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Speaker 1: Get text with technology with tech Stuff from dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickling. I'm an executive producer here at How Stuff Works,

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Speaker 1: and there are a few episodes of tech Stuff I

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Speaker 1: try to do every year. It's kind of become a tradition.

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Speaker 1: And this is the first of that series of episodes

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Speaker 1: that happens to cap off each year as as best

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Speaker 1: I can. Anyway, this is a look back on the

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Speaker 1: previous twelve months in tech Stories. Now I want to

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Speaker 1: take a quick look at some of the biggest stories

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Speaker 1: in tech that happened in and just so I'm totally

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Speaker 1: transparent and everyone at home listening can understand this, I'm

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Speaker 1: actually recording this episode on December seven, which means there's

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Speaker 1: like an extra month of stories and gossip and scandals

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Speaker 1: that are not gonna make the cut as they ain't

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Speaker 1: happen yet. What when I'm recording this, they'll happen by

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Speaker 1: the time you hear this. So I apologize for that,

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Speaker 1: but the predictions episodes have proven over and over again.

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Speaker 1: I am not someone who can see into the future,

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Speaker 1: so I might chat a little bit about some stuff

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Speaker 1: that's coming up later on in December. As I record this,

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Speaker 1: it'll of course be in your past and maybe we'll

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Speaker 1: see how it turns out by that point. But let's

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Speaker 1: start where every year starts in January, according to the

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Speaker 1: calendar that I I follow. Anyway, if you've been keeping

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Speaker 1: up with tech stuff, you know I recently did a

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Speaker 1: full series about the company Xerox. Well, January one was

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Speaker 1: when Xerox officially split into two companies. One of them

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Speaker 1: continue to carry the name Xerox, and that one is

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Speaker 1: all about the traditional document businesses that we tend to

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Speaker 1: think about when we hear the name Xerox. The other

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Speaker 1: company is now known as Conduit and is one focused

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Speaker 1: on business process services. So that happened, knocking January off

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Speaker 1: right off the bat. Also in January, very early, I

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Speaker 1: went to c e S I was formerly known as

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Speaker 1: the Consumer Electronics Show. Ramsey was also there. A whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of us from how Stuff Works went this past year,

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Speaker 1: and some of the stuff that got a lot of

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Speaker 1: attention during that year's c e S included Amazon's Alexa product.

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Speaker 1: I apologize if I just activated your Alexa, but it

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Speaker 1: was getting incorporated into all sorts of devices, including vehicles,

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Speaker 1: There were dozens of different smart devices on display, like

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Speaker 1: weird ones too, like smart pillows that could tell you

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Speaker 1: when you were snoring, as if I needed that. I've

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Speaker 1: got a wife who punches me whenever it happens. There

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Speaker 1: were self balancing motorcycles. There were fancy concept cars like

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Speaker 1: Faraday Futures vehicle. There were ultra high definition displays with

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Speaker 1: amazing resolution and color representation. There were self driving vehicles.

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Speaker 1: There were luetooth toasters for crying out loud. In other words,

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Speaker 1: it was a mix of amazing, amusing, and befuddling technology,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty much par for the course. I went

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Speaker 1: with a team of several talented people here at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works. We explored the floor and we shot lots

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Speaker 1: of videos so you can actually find those if you

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Speaker 1: want to be nostalgic and look at the the cutting

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Speaker 1: technology of yesteryear. Literally, this coming ce S will be

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Speaker 1: the first one I will miss in ten years, And

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Speaker 1: by miss, I mean I won't attend it. I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to actually miss it. I'm actually okay with sitting

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Speaker 1: one out for once now. One story that got Nintendo

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Speaker 1: fans excited early in seventeen was the unveiling of the

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Speaker 1: Switch that's Nintendo's latest gaming console. The Switch can be

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Speaker 1: played as a portable gaming device, or it can be

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Speaker 1: docked in a into a station and connect with a television.

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Speaker 1: Controllers include detachable handheld devices that are called joy cons,

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Speaker 1: and when the console went on sale later in demand

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Speaker 1: far exceeded supply, particularly here in the States. This is

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Speaker 1: not an unusual story for Nintendo. It's pretty much their

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Speaker 1: m O whenever they release a new product. In fact,

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Speaker 1: as of December, it can still be challenging to find

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Speaker 1: a Nintendo Switch in some markets. Games like Legend of Zelda,

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Speaker 1: Breath of the Wild, and Super Mario Odyssey were able

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Speaker 1: to leverage the love of iconic franchises while also incorporating

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Speaker 1: new types of gameplay into the world's and they have

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Speaker 1: received some good critical response. So the system appears to

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Speaker 1: be a step in the right direction for a Nintendo

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Speaker 1: which clearly needed to recover after the WEU came out

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Speaker 1: to less than uproarious applause. We also learned more in

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Speaker 1: January about the fires that were being caused by Samsung

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Speaker 1: Notes seven hand sets. You might remember that story from

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Speaker 1: where some hand sets were spontaneously catch fire and it

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Speaker 1: led to a an industry wide ban in the airline

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Speaker 1: industry for Samsung Notes sevens, who had the office officers

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Speaker 1: actually confiscating Notes sevens before passengers could get onto planes. Well,

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Speaker 1: the company conducted a four month long investigation, and in

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Speaker 1: January seventeen they announced that the problem was due to

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Speaker 1: some irregularly sized batteries which would lead to overheating and

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Speaker 1: that would then lead to fires. Moving on to February,

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Speaker 1: one of the troubling themes in seventeen, and this is

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Speaker 1: putting it lightly, has revolved around allegations of sexual harassment

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Speaker 1: and related charges. And I want to be clear here.

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Speaker 1: The troubling thing for me is seeing how systemic this

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Speaker 1: culture has been across multiple industries. I don't mean it's

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Speaker 1: troubling that victims are coming forward. It's good that they are.

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Speaker 1: It's rather troubling that there was such an enormous environment

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Speaker 1: for victimization in the first place. Well, in February seen

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Speaker 1: one of the earliest instances of this in the tech

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Speaker 1: industry was of a former Uber employee named Susan Fowler,

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Speaker 1: who claimed that the car service company, the ride hailing

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Speaker 1: service company Uber, had a toxic culture filled with misogynistic

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Speaker 1: executives and a permissive attitude towards unacceptable behavior. Her accusations

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Speaker 1: were such that it it essentially forced Uber to launch

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Speaker 1: an internal investigation on its practices and its culture. That

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Speaker 1: investigation continued for months, and in early June, news broke

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Speaker 1: that Uber had fired more than twenty employees as a

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Speaker 1: result of this investigation at all levels within the company.

