WEBVTT - Tech News: How Roe vs Wade Decision Affects Tech 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.240 He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.240 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.599 And how the tech are you. It's time for the 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:24.720 tech news for Thursday, June two thousand, twin D two. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.000 Let's get to it now. Here in the United States, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.200 one of the big big stories is that the Supreme 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.720 Court has overturned the historic decision in Roe versus Wade, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.640 which guaranteed the legal protection for a woman to choose 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.840 to have an abortion. To get into all of this 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.519 would go well beyond the scope of this podcast, but 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:50.200 the ramifications of that decision have spilled over into the 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:54.320 tech community in numerous ways. For example, there are a 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.279 lot of apps designed to help women keep track of 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.000 their periods, and women in many states have been deleting 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.200 those apps from their devices, and some political leaders are 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:10.520 calling on rules that would grant protections regarding the privacy 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.840 of personal data for people who use these kinds of apps. 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.560 The fear is that a woman who's using that kind 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.679 of an app in a state that has outlawed abortion 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.800 could be put in a position in which accords subpoenas 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.479 the app creator to get access to that woman's private 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.280 medical information in a case brought against her, which is 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:38.400 a truly disturbing thought and unfortunately as it's a possible 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:43.640 realistic scenario. And so we're seeing this exodus from apps 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.039 like that and a movement in liberal political circles to 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:53.000 bolster privacy protection. Those privacy protections are long overdue, they 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:59.400 span so much, especially for medical privacy. These are protections 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.280 that we've need did for ages. We're just now starting 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.920 to see some serious movement because of this crisis. Now, 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.600 one way companies, including those in big tech, have responded 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.680 to the Supreme Court's decision is to offer to offset 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.280 or cover the cost of travel for employees who need 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.880 to go out of state in order to get medical 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.440 services like an abortion. And that's because several states in 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.600 the US have already ruled abortions to be illegal or 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.160 they're in the process of doing so, and a few states, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.919 like Texas, have proposed making it illegal to even go 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.639 outside the state to seek an abortion, which crosses into 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.320 some very tricky legal territory because there's a question about 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.120 whether a state can legislate on things that happen outside 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.440 of that state. Those sorts of rules, by the way, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.880 are a big reason why women are dumping those period 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:55.040 tracking apps. They don't want to uh to provide evidence 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.520 that could be used against them in a legal case 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.880 in one of these states. Anyway, and Gadget reports that 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.120 Big Text offer to help support employees really falls short 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.919 because for a lot of these companies, only a small 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.240 percentage of the folks who work for the company are 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:17.280 actually designated as employees. Many of these companies rely heavily 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.720 on contract workers, and they are not classified as company employees, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.720 and therefore they are not covered by these sorts of policies. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.600 When you look at companies like Uber and Left, this 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.960 is particularly extreme. These companies have fought very hard in 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.760 courts to avoid having to classify drivers as employees. They 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.080 have insisted that drivers are instead independent contractors, and as 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.160 such those employees would not be eligible for the benefit 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.840 of having travel expenses covered by the company. This issue 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.920 extends beyond the tech industry, but tech is particularly prone 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.720 to it. Ours Technical reports that Facebook and Instagram have 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:01.080 been removing posts about abortion pills well individual states might 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.320 make abortion illegal. These pills are still legal by federal law. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.280 They've been deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.200 As such, women will still have the option to order 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.120 those kinds of pills through the mail, even if they 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.640 happen to live in a state that has outlawed abortion. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.680 But people who are posting this kind of information on 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.000 Facebook and Instagram have seen their posts deleted, and in 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.200 a few cases the people have received a ban from 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.600 posting on the platforms, typically a band that lasts twenty 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.919 four hours. Now, it appears that the issue relates to 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.960 Facebook's policy regarding pharmaceutical drugs. Namely, it is against Facebook's 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.800 policy to offer, to sell, or to give away pharmaceutical drugs, 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.880 so those sorts of posts will get removed. And that 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.120 makes sense, right. I mean, if I had a prescription 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.839 bottle that was filled with say, oxycotton, I shouldn't be 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.200 allowed to post on Facebook. Hey I've got these opiates? 