platforms like Facebook, and they built out databases 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.760 using those images, and that lets clear View train machine 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:48.160 learning systems to match new images against those databases and 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.280 clear View markets this to governments and police forces around 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.600 the world. Clear View plans to appeal the decision of 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.440 the Australian Court system, saying that the images that it 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.280 uses were published in the United States, since Facebook is 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.800 an American company and therefore Australia doesn't have jurisdiction, and 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.600 the company also claims clear Views claims that because people 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.480 were posting to public profiles, they have no right to privacy, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.720 which is a big old roof, so we'll have to 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.200 see how that goes. The startup company Too Simple, That's 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:24.679 tu Simple, which is designing self driving transportation trucks, plans 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.359 to test its autonomous vehicles on the roads without a 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.120 human safety operator before twenty twenty two, which is right 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.359 around the corner, so any day now. The company plans 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.960 to unleash driverless trucks with no safety human operator in 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.240 there for the eighty mile run between the cities of 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.399 Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The trucks will travel down public 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.679 roads to do this, so there will be people in 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.600 regular rold cars on the roads at the same time. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.000 The company has said it plans to conduct multiple runs 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.640 over several weeks to test the technology, and it acknowledges 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.600 that this is a challenging problem. You can design a 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.440 system to handle known scenarios pretty well, but then preparing 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.119 for the unknown is a totally different matter. I'm sure 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.960 a lot of you out there have been in a car, 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.919 you know, traveling in a car when something unexpected happened, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.040 and that can be a really intense and scary thing 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.840 for humans in many cases. But at least we are 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.840 pretty good at assessing things quickly and making a decision. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.879 We don't always make the right decision, but you know, 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.560 we can extrapolate a lot of stuff based upon our 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.480 experience and make judgments about what to do. For computer 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.560 systems that encounter something new, there's no experience to draw upon, 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.520 and they're not very good at associative thinking. They can't 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.240 really say, well, I've never seen this, but i've seen 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.520 something like this, and I think this is the right 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.000 way to do it. They're not really they can't really 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.639 do that very well. The machine still has to make 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.159 a decision, and it may not have anything solid to 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.520 guide that decision. So let me give you a very 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.560 simple example. Let's say the vals traveling at night, and 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.560 there's a puddle across the road, and the headlights of 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.320 the vehicle hit the puddle and reflect off of it. 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.199 Now a human would recognize that as a reflection, they 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.399 might slow down so they can go through the puddle 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.840 without like hydroplaning or something. But otherwise they know what 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.080 they're looking at. But a machine could theoretically misinterpret that 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.720 reflection and see it as an obstacle that's in the road, 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.520 so the machine might try to swerve out of the 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.879 way or slam on the brakes. Now that scenario I 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.480 just gave is one that I'm sure all autonomous vehicle 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.639 companies have anticipated and have worked on. That's not like 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:37.439 it's so out of the ordinary no one would have 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.119 thought of it. I'm sure that's factored in. But my 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.760 point is that machines don't magically no real risk from 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.760 something that isn't a risk at all. That being said, 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.320 too simple is taking this process seriously. The company has 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.359 been limiting the human free tests so far to a 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.920 dedicated track. So so far, anytime they've run a test 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.840 where there has been no human in the truck, they've 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.399 only done it on a dedicated track that doesn't connect 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.720 to public roads, and for the moment, on the public 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.439 road tests, they still have operators writing the route between 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.880 the two cities. And because Too Simple is using this 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.119 established route, like it's not open ended, right, it's not 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.720 saying you're going from here to let's pick a city 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.280 Atlanta and just find the best route. They're not doing that. 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.280 They're saying go from here to here, and this is 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.520 the path that you you should take. That means that 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:36.679 the company has been limiting the variables, right. They have 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:43.280 this established route that creates a more knowable course, and 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.000 you can still have things that are unexpected happen, but 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.760 you've cut way back on those variables and it allows 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.640 us to continue to build toward a future where autonomous 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:58.639 vehicles are a viable solution. So while I have some 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.600 reservations about a top of as trucks, I do think 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.360 that the process Too Simple has laid out is one 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:09.520 with the appropriate amount of caution and accountability. Okay, geeky 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.720 news alert. The following news item is extremely geeky. A 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.440 startup out of Australia called q Control that's c t 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:23.280 r L has created an error suppression technique that improves 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:29.359 quantum algorithms by an astonishing two thousand and yeah, I 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.520 get it like that, that alone is effectively gobbledegook. So 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.680 what the heck do I even mean by this? Let's 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.119 start off with talking about quantum computers. When you boiled 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.080 down computer science with classical computers, you're talking about processing 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.760 information in the form of bits, and a bit is 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.720 a single unit of information it can buy be a 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.119 zero or a one, and a zero is always a 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.560 zero and the one is always a one. So you 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:57.560 can think of it like a light switch with an 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:02.719 off and on. But quantum can computers rely on cubits, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.720 and these under certain conditions, can technically be both a 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.359 zero and a one at the same time, plus all 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.600 values in between. And when you take that and you 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.360 combine it with a properly designed quantum algorithm, you can 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:22.560 potentially solve a certain subset of computational problems much faster 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.040 than you could if you were to use a classical computer. So, 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:30.679 for example, let's say I give you a really really 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.600 big number, it's hundreds of digits long, and I tell 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:39.360 you I created this number by multiplying two prime numbers together. 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.680 Which two prime numbers did I use? Well, then you 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.800 would need to start trying out different prime numbers to 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.720 see if they divide evenly into the big number I 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:53.760 gave you, and then to make sure that the other 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.960 number that it produced was itself a prime number. And 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.480 you'd be going, Nope, it's not that one. Hope, it's 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:02.960 not that one. Nope. I mean, it would take you ages, 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.439 potentially centuries to get to the right pair, depending on 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:08.880 how big the number I was I gave you. And 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.840 and that's how classical computers kind of tackle these problems. 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.080 They sequentially go through all the possible answers to find 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.280 the one that fits, and even a fast computer would 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:20.679 take a very long time to get to that answer. 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:25.320 But quantum computers can effectively make all the guesses at 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.880 the same time, assuming one that the computer has enough 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.879 cubits to do this, and to the algorithm you've designed 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.520 that the computer is following works. So all the pieces 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:38.040 need to be there. It's not just the power of 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.280 the quantum computer. It's also the quality of the algorithm 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:43.880 you're using to try and solve a problem. But when 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:46.880 all the pieces are there, the quantum computer will give 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:49.879 solutions to those problems. I guess I should say we 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:54.040 typically get solutions with a certain percentage of confidence behind them, 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.159 kind of like, I'm sure this is the right answer. 0:23:57.359 --> 0:23:59.879 So really we get answers in the form of probabilities 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.600 rather than certainties when we're talking about quantum computers. Anyway, 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.440 the startup says it has created a means of suppressing 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.400 errors with quantum algorithms, which theoretically should make it easier 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:16.080 to design quantum algorithms that can take advantage of quantum computing. Now, 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:20.000 I can't pretend to even have a partial understanding of 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.960 how they achieve this. I mean, the the bits that 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:28.440 I've told you about quantum computer so far, that's pretty 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:31.720 much right around my level of understanding of quantum computers. 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:33.439 It goes a little deeper than that, but not a 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.080 whole lot. Like once you start really getting into things 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:39.520 like entanglement and superposition, things get a little too wibbly 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.399 wobbly for me to be able to follow properly. But 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.160 this is really cool. It means that quantum computers could 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:51.960