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Speaker 1: And yes, there's gonna be a lot about Uber in

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Speaker 1: this episode because stuff went whackadoodle crazy over there. So

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Speaker 1: you could call this episode Uber what Happen because that's

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Speaker 1: gonna come back multiple times. There's hardly a month that

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Speaker 1: doesn't have an Uber story in it. On February eleven,

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Speaker 1: North Korea test fired a ballistic missile across the Sea

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Speaker 1: of Japan, and this also becomes a big story throughout

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Speaker 1: the year. This set the stage for a very tense

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Speaker 1: game of posturing between North Korea and other nations, particularly

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Speaker 1: the United States. And this was just one of a

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Speaker 1: few tests throughout seen that caught the world's attention. Another

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Speaker 1: in July demonstrate that North Korea had an intercontinental ballistic missile,

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Speaker 1: and it became clear that North Korea had developed or

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Speaker 1: acquired some powerful missiles capable of carrying a payload a

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Speaker 1: great distance as far as the United States, and that

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Speaker 1: was only a matter of time before those missiles would

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Speaker 1: be outfitted with nuclear warheads. And as someone who lived

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Speaker 1: through the Cold War and an era of mutually assured destruction,

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Speaker 1: the story did not exactly set my heart to singing.

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Speaker 1: But this is a story that's still playing out today.

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Speaker 1: In February, Disney's Maker Studios dropped Peautie Pie YouTube superstar

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Speaker 1: from its network because of a some videos that Ptpie

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Speaker 1: had had published in which he had voiced some anti

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Speaker 1: Semitic messages, some uh slurs against Jewish people. He included

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Speaker 1: some Nazi imagery and a couple and Disney dropped him

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Speaker 1: like a hot potato, and then YouTube followed suit, canceling

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Speaker 1: a planned season two of pd pis series Scare Beauty Pie.

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Speaker 1: The company also removed him from the Google Preferred Advertising program,

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Speaker 1: and this caused a big discussion in the online world

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Speaker 1: about the the rights of creators the rights of platforms. Uh. Also,

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Speaker 1: it was just feeding into a generally toxic environment online

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Speaker 1: about harassment and and really awful trollish behaviors, which was

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Speaker 1: kind of a theme throughout March I have a happy

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Speaker 1: story to start with March, and I'm thankful for it

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Speaker 1: because there's so many negative ones that happened in But

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Speaker 1: in March, SpaceX successfully launched a used Falcon nine first

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Speaker 1: stage rocket, and that proved the usefulness of reusable launch vehicles.

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Speaker 1: This brings down the costs of launching a payload into

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Speaker 1: space considerably. Now it's still incredibly expensive to launch stuff

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Speaker 1: into space, but it's slightly less incredibly expensive than if

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Speaker 1: you had to construct a brand new launch vehicle for

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Speaker 1: every single launch. And this might have the first time

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Speaker 1: anyone had used a first stage rocket a second time.

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Speaker 1: SpaceX designed the Falcon nine launch rocket to return to

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Speaker 1: Earth and land upright and intact after a use to

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Speaker 1: allow for this, and you may remember when SpaceX was

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Speaker 1: able to bring back a first stage rocket and land

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Speaker 1: it successfully, that first one they did, they retired. They

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Speaker 1: did not plan on using it again. It was more

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Speaker 1: of a proof of concept that this could actually work.

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Speaker 1: And then after that they started to really work on

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Speaker 1: practical ones that they would be able to use repeatedly,

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Speaker 1: and this was the first case of that. So that's

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Speaker 1: pretty darn cool. Also in March, Uber's contentious year continued

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Speaker 1: as one of its autonomous vehicles got involved in an

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Speaker 1: accident in Arizona. The company suspended all its self driving

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Speaker 1: vehicle test operations, which were at that point taking place

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Speaker 1: in San Francisco, Arizona, and Pittsburgh. San Francisco's cars were

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Speaker 1: the first to get moving again just a few days

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Speaker 1: after the accident. This was a tough time for Uber

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Speaker 1: because they had just managed to to resecure permission in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco to operate autonomous vehicles in they had encountered

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Speaker 1: a problem where the city said, hey, you failed to

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Speaker 1: fill out the proper paperwork and get the proper licenses

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Speaker 1: to be able to do what you are doing, So

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Speaker 1: this was the second setback for them. Police, however, stated

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Speaker 1: that the Uber vehicle was not at fault in the accident,

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Speaker 1: in fact, was the fault of the other driver, and

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Speaker 1: also in March, the president of Uber, Jeff Joe Owns,

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Speaker 1: stepped down from the company. In a statement to the press,

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Speaker 1: Jones said, quote, the beliefs and approach to leadership that

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Speaker 1: have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw

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Speaker 1: and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue

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Speaker 1: as president of the ride sharing business. End quote. This

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Speaker 1: was another indicator that perhaps those accusations Fowler had levied

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Speaker 1: earlier had some merit to them, and that there were

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Speaker 1: other problems going on over in Uber's business. For the

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Speaker 1: president to actually resign and not be asked to resign,

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Speaker 1: he stepped down because he felt that it was not

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Speaker 1: a good fit for him. That was another big red

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Speaker 1: flag for Uber. Also in March, after months of being

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Speaker 1: absent from Oculus events, Palmer Lucky left Facebook and thus Oculus. Now.

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Speaker 1: Lucky was the creator of the Oculus rift. He had

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Speaker 1: made headlines in sixteen for his involvement in groups that

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Speaker 1: supported Trump's president sidential campaign, and that group used trollish

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Speaker 1: strategies to antagonize people with opposing viewpoints. That's a kind

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Speaker 1: way of putting it. There was a lot of hate

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Speaker 1: messaging out of this group, and Palmer Lucky had been

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Speaker 1: financially supporting the group, which led to a lot of

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Speaker 1: developers deciding to leave the Oculus platform out of protest.