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.359 Who wants one? That would be irresponsible. However, outlets like 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.960 The Associate to Press and Vice have experimented with various 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.440 kinds of posts about these abortion pills, and they found 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.480 that a lot of them would be removed, even if 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.800 the posts weren't offering drugs but were rather worded to 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.680 inform people about accessibility. So, in other words, it's not 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.359 against Facebook's policy to say, if you need access to 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.320 this drug, here is where you can legally procure it, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.000 right like, this is the type of drug you need 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.400 to ask for, here are the places where you can 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.000 order it. That should be fine, And yet the investigations 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:37.159 discovered that the posts were frequently being removed. Further, ap 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:42.880 tested the policy by posting something similar about different uh 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.760 controlled substances and objects, you know, stuff like guns in marijuana. 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.159 Facebook has a policy against posting giving away or selling 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:57.080 those as well, so there's a restriction there, and so 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.000 a p would post some stuff wor did very similar 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.039 lead to the way that it had worded some of 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:06.760 the abortion pill posts. And they noticed that these other posts, 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.719 the ones about marijuana, our guns or whatever, they would 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.520 stay up, whereas the abortion pills posts were often removed 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.240 within minutes of being posted, which suggests that Meta is 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.960 taking a more aggressive approach with abortion pills than it 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.120 is with anything else. Ours Technica also points out the 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.479 Meta is one of the tech companies offering to cover 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.360 travel costs for employees who need to travel to seek 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:35.479 an abortion. However, Meta also restricts employees from discussing abortion 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.960 openly in the workplace, and that creates this kind of 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.200 situation where employees aren't sure how they can actually get 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.719 the clearance they need and get the coverage they need 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.720 if they are also forbidden from talking about it in 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:57.240 in the workplace, it definitely complicates matters. Meanwhile, over at TikTok, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.440 a lot of users are creating videos that usked the 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.880 decision to overrule the Row versus Weide decision. Uh. Some 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.560 of those protests go beyond what TikTok allows, however, as 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.280 many videos that include or claim to include personal information 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.080 about the conservative judges who voted to overrule the case 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.280 have been proliferating across the app. TikTok has been taking 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.320 down such videos because, I mean, it violates the policy. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.160 You aren't supposed to docks people, but those kind of 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.000 things are popping up faster than the platform can respond. 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.040 The personal information includes home addresses, uh, though those addresses 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.840 are also the same as ones that are publicly available, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.240 so you could argue these videos aren't revealing personal information, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.120 they're just spotlighting information that you could already find elsewhere. 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.480 But other videos claimed to show stuff like credit card 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.200 numbers for cards that belonged to the justices. Uh. The 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.800 justices are finding themselves docks across TikTok, which I'm gonna 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.920 guess is something most of them can't really get their 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.840 heads wrapped around, because, let's face it, they're old. The 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.000 not a judgment I'm younger than the justices, although Amy 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.560 Coney Barrett is just three years older than I am. 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.400 But I sometimes have my trouble getting my noodle wrapped 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.320 around TikTok. In fact, most days I have trouble getting 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.080 my noodle wrapped around TikTok. So I wouldn't blame the 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.320 justices if they were a little clueless about that themselves. 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.720 Brendan Carr, a commissioner with the FCC, recently sent a 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.000 letter to Apple and Google demanding that they remove TikTok 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.320 from their respective app stores. Now, this is not related 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.880 to the Supreme Court dock Sing situation. Rather, this goes 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.040 back to a concern that the US government has had 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.840 about TikTok for a few years, namely the possibility that 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.720 TikTok is really a data gathering service for the Chinese 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.839 government see TikTok's parent company is a Chinese corporation called 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.240 byte Dance, and for years, the suspicion was that byte 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:56.680 Dance was siphoning off personal information from TikTok users, particularly 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.520 in the United States, in an effort to spy on 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.400 US citizens, and developed various strategies such as how to 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:07.280 conduct misinformation campaigns and we're gonna come back to misinformation 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.959 a little bit later in this episode, anyway, BuzzFeed News 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.080 reported that some leaked recorded audio from an internal TikTok 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:20.280 meeting indicated that Chinese based employees have been regularly accessing 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.319 US users private information, and that does sound creepy. In fact, 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.480 it's creepy no matter who is doing the snooping. TikTok 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:33.599 recently announced it had migrated operations to servers and Oracles infrastructure, 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.760 implying that the service now has sort of a built 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:41.680 in gap between its operations and the Chinese parent company. 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.440 But Car argues that TikTok is nothing more than a 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.560 surveillance operation in the guise of a video sharing platform. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.960 It's notable, then, no other FCC commissioners signed their name 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.319 to cars letter, so it's just Car alone. But um, 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.480 that's the case, and CAR has given the companies until 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.200 July eight to respond, So I'm sure we'll follow up 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.560 on this story later. Well, we've got a few more 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.600 stories to go, but before we get to those, let's 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:17.520 take a quick break. The web browser Firefox, which arguably 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.079 has the best reputation for protecting privacy, at least among 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.240 the major web browsers, has added a new optional feature 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.199 to help with privacy. It strips away u r L 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.400 query parameters. And you might think, well, what the heck 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.160 is that. Well, if you've ever hovered your cursor over 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.360 a link and you notice that the associated u r 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.680 L looks a little strange because there's this weird string 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.520 of characters in there. There might be an equal sign, 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:45.760 and like it just seems like it's a lot of 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.560 stuff in addition to the actual u r L you 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.680 are trying to visit. Well, often that string is really 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.760 a way of tracking users who click on those u 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:57.840 r l s. It's kind of like cookies and that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.000 it's a method of keeping track of user behaviors, And 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.720 of course that's really valuable information. For one thing, it 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.160 can help companies like Meta sell targeted ads. Uh, but 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.880 user behavior is really the currency of the Internet. So 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.400 this option in Firefox now strips out those U r 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.319 L tracking strings, so you just go to the link 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.160 without leaving behind those kind of footprints. The feature is 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.680 part of the Enhanced Tracking Protection option in Firefox, which 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.520 you can access by going to Settings, then Privacy and 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:36.319 Security and changing the Enhanced Tracking Protection to the strict setting. 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.200 Over in the United Arab Emirates, Amazon has bowed to 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:45.400 governmental pressure to remove listings for lgbt Q plus related products, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.240 including media and rainbow flags Amazon. The company says it's 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.480 committed to supporting diversity and inclusion, but that the company 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.520 also must adhere to local laws. In the UAE, anything 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.360 other than heterosexuality is illy goal, and so Amazon has 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.199 capitulated to the government's demands that anything remotely suggesting that 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.400 it's okay to be anything other than straight must be eradicated. 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.640 What a way to close out pride month Amazon. The 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.000 blockchain continues to be a buzzy concept in tech. It's 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.440 what underpins cryptocurrency, n f t s and the evolving 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.959 concept of Web three. But a recent report out of 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:29.000 the Pentagon says that blockchain technology anal it's cracked up 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.920 to be, namely that the decentralized nature of blockchain isn't 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.839 as decentralized as people claim it is. The Pentagon found 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:41.080 that frequently a small number of entities can disrupt the blockchain. 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.000 A security research company called Trail of Bits specifically looked 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.720 into Bitcoin and ethereum and found that four entities working 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:54.040 together could disrupt Bitcoin, and only two entities would be 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.440 required to do the same with Ethereum. Now, to be clear, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.439 this isn't just any four or any two. We're talking 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.640 about prominent entities in both communities that own a significant 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.559 bulk of the cryptocurrency. Further, Trail of Bits found that 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.960 many of the servers connected to these networks are running 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:16.000 on outdated software. That software can sometimes contain vulnerabilities, which 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.640 bring the entire network into risk. Uh. The agency also 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.280 discovered that various mining pool communities have lackluster or even 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.120 totally absent security. So essentially, the report brings into question 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.520 the viability of blockchain technology to handle critical transactions in 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.160 a way that's trustworthy. The full report is titled Our 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:41.000 block Chains, Decentralized, Unintended Centralities and Distributed Ledgers. And one 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.319 of the big reasons this is important is that a 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:48.360 huge selling point of that web three evangelists repeat, is 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.520 this idea of a decentralized approach to transactions. You know, 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.880 they've argued that this democratizes the web in a way 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.040 that's closer to the original version of what the Web 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.320 could be. So instead of these massive gum and he's 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.400 like Google and Meta essentially carving out the Internet and 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.600 owning big chunks of it, it would be distributed across 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.199 all the users. But according to this report, that's just 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.839 not necessarily the case. There's still centralization. It's just it's 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.880 just a different group of names than what we have today. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.000 So he could say, it's just you know, it's it's 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.200 the same song, just different words. I said we would 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.360 talk more about misinformation in this episode, and here we go. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.440 A cybersecurity firm called mandy It Incorporated has accused China 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.440 of funding misinformation campaigns targeting a Canadian rare earth mining operation. 