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Speaker 1: Palmer Lucky had given an apology and said that his

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Speaker 1: actions in no way reflected the company, but uh Facebook,

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Speaker 1: which is extremely cognizant of its public relations, decided that

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Speaker 1: palmer Lucky or at least apparently decided that Palmer Lucky

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Speaker 1: probably should not be at various official events. In fact,

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Speaker 1: Lucky was absent at the Oculus Developers Conference, which was

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Speaker 1: a notable absence considering the fact that he's the guy

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Speaker 1: who made it in the first place, and so his departure,

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Speaker 1: while not a big surprise, had came after months of

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Speaker 1: him being essentially out of the public ie. Moving on

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Speaker 1: to April, Tesla announced a new type of solar panel

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Speaker 1: for house rooftops that looks like a high end roof shingle.

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Speaker 1: They are very pretty. They're also very expensive. Uh Tesla says, well,

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Speaker 1: they're not more expensive than other roof tiles of this type,

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Speaker 1: but they are roof tiles that essentially very well off

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Speaker 1: people would use to tile their houses. They're not like

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Speaker 1: the shingles that you would get at your local hardware

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Speaker 1: store so that you could do a d I Y

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Speaker 1: shingle repair on your roof. It's definitely more expensive than that,

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Speaker 1: but they are very attractive. So it's possibly a step

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Speaker 1: I just feel like it's gonna be markets where people

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Speaker 1: you know, a standard type of of home construction moving forward.

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Speaker 1: But still every advance is a good one in a roll.

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Speaker 1: Yek Yak, which is a location based anonymous messaging app,

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Speaker 1: shut down now. At its height, yik Yak was worth

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Speaker 1: four hundred million dollars. When it's shut down, the company

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Speaker 1: for one million dollars. The service had been the target

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Speaker 1: of much criticism as people argued that it encouraged cruelty

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Speaker 1: and gossip among its user base, which was primarily college

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Speaker 1: students that's to whom yek Yak was marketed. Many people

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Speaker 1: were concerned that the app put vulnerable populations at risk

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Speaker 1: And there were also many concerns that younger people might

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Speaker 1: and just so you guys know, I once chaired a

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Speaker 1: I walked away from that feeling uncertain about the experience.

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Speaker 1: so it didn't surprise me when this happened. The app

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Speaker 1: now is a thing of the past. It doesn't exist.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the blog post that was the farewell doesn't

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Speaker 1: quote some of it, but it's gone, and I didn't

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Speaker 1: use archive dot org to look at an old one.

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Speaker 1: But yep, yek yek is no more. Well. That brings

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Speaker 1: us up to Mayen. But that means I've gotten through

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Speaker 1: the first four months of the year. So I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: take a little break and thank our sponsors. All Right,

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Speaker 1: we're up to Mayen. That's when a malware known as

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Speaker 1: Wanna cry begins to infect computers around the world, locking

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Speaker 1: the computer contents away. Now, this type of malware falls

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Speaker 1: under the category known as ransomware. Typically, ransomware will infect

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Speaker 1: a computer. It will encrypt part of a computer's hard

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Speaker 1: contents from users. So you log into your computer and

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Speaker 1: suddenly you can't access any of your data because it's

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Speaker 1: all been encrypted. There's usually some sort of communication to

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Speaker 1: the victim that gives instruction on how to earn back

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Speaker 1: the access to your own data. Normally that includes paying

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Speaker 1: some sort of ransom, usually in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: to an account that's associated with the hackers. The Wanna

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Speaker 1: cry virus specifically targeted Microsoft Windows machines, taking advantage of

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Speaker 1: a vulnerability in the operating system. As the story developed,

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Speaker 1: news broke that the US National Security Agency or n

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Speaker 1: s A had discovered that same vulnerability and designed its

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Speaker 1: own exploit before Wanna cry appeared on the scene. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there were some allegations that perhaps the authors of Wanna

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Speaker 1: cry were able to create Wanna cry because some of

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Speaker 1: the n s A stuff got leaked in a in

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Speaker 1: a big data dump earlier in the year. This raised

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Speaker 1: some questions about the n s AS ethics, which many

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Speaker 1: argued the agency had a responsibility to report this vulnerability

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Speaker 1: to Microsoft, but instead they chose to keep it for themselves.

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Speaker 1: A security researcher named Marcus Hutchins discovered a u r

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Speaker 1: L that acted as a kill switch for the malware

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Speaker 1: and that helped restrict the effects of Wanna Cry. It

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Speaker 1: did infect hundreds of thousands of computers, but it would

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Speaker 1: have been even worse had it not been for this

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Speaker 1: kill switch. This same security researcher was later arrested in

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Speaker 1: August seventeen and charged with creating another type of malware

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Speaker 1: called Chronos k r o o S, which was designed

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Speaker 1: to steal online banking credentials. According to crebs On Security,

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Speaker 1: which is an excellent blog if you've not checked it out,

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Speaker 1: I recommended, Hutchens did seem to have a past in

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Speaker 1: making malay just software up until around two thousand twelve

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Speaker 1: or two thousand thirteen. At that point he seemed to

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Speaker 1: have a change of heart and he started working diligently

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Speaker 1: to uncover and counteract malware. Hutchens has pleaded not guilty

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Speaker 1: to the charges against him, and his case is yet

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Speaker 1: to be heard as of the recording of this podcast episode.

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Speaker 1: As for Wanna Cry, experts suspect that it had its

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Speaker 1: origins in North Korea, though officials from North Korea denied

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Speaker 1: that the government had anything to do with the virus. However,

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about North Korea and a virus and

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Speaker 1: infecting the Internet, the most sort of most fingers have

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Speaker 1: to point at the government because North Korea has the

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Speaker 1: Internet pretty much locked down. Within the country. There's an intranet,

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Speaker 1: but not very very limited access to the outside internet. Uh.

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Speaker 1: North Korea does not necessarily want everyone to have access

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Speaker 1: to the world's information. Now it's time to get back

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Speaker 1: to Uber. Yep, we're not done with Uber yet. In May,

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Speaker 1: Uber and Weymo began their court battles in earnest Now,

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Speaker 1: Weymo is the self driving company. Self driving car company,

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Speaker 1: I should say that spun off from Google's R and

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Speaker 1: D department. An engineer who once worked at Weymo named

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Speaker 1: Anthony Lewandowski. He worked there when it was still just

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Speaker 1: part of Google, had left Google in UH sixteen. He

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Speaker 1: founded a new company called Auto and Uber then acquired

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Speaker 1: Auto O. T t O was the name of that company,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, Lewandowski began to work for Uber. Now. Weymo,

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Speaker 1: in its legal claim against Uber, said that Lewandowski had

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Speaker 1: illegally downloaded fourteen thousand documents that belonged to Weymo, including

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Speaker 1: proprietary trade secrets, and that therefore Uber was developing its

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Speaker 1: own self driving car technology on trade secret information that

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Speaker 1: was developed at Weymo, and Lewandowski was effectively a thief.

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Speaker 1: This particular trial is still playing out as of the

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Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, it has not been resolved. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Uber did end up firing Lewandowski, who was still to

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Speaker 1: this day as far as I know, taking the Fifth

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Speaker 1: Amendment against self incrimination, so he's not really core. He's

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Speaker 1: not really cooperating with investigators on this matter. But other

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Speaker 1: developments have happened over the past few days, so I'm

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Speaker 1: sure I will do a full story about weymo versus

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Speaker 1: uber once this has concluded. Meanwhile, going into June, a

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Speaker 1: different type of ransomware attack happened, this time in the Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: This one was called Petya, which also takes advantage of

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Speaker 1: that same exploit that the n s A identified with

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Speaker 1: Microsoft Windows machines, so Petya and Wanna cry both were

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Speaker 1: taking advantage of that same vulnerability. The attacks were traced

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Speaker 1: back to a software update package of a Ukrainian tack

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Speaker 1: preparation program that was very popular in the corporate world

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Speaker 1: in the Ukraine. Suspicion fell on the company itself that

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Speaker 1: made this software, but representatives of that company said no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: we're victims as well, where it's not us. We didn't

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Speaker 1: make this. It did infect our our software that we sold,

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Speaker 1: but we didn't actually put it there. An investigation revealed

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Speaker 1: that there was a compromised employee account, and suspicions pointed

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Speaker 1: investigators towards Russian hackers. The same patch that was used

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Speaker 1: to secure computers against Wanna cry would work against Petya,

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Speaker 1: but as it turned out, many systems in the Ukraine

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Speaker 1: and beyond had failed to install those patches, and so

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Speaker 1: they ended up getting encrypted. In addition, the email provider

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Speaker 1: post e O shut down the email addresses that were

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Speaker 1: associated with the hacker demands, so there was no way

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Speaker 1: to pay the ransom even if you wanted to, so

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Speaker 1: some people had to completely just get rid of entire

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Speaker 1: drives of information and including a hospital in West Virginia

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Speaker 1: that had to just junk it's computer systems in order

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Speaker 1: to rebuild. In June, Verizon completed its acquisition of Yahoo,

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Speaker 1: so this has been going on since the end of sixteen.

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Speaker 1: The price tag ended up being at around four point

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Speaker 1: four eight billion dollars. Merissa Meyer, who had left Google

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Speaker 1: to head Yahoo as CEO for about four and a

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Speaker 1: half years, left the company with a reported twenty three

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Speaker 1: million dollar severance package. Verizon created a new subsidiary company

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Speaker 1: called Oath, under which Yahoo would join other assets like

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Speaker 1: Huffington's Post. Now I've done an episode about Yahoo before,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like I might need to revisit this

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Speaker 1: and do a new episode and really dive into how

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Speaker 1: the company meandered. Over the last several years. There were

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Speaker 1: some massive data breaches which Yahoo failed to disclose for

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Speaker 1: quite some time that did enormous damage to the company's

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Speaker 1: reputation and affected millions of people, and Meyer, who at

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Speaker 1: one time was looked at a as a possible savior

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Speaker 1: of the company, became the target of a lot of

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Speaker 1: criticism for her role in leading a company that seemed

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Speaker 1: to fail completely in protecting its customers. Also that month,

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Speaker 1: the European Union hit Google with a two point seven

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Speaker 1: billion dollar fine after finding the company guilty of practicing

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Speaker 1: anti competitive strategies in the world of online comparison shopping. Yikes.

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Speaker 1: This was the largest fine levied for an antitrust case

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Speaker 1: from a governing body, so they set a record. Amazon

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Speaker 1: announced in June that it was moving to acquire the

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Speaker 1: upscale grocery store chain Whole Foods. The deal was reported

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Speaker 1: to be about thirteen point seven billion dollars, which is

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Speaker 1: just shy of how much it costs to shop at

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Speaker 1: Whole Foods for a week of groceries and hey, let's

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Speaker 1: check in with Uber, shall he. So? In in June

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Speaker 1: of CEO Travis Kalanik announced he would take a lead

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Speaker 1: eve of absence. His departure would end up being permanent.

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Speaker 1: The former CEO of Expedia, Dara kasro Shah, he became

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Speaker 1: the new CEO of the company a couple of months

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Speaker 1: later in August. He came into a company that was

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Speaker 1: in crisis, not just from a rash of sexual harassment

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Speaker 1: scandals that were still unresolved, but also there was these

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Speaker 1: charges that law enforcement were levying against Uber, saying that

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Speaker 1: the company had developed software specifically designed to help drivers

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Speaker 1: evade law enforcement. This is something that the company is

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Speaker 1: still dealing with today. Moving on into July, that's when

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Speaker 1: hyper Loop one held its first full scale test of

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Speaker 1: its technology. It happened on a test track in Nevada

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Speaker 1: using an actual size vehicle, So there is like a

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Speaker 1: full scale vehicle of what would end up being the

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Speaker 1: types of transportation we would get into once the system

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Speaker 1: is complete. However, no one was inside this test vehicle.

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Speaker 1: The hyper loop one method relies on mag lev technology,

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Speaker 1: which is different from the original hyper loop concept that

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk talked about. Elon Musk's version used what he

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Speaker 1: called air skis, so you would use uh, you pump

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Speaker 1: air down kind of like a reverse air hockey table,

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Speaker 1: and that would allow the pod to float above the

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Speaker 1: surface of the tunnel, and then you might use magnets

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Speaker 1: to propel it forward. But in this case, instead of

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Speaker 1: using air skis, the hyper loop one method actually used

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Speaker 1: magnetic levitation itself, so you're using permanent and electro magnets

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Speaker 1: to repel against one another and thus levitate the pod

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Speaker 1: above the surface of the track. Otherwise, it's very similar

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Speaker 1: to elon Musk's original concept. The test had the pod

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Speaker 1: elevate for about five seconds, not terribly long, but it

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Speaker 1: did accelerate to about two gs, so that's twice the

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Speaker 1: strength of gravity of Earth, so that's pretty impressive that it,

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Speaker 1: you know, went to two g acceleration within five seconds.