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.920 So China currently dominates the rare earth materials market with 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.320 around eight of the market share, and pretty much all 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.360 of the advanced electronics we rely upon requires at least 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.160 some rare earth materials in them, so that's a heck 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.560 of a lucrative market to dominate Mandy and says that 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.480 a company called dragon Bridge, known for it's misinformation campaigns, 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.400 has spearheaded an effort to undermine no pun intended the 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:11.680 Canadian company Appia, rare Earth's and uranium corporation. Namely Mandyan says, 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.440 the dragon Bridge operatives have taken to social media, They've 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.320 created fake accounts and they've started posting messages that's just 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:23.920 Appias operations are hazardous and environmentally destructive. Moreover, Mandian says 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.360 that the same group did something similar to two other 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.120 rare earth mining companies, one in Australia and one of 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.160 the United States, and the tactic is all about stirring 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.120 up controversy and outrage and then just letting that snowball 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.320 into a massive issue. So you stir the pot, in 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.560 other words, and then you let other people take it 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.920 from there. Dragon Bridge has been involved in other misinformation 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.120 campaigns that align with Chinese government's goals, such as in 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:52.120 two thousand nineteen, when the network spread misinformation about advocates 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.880 in Hong Kong who are attempting to promote democratic measures. Niantic, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.479 the company behind Pokemon Go, recently laid off around ninety employees, 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.920 saying that the company needs to streamline operations. Pokemon Go 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.120 has been a gargantuan success, but Niantic so far has 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.960 been unable to replicate that with its subsequent efforts. The 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.960 company launched a Harry Potter themed game a few years ago, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.880 kind of similar to Pokemon Go, but adoption was so 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.480 low that Niantic would later just shut it down. Kotaku 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.880 reports that Niantic has canceled four projects, which included a 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.040 Transformers themed game, a game called Hamlet that was a 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.360 collaboration with the theater company Punch Drunk, which, by the way, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.080 is a really cool theater company. They work in immersive 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:42.200 theatrical experiences. Perhaps their best known one is a project 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.240 called Sleep No More in New York. And then they 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.400 also canceled a couple of games that have names that 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.080 sound to me like they are internal code names, like 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.520 not the official name of the game. Of those were 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.600 called Snowball and Blue Sky. I should also mention that 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.400 very recently Niantic announced a project partnership with the NBA. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.560 That's the National Basketball Association for those unfamiliar with that organization. 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.479 So it's not like everything is shutting down. I mean, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.720 this was a really big announcement they made pretty recently. 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.359 UM My guess is that this has led to a 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.639 pretty tense situation within Niantic, and I hope that the 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.160 folks who were affected by the layoffs land on their 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.320 feet very quickly. There's an ongoing struggle in the United 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.800 States among companies vying for access for the twelve giga 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.440 Hurts spectrum of frequencies. SpaceX has filed a complaint with 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.640 the FCC stating that the Dish network, which offers cellular 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.680 service as well as satellite television service, that Dish network 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:42.480 is moving into five G in a way that is 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:47.119 going to negatively impact SpaceX is Starlink customers. Starlink is 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.760 the satellite internet service that SpaceX launched in some regions. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.000 SpaceX reps say that dishes twelve giga hurts five G 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.080 service is going to disrupt Starlink connectivity and that it 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.760 would be so severe that quote Starlink customers will experience 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.680 harmful interference more than seventy seven of the time and 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.520 total outage of service seventy four percent of the time, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.320 rendering Starlink unusable for most Americans end quote. Further, the 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:19.320 letter accuses Dish network of intentionally misleading the FCC into 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.280 believing that the services wouldn't interfere with one another. Dish 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.159 network reps say that the company is evaluating the claims 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.840 that SpaceX has made in the filing, and a third 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.760 party company submitted a report saying that more than Starlink 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.520 customers should experience no disruption due to interference from five G. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.440 It's really hard to sort out all the claims here 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.480 and to see what is true. On the one hand, 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.280 you've got Dish and starlink to satellite based services that 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:52.760 are competing against each other, which raises questions about allegations 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.840 and reports. Right like, you have to make sure that 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.359 the claims are valid and not that this is some 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.320 attempt to hinder a compare a strategy, or on the 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:06.520 flip side, that Dish isn't purposefully misrepresenting data in an 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.840 effort to get a competitive edge on Starlink. And on 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.240 the other hand, well, it's totally possible for radio waves 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.359 to actually cause interference. I mean, that's why we have 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.400 strict rules about how we can use the electromagnetic spectrum. 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.359 There are some frequency bands reserve for very specific uses, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.159 and it's illegal to operate in those bands otherwise, So 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.280 this will likely require more testing to see if space 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.720 X's claims are accurate and if so, what solution the 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.119 parties might arrive at to ensure that services don't disrupt 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.640 one another, and yet both companies are allowed to do business. 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.200 All right, we're gonna have another break, and when we 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.000 come back, we've got a couple more news stories to 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:55.560 close out. Okay, let's finish with a couple of kind 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:57.680 of cool stories, or at least I think they're cool. 