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Speaker 1: July was also when Adobe announced its plan for terminating

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Speaker 1: flash software. It's going to be a gradual death with

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Speaker 1: the end of distribution and updates not scheduled until twenty

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Speaker 1: so it's gonna be around a few more years. That's

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Speaker 1: supposed to give content creators the time they need to

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Speaker 1: move their work over to a more secure platform like

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Speaker 1: HTML five rather than the relatively vulnerable and venerable flash

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Speaker 1: program or platform, I should say. China announced that it

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Speaker 1: had completed a and connected a massive floating solar farm.

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Speaker 1: The farm itself is on top of a flooded region

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Speaker 1: that once used to mine coal, so that's kind of cool. Also,

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Speaker 1: the pictures of this massive floating solar farm are really impressive.

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Speaker 1: It also marks another example of how the nation of

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Speaker 1: China is working on being a global leader in renewable energy.

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk in July tweeted that he had received a

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Speaker 1: verbal go ahead from the White House to begin a

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Speaker 1: huge project that would connect Washington, d C. With New

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Speaker 1: York via an underground tunnel, presumably using hyperlop like technology

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Speaker 1: to transport people between the cities at high speeds so

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Speaker 1: that you could get between them in like half an hour.

432
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: Must get introduced a new company called the Boring Company.

433
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: Boring as in digging or tunneling. That is, the plan

434
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: is to use massive digging machines, which by the way,

435
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: work at a pace that's slower than a snail. That's

436
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: absolutely true, in order to dig these tunnels between an

437
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: under cities. In an effort to revolutionize transportation. In November

438
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: sev a White House advisor said that disapproval was not

439
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,360
Speaker 1: official or a green light for the project at all,

440
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: that this verbal agreement was more like verbal excitement, and

441
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: even if it had been a verbal agreement, such an

442
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: undertaking would involve many more governmental bodies at the state

443
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: and city and county levels, so it's not exactly signed, sealed,

444
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: and delivered. That month, Microsoft announced it would also layoff

445
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: around three thousand employees in an effort to reorganize the

446
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 1: company and focus more on cloud based services, thus showing

447
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:14,959
Speaker 1: a massive shift in Microsoft strategy. Now we get into August,

448
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: a string of resignations on various United States White House

449
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: Economic councils made headlines that month. Executives from many companies,

450
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: including big ones in the tech sector, handed in resignation

451
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: letters citing differences of philosophy with the President of the

452
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: United States, and among those who left these councils were

453
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: Jeff Emilt, who was the chairman of General Electric, Brian Krasnick,

454
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 1: the CEO of Intel, Windell Weeks, the CEO of Corning,

455
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: and more, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, and Bob

456
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: Iger of the Walt Disney Company had already left in June.

457
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: Travis Kalanik, who was the former CEO of Uber, we

458
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: talked about just minute ago. Uh. Of course, he had

459
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: his own laundry list of problems to handle throughout seventeen.

460
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: He left the Strategic Policy Council all the way back

461
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: in February, but August marked as sort of a mass

462
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: resignation for various councils and mostly consisted of prominent business leaders.

463
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: Over at Google, an engineer named James Demore released a

464
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: memo that argued against Google's employee diversity measures. The memo

465
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: protested several of Google's initiatives that were aimed to create

466
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: an inclusive environment, particularly for women. Demore's memo made headlines,

467
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: and Google was quick to act. They fired the more

468
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: in the wake of the news, and among the elements

469
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: of the memo that riled up the text fear were

470
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: his hypotheses that the gender gap in tech exists not

471
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: because there's been an historic resistance and sometimes pervasive hostility

472
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: toward women entering the tech field, but that biological differences

473
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: between the sexes were to blame. Reaction to Demore's firing

474
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: has also been across the board but there's actually a

475
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: pretty large group of folks who feel that while he

476
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: may have been expressing a point of view or two

477
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: Google's culture, it wasn't necessarily something that in itself should

478
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: have been a fire a bowl offense. And this is

479
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: across the board. It's not one side or the other

480
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: that argues is a lot of people say maybe firing

481
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: him might have been going too far, But from Google's perspective,

482
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: they were pointing out that this was a very disruptive

483
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: point of view and it was difficult to deal with

484
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: in a constructive way. Disney made an announcement in August

485
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: that it was going to acquire a company called bam Tech,

486
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: a streaming video company that's behind services like HBO Now

487
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: and the ones that Major League Baseball and the NHL use.

488
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: Disney also announced its own video streaming strategy, which will

489
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: consist of its own service, and this will mean that

490
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: it's going to start phasing titles off of other platforms

491
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: such as Netflix over the next couple of years. Microsoft

492
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: would show off some mixed reality headsets, which are meant

493
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: to bring augmented reality to the general consumer. The company

494
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: works with hardware manufacturers to make a platform for are

495
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: hardware applications, and Lee Jay Young, one of the heirs

496
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: to the Samsung fortune, received a five year prison sentence

497
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: for being found guilty of bribery and embezzlement. Now to

498
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 1: hear more about the crazy stories involving Samsung's ruling family,

499
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: check out the series of episodes I did on the

500
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: company earlier this year. All right, we are two thirds

501
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: of the way through. We still got the last little

502
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: bit of the year to get through. But before I

503
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: jump into that, let's take another quick break to thank

504
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Okay, September, we're in the home stretch. Boiler

505
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: stuff happened. In September. Apple held its annual press event,

506
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: in which it unveiled new products, including the iPhone eight

507
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: and the iPhone ten, which once again reinforce the idea

508
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: that's really tough to be the number nine in the

509
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: tech world. Apple skipped it. Microsoft skipped it with the

510
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: wind Nose platform. The iPhone ten, so called because it's

511
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: ten years after the original iPhone, features a super retina display,

512
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology that has come under fire recently for

513
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: alleged vulnerabilities, and a design that makes the phone look

514
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: like it's just a really attractive screen and that's it.

515
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 1: And by that, I mean it's impressive that it looks

516
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: like it's just a screen. It's also pretty expensive, with

517
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: the starting price of nine ninety nine dollars. Now, one

518
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: of the stories that has spanned much of seventeen was

519
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: the sixteen election and the involvement of Russian influence upon

520
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: it at different levels, from charges of fraudulent ads to

521
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: more direct attempts to influence the outcome of the election.

522
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: We've seen multiple accusations fly, we've seen denials, we've seen investigations.

523
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: In September, Facebook reported that Russian operatives had spent around

524
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars in fraudulent ads to throw support toward

525
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: Donald Trump during the election season. Twitter and Google revealed

526
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: that their investigation has found similar evidence of clandestine involvement.

527
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: And this has brought up a lot of tough questions

528
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: about how the United States and companies within it can

529
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: make certain that foreign parties can't exert such direct influence

530
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: over American voters. It's been pretty ugly and it's still

531
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: a story that is unfolding even as I record right now.

532
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's been a lot of fun. A related

533
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: story by the way is the whole concept of fake news.

534
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: The term has been used to describe false stories that

535
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: only have the goal of influencing behaviors or reinforcing beliefs

536
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: without relying on actual facts, and in general promoting one

537
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: perspective over others without regard for honesty. And you can

538
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: find examples of this for different ideology. So I want

539
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: to be clear, I'm not singling out any one side

540
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: over another. You can find examples for either the right

541
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: side or the left side. There they're examples of both.

542
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: But it also became a rallying cry for anyone who

543
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: takes you with any news article or report with which

544
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: they disagree. So in other words, you don't agree with something,

545
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: you call it those fake news, and that's the extent

546
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: of your argument. That's also kind of awful, not kind

547
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: of it's just awful. Another huge story that broke in

548
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: September centered on Equifax talked about awful. This is a

549
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 1: consumer credit reporting agency. The company revealed that hackers had

550
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: managed to exploit a vulnerability and Equifax's web systems, and

551
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: they gained access to millions of customers data records in

552
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,399
Speaker 1: one of the worst data breaches in history. More than

553
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 1: a hundred forty three million people were affected by this.

554
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 1: The company's former CEO, who stepped down in light of

555
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: this controversy, was brought before the United States Congress to

556
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: explain what had happened, and while the story broke in September,

557
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: the actual events dated back further. In twenty seventeen, the

558
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: former CEO revealed that the Department of Homeland Security alerted

559
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: Equifax to the presence of a vulnerability in the Apache

560
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: struts software package, which was used in equifaxes Online Disputes Portal,

561
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: which is where consumers could dispute credit report items. Let's

562
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: say you see something in your credit report that doesn't

563
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: belong there, you would go online and use this particular

564
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: portal so that you could file a claim. Well, according

565
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: to company policy, Equifax was supposed to patch all instances

566
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: of this software in their systems within forty eight hours.

567
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: That's company policy. That wasn't you know, a law or anything.

568
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: They just said, if we find a vulnerability, it is

569
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: our responsibility to fix it within forty eight hours. But

570
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 1: for some reason that didn't happen. So the first detected

571
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: intrusion into EQUIFAXES systems happened in early May seventeen. Now,

572
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: remember they found out about those vulnerabilities in March, so

573
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: more than a month later. That's when they first detect

574
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: an intrusion. And these intrusions continued through June, and it

575
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't until September that Equifax would actually announce anything. So

576
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: several months before anyone outside of the company learned of

577
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: this potentially devastating data breach. It did not win Equifax

578
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: any new fans. Oh. Also, that month, Uber got banned

579
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 1: in London. You didn't forget about Uber, did you? Actually?

580
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 1: To be more accurate, Uber was told that it's licensed

581
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: to operate in the city would expire on September and

582
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: the city would not renew that license. However, the company

583
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: would be allowed to continue to operate within the City

584
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: of London while appealing this decision. Many issues led to

585
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: that decision, not the least of which was this scandal

586
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:43,320
Speaker 1: involving Uber's technology that allegedly allowed drivers to evade law enforcement.

587
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: So what's the status now? Well, in November, the Mayor

588
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: of London said the appeals process could quote go on

589
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: for a number of years end quote So Pip, Pip Gueri, Oh,

590
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: I guess A side note, Anthony Lewandowski, the former Google

591
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: employee at the heart of the way Moos slash uber

592
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:08,359
Speaker 1: Legal Battle, founded a tech based religion in September. He

593
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: claims to want to create an artificially intelligent godhead for

594
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: humans to worship, one which will make decisions for people

595
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: and generally guide humanity. And yes, I will do a

596
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: full episode on this concept in the future, because how

597
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 1: could I not. That moves us to October Now. A

598
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: year earlier, back in the little company Snapchat, the social

599
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: network that everybody envies, debuted a consumer electronics gadget called Spectacles. Now,

600
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: these were sunglasses that incorporated a camera, and the camera

601
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: could take photos and video and upload them to a

602
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: user's Snapchat. Well, when these glasses first premiered in they

603
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: were a hot commodity. You would have these pop up

604
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: vending machines that would be installed in different places in

605
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: Trindy cities and major markets, and and techno hipsters eager

606
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: to be one of the elite would line up for

607
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: hours to buy a pair. You flash forward a year

608
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: later and the story is very different. In October, the Information,

609
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: a journal, published an article detailing the sad state of

610
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,839
Speaker 1: affairs for Snapchat. There are now hundreds of thousands of

611
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: unsold spectacles. Some of them are not yet assembled, others

612
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: are ready to ship immediately if only there were any

613
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: customers to buy them. The company admitted later in November

614
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: that it had spent nearly forty million dollars on quote

615
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: excess inventory reserves and inventory purchase commitment cancelation charges end quote.

616
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 1: These unmoved units are literally costing the company millions of

617
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: dollars hashtag no filter. Just in time for Halloween, security

618
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: researchers announced that there was a vulnar ability in WiFi technology.