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.359 One is that Cambridge University Hospitals and the University of 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.679 Cambridge are partnering with a US based mixed reality company 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.960 called gig XR to create virtual simulations of patients with 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:14.639 medical emergencies and conditions. And they're starting with respiratory issues, 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.240 but this could easily branch out and cover lots of 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:24.119 different medical emergencies. And it's not unusual for doctors and 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.119 nurses another medical staff who are going through training to 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:33.320 have to do simulated UH emergencies and simulated visits. You know, 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:35.000 I have a lot of actor friends who at one 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.760 time or another took on a gig to be a 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.680 fake patient to help train medical staff and how to 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.360 assess and diagnose patients. So they'd be given a list 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.440 of you know, their their symptoms and conditions, and it 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:53.160 was their job to answer questions. So the medical staff 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:54.840 would come in and ask as if the person was 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.000 a real patient, asked them about what they were experiencing, 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.080 how long you know, family history, that kind of stuff, 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.639 and the actor's job was to give the facts that 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.840 they had been uh given so that the medical staff 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.159 could try and make a determination on what to do next. Now, 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.440 this partnership is really about using mixed reality so that 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.000 medical personnel can interact with a virtual patient, which is 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.119 even better because you can program a virtual patient in 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.399 a way that is consistent, whereas with actors, some people 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.200 take the whole acting thing to a level that it 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.000 probably doesn't need to go to. So this is an 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.119 augmented reality approach that means that the headsets that medical 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.240 staff will be wearing, it's actually gonna show them their 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.720 real surroundings, and the virtual patient will be digitally overlaid 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.840 on top of their the staff's real worldview, and that 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.920 gives the trainees the opportunity to practice their skills and 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.159 knowledge in a realistic but still low stakes environment. Right, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.480 So they can you know, practice making real time decisions 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.920 and how to diagnose and tree patients and then they'll 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.520 see the results right away, and if they've made the 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.119 wrong decision, well, no one actually suffers for it. It's 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.280 a virtual patience and no one's going to uh to 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.800 suffer any consequences of that, other than the trainee learning 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:17.879 that they made the wrong call and they have to 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.720 figure out, you know, how to fix that make sure 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.639 that they learn the proper way. Uh So it's not 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.200 no stakes, but it's definitely lower stakes. You don't have 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:29.440 to worry that you know, you made the wrong call 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:33.119 and someone got more sick or maybe even died because 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:38.120 of it. The application is called Hollow Scenarios, and honestly, 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.639 I think it's a brilliant application of augmented reality technology. 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.879 It's one of the ones that I really I really like. 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.040 It really appeals to me. I like this idea of 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:53.960 using technology to aid in the training of people in 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:59.399 particularly difficult roles. Rob Manfred is a commissioner with the 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.680 mL B or Major League Baseball, and he made a 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.720 recent announcement that is making some waves. He said that 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.960 the MLB is on track to implement an automated strike 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.960 zone system by two thousand twenty four. And he didn't 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:14.879 go so far as to say this is a certainty, 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.680 but it definitely appears to be the direction the MLB 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:21.520 is going in. And I'm not gonna describe or explain 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.960 the full game of baseball, t'all. I know a lot 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.560 of you aren't in the United States. Baseball might not 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.240 be that familiar a sport, but you probably know that 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:33.879 in baseball, you've got one team that's in the field 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.960 and one team that's at bat and a single batter 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.359 comes up. A pitcher throws a pitch at the batter, 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:43.040 at the batter strike zone, probably not at the batter themselves, 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:46.200 hopefully not, and then the batter has to try and 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:48.840 hit the ball and advance around the bass. Right, that's 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:53.040 the basic idea. Well, there is a thing called a 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:57.040 strike zone. UH. This zones borders are determined by the 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.879 width of home plate which the batter stands at. UH. 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.240 And the width of home plate does not change batter 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:05.240 to batter, Right, It's always going to be the same 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.200 with the area between the batter's knees and the midpoint 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:13.840 of their Torso make the vertical borders of the strike zone. 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.119 So if a pitch passes through that that area you know, 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:20.720 in between the middle of the torso and the knees 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:24.480 and within the width of the home plate, that's a strike. 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:26.879 It's a strike whether the batter swings or not. So 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:29.080 if the batter doesn't swing and the ball goes through 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:32.400 but it passes through that zone, it's considered a legitimate 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.280 pitch and it's a strike against the batter. Three strikes 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:39.440