619
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: That's awful. It all has to do with w P,

620
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: a to encryption protocol for WiFi. Users are told they

621
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,720
Speaker 1: should update their firmware on their routers and client devices

622
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: as patches become available. But yeah, not great when the

623
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: underlying encryption technology that is meant to protect an entire

624
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 1: form of communications ends up having a critical vulnerability. Not

625
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: good at all. Microsoft officially ended manufacturing on the Connect

626
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: Xbox peripheral in October. The motion sensing device had been

627
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: popular among hackers for all sorts of interesting applications, but

628
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: had failed to really catch on with gamers. Now whether

629
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: this was due to the hardware itself or a widely

630
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: lamented lack of content. It didn't really matter. Microsoft just

631
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: decided to pull the plug. Now, this did not really

632
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: come as a surprise because more recent versions of the

633
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: Xbox One have shipped without a dedicated connect port on

634
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: the console itself, so the writing was kind of on

635
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: the wall. But in October it became official. Amazon announced

636
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: a new program called Key, which would allow customers to

637
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: authorize delivery personnel to enter their homes and deliver packages

638
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: while they are away. I don't think i'd be comfortable

639
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: doing that. I'd rather the box be left on my

640
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: porch and I just have to hope nobody steals it

641
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: rather than having an Amazon person coming into my house

642
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: to drop off a package. But maybe that's just me. November.

643
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 1: Early that month, US President Donald Trump had a brief

644
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,439
Speaker 1: snaff who with his Twitter account. It disappeared, it was deactivated,

645
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: it was gone, seemingly deleted, and it was so for

646
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: about eleven minutes, then it returned. It so happens that

647
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 1: a Twitter customer support employee decided to deactivate the President's

648
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: Twitter account on their last day at the company as

649
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: a defiant gesture. Twitter and now as a result of

650
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: that action, the company would do a full internal review

651
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: and make changes to avoid having any one employee having

652
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:11,320
Speaker 1: that power ever again. But boy, that definitely got Twitter

653
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: conversations going due to those eleven minutes. Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency

654
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: that has had incredible ups and downs throughout its entire existence,

655
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: started off seventeen worth a little less than a thousand

656
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: dollars per bitcoin. In November of seventeen, the value of

657
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 1: bitcoin topped ten thousand dollars for the first time ever.

658
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: The morning that I'm recording this had the value of

659
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: a single bitcoin listed at twelve thousand, eight hundred seventy

660
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 1: three dollars and ninety nine cents. There have been so

661
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 1: many stories about bitcoin in twenty seventeen, tons of them.

662
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: Several journals reported on lost bitcoin that are likely never

663
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: to be recovered. The design of bitcoin necessitates that there

664
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: is a finite number that will ever be released to

665
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: the world. That number is twenty one million bitcoin, and

666
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,720
Speaker 1: the release happens over time through a process called mining.

667
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: Bitcoin are stored as data, and if you lose the

668
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: devices that contain that data, it's like you just lost

669
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,240
Speaker 1: a wallet full of money. According to a study cited

670
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: by The Independent, around three point seven nine million bitcoin

671
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: may be lost in such a way, which means a

672
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: loss of many billions of dollars worth of bitcoin. One

673
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: guy named James Howells says he alone lost seven thousand,

674
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: five hundred bitcoin by accidentally throwing away a hard drive

675
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 1: that had his bitcoin supply stored on it. At twelve

676
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a pop, seven thousand, five hundred bitcoins is

677
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: an astounding amount of wealth. Numerous financial experts have debated

678
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 1: about whether or not there's going to be a bitcoin

679
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: bubble burst, like is a crash coming, When might it

680
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: happen and how bad is it going to be. Some

681
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,760
Speaker 1: state that the currency is destined for a massive collapse.

682
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: Others argue there's no real grounds for that prediction. Bitcoin's

683
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: value has certainly fluctuated over the years, so we'll likely

684
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: see some big changes over time, but the currency has

685
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: stuck around so far. YouTube began to face harsh criticism

686
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 1: for its YouTube Kids service, which is supposed to serve

687
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: up age appropriate material for kids to enjoy, but was

688
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: having issues with people slipping in videos that were at

689
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: best questionable and at worst wildly inappropriate for the service.

690
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is just the sheer amount of

691
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: material being added to YouTube every moment. It's an estimated

692
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:36,359
Speaker 1: four hundred hours of content every single minute. At that rate,

693
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to vet everything and make sure it

694
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: passes muster. So YouTube is now under pressure to design

695
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: a system that more effectively filters out inappropriate content. Tesla

696
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 1: Motors merged with the solar provider company Solar City for

697
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 1: an estimated two point six billion dollars. Solar City was

698
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: founded by some of Elon Musk's relatives and has a

699
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: close relationship with the batteries that Tesla produces, but not

700
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: every thing was sonny for Tesla Motors. In seventeen, the

701
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: company missed its ship date for the Model three Tesla,

702
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: and on November one reported that it wouldn't hit the

703
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,320
Speaker 1: five thousand units per week number the company had promised

704
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: until late q one. The company cited unspecified production bottlenecks

705
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: as the reason for the delay initially, but in a

706
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: later shareholder letter more details emerged. According to that letter,

707
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: the major delay came from the quote battery module assembly

708
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: line at Giga Factory one, where cells are packaged into

709
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: modules in the quote. The letter went on to explain

710
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 1: the complexity of the design required more time to manufacture

711
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: and as symbol than engineers had anticipated. The delays came

712
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 1: with more than just the cost of not moving units.

713
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: Investors filed a lawsuit against Tesla, alleging that the executives

714
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: had deliberately hidden the nature of these delays from investors

715
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: in an attempt to preserve the company's value. Oh And

716
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: the company also faced law suits from workers claiming to

717
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: have experienced discrimination at the Fremont, California plant, claims that

718
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: Tesla representatives have been quake to deny. David carp, the

719
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: founder of Tumbler, announced he would leave the company after

720
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: eleven years of working there. Yahoo had purchased Tumbler back

721
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:20,799
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen for one billion dollars. By March

722
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, Yahoo had to write off that purchase,

723
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 1: essentially saying the whole thing was lost. The Tumbler acquisition

724
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,280
Speaker 1: is one of the decisions that critics of Merissa Meyers

725
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: say led to the downfall of Yahoo. Uber YEP, We're

726
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: back to Them continued its tumultuous year with yet another scandal.

727
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: In late November, news broke that Uber Systems had been

728
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: the target of hackers in sixteen. Further that the hackers

729
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: were able to access and steal customer data in that attack,

730
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: and worse yet, the head of Uber's security department, Joe Sullivan,

731
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: had authorized payments to the hackers to the tune of

732
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars in an effort to cover the

733
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: whole thing up. In the wake of his firing, more

734
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 1: details about his practices came to light that didn't seem

735
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: terribly ethical. He allegedly told employees to quote use ephemeral

736
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: messaging apps in the quote as an applications that do

737
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: not save threads and delete all the contents after a

738
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: certain amount of time. According to a former Uber employee,

739
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 1: this was to make sure we didn't create a paper

740
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 1: trail that would come back to haunt the company in

741
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 1: any potential criminal or civil litigation. Yikes, alright, home stretch,

742
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: We're in December, and uh, you know, I haven't covered

743
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: a nasty hostile takeover story in a long time. So

744
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: in early December, a company called broad Calm started to

745
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: take the earliest steps toward a hostile takeover of the

746
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: company qual Calm. Qualcom makes semiconductors and telecommunications equipment It

747
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: also has a healthy business in licensing various patents. The

748
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: company holds broad Calm, which used to be known as

749
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:59,719
Speaker 1: e Vago Technologies, makes stuff that uses semi conductors and

750
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: try uses. Its history back to being part of Hewitt Packard.

751
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: Broadcom had sidled up to Qualcom and offered to buy

752
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: the company for a reported a hundred three billion dollars

753
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: in stocks and cash. Qualcom turned down this initial offer,

754
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: so now Broadcom has nominated eleven people to the board

755
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: of Qualcom in an effort to get the supported needs

756
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: to make the acquisition. Because Qualcom is a publicly traded company,

757
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 1: it must answer to stockholders. Broadcom's hope is to convince

758
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,720
Speaker 1: those stockholders that their investment will be more valuable should

759
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: Qualcom join Broadcom's umbrella. The stockholders have the ability to

760
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: elect the nominees Broadcom put forward. According to Broadcom representatives,

761
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 1: stockholders already want this deal to be in place, They've

762
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,720
Speaker 1: just been blocked by Qualcom's board of directors. This story

763
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: will continue to unfold in eighteen as the next shareholder

764
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: meeting for Qualcom isn't until March of that year. Musician

765
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: Neil Young made nearly all of his music available online

766
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 1: through a streaming service called x stream, which will send

767
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: the highest quality audio stream to a user based on

768
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: that users bandwidth. If you have a wicked fast connection,

769
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 1: you will presumably have a more rich experience musically speaking.

770
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 1: The music is free to listen to until June, whereupon

771
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: it turns into a subscription based service. It's interesting to

772
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 1: see another streaming service pop up because there's already a

773
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: ton of them available, but arguing for sound quality might

774
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,280
Speaker 1: be enough to set it apart from its competitors. Lift,

775
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: the other big right hailing service, recently launched a test

776
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: autonomous car service in the Boston support area. The cars

777
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: still have a human operator behind the wheel, though, so

778
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: it's not entirely driverless yet. The cars themselves were created

779
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: by a company called New Autonomy, so if you're in

780
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 1: the Boston area, you might be able to get a

781
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 1: ride from a car that drives itself. Valve, about which

782
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:02,840
Speaker 1: I did a full podcast series, recently said December that

783
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 1: it would stop accepting bitcoin in Steam because of how

784
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: wildly the value of the currency fluctuates. Valves stated that

785
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: even in the process of a single transaction, the value

786
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 1: of bitcoin could change significantly enough to cause major problems.

787
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: So you might determine that something is worth point zero

788
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: zero zero eight bitcoin, but then the value of bitcoin

789
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: changes so much that you end up overpaying or under

790
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: paying for that particular project. And Valve said, this just

791
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: isn't working, and they pulled the plug. By the time

792
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: this episode goes live, the f c C will have

793
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: held a vote on whether to overturn the decision made

794
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: by the former leaders of the f c C to

795
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: reclassify Internet service providers as a common carrier. Since this

796
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 1: has not yet happened. As a record this episode, I

797
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:51,479
Speaker 1: can only give a guess as to how it turned out,

798
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: and my guess is that they did indeed overturn that decision.

799
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: I personally consider this the wrong path to take, as

800
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: I feel that without regulations, we will be in danger

801
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: of facing a fractured, throttled Internet based on whatever I

802
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: s P we use. But we'll see. That would be

803
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: all the stories I have prepared, and obviously this is

804
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: just a hint of the stuff that unfolded in. Some

805
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: of the biggest stories are the ones that caught my attention,

806
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 1: but there are so many others, and I have to

807
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: give a shout out to my buddies over at daily

808
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 1: tech news show. That'd be Tom Merritt and Sarah Lane

809
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: in particular. They cover this kind of technology news every

810
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 1: single day. I highly recommend you check out their show

811
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 1: so that you can keep up to date on news.

812
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 1: And I relied very heavily on their past episodes, the

813
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: episodes they did for to pull some of the big

814
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: stories for this particular episode of tech Stuff. But it's okay,

815
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 1: Tom and Sarah and I know each other, so it's

816
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: all cool. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I

817
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: look forward to the next couple of episodes. Next one

818
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 1: will be how did we do with Predictions for and

819
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 1: then the one following that will be predictions for eighteen,

820
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,360
Speaker 1: which I'm I'm honestly not looking forward to because I

821
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 1: should have learned my lesson by now. But once you

822
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: establish a tradition, it's really hard to stop. If you

823
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: guys have suggestions for topics that I should absolutely cover

824
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand eighteen, then I recommend you

825
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: get in touch with me and let me know what

826
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: those suggestions are. You can write me the address is

827
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:29,320
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you

828
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The

829
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: handle of both of those is text stuff hs W.

830
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: Remember we have an Instagram account also text stuff hs W.

831
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: And Hey, if you want to watch me record these

832
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:45,360
Speaker 1: things live, go to twitch dot tv slash tech stuff.

833
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: Typically I record on Wednesdays and Fridays. You can see

834
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 1: the schedule there. You can join in, be part of

835
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: the chat room, and be up to all sorts of

836
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,479
Speaker 1: crazy shenanigans. That wraps us up for this year. I'll

837
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 1: be wrapping up the predictions next making more predictions, and

838
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: then we'll say farewell forever to be your two thousand

839
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:07,280
Speaker 1: and seventeen, and turn our eyes forward to two thousand eighteen,

840
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: and I'll tell to you guys again really soon for

841
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, because it

842
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Dot com