Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and a love of
Speaker 1: all things tech. It is time for the Tech News
Speaker 1: per Tuesday, September twenty eight, twenty twenty one. And first,
Speaker 1: let's follow up on one of the recent Facebook stories,
Speaker 1: specifically the one about how Facebook researchers conducted an internal
Speaker 1: study that linked Instagram use with potential negative effects on
Speaker 1: mental health, particularly for teenage girls. Now, the head of
Speaker 1: Facebook's research department has posted on Facebook Newsroom that the
Speaker 1: conclusions that were drawn by the Wall Street Journal, which
Speaker 1: reported on all this, are inaccurate and do not reflect
Speaker 1: a proper interpretation of Facebook data. But really, the post
Speaker 1: mostly is an indictment against her own department's research practices.
Speaker 1: Because she stated that the study in question only had
Speaker 1: forty participants. That means that that sample size was way
Speaker 1: too small to allow for any kind of broad generalizations. Now,
Speaker 1: I actually agree with that, because forty is an incredibly
Speaker 1: small sample size for any kind of study. One might
Speaker 1: even argue that it really doesn't make any sense to
Speaker 1: conduct a study that has that small of a sample size,
Speaker 1: particularly if you are a company that has a platform
Speaker 1: with more than a billion users, more than two billion users. Now,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that the findings are necessarily inaccurate, right,
Speaker 1: I mean those findings might be accurate, But rather than that,
Speaker 1: you can say, well, you can't be sure of that
Speaker 1: because a sample size is way too small. It may
Speaker 1: be that you just happen to have outliers and that
Speaker 1: if you did a larger sample size, any effect would disappear.
Speaker 1: And you know, you just can't really say for sure
Speaker 1: to what if any degree Instagram contributes to negative mental
Speaker 1: health outcomes based on a study like that. But I
Speaker 1: will also say that her post feels a lot like
Speaker 1: Facebook is doing kind of a tight rope routine of
Speaker 1: saying the data doesn't show that, but also saying the
Speaker 1: study isn't sufficient to draw conclusions from, like unless there's
Speaker 1: other data that Facebook has, and there may well be,
Speaker 1: but they haven't shared it, then it's impossible to say.
Speaker 1: And because Facebook hasn't shared any extra information, there's no
Speaker 1: way to validate whether or not you know, the arguments
Speaker 1: that this is inaccurate are true. This Thursday and Tigany Davis,
Speaker 1: the head of safety at Facebook, will appear before the
Speaker 1: Senate Commerce Subcommittee to answer questions about the company and
Speaker 1: its research on Instagram's effects. And I am sure that
Speaker 1: there will be some senators with some pretty pointed questions.
Speaker 1: We will have to see if Davis answers those in
Speaker 1: a straightforward way or if we get more of what
Speaker 1: we've seen in the past, where Facebook kind of dances
Speaker 1: around answering things when it comes to accountability. In related news,
Speaker 1: Facebook has announced that has put a temporary hold on
Speaker 1: its plans to launch an Instagram app aimed at kids
Speaker 1: under the age of thirteen. According to the head of Instagram,
Speaker 1: Adam Massari, the decision to do this was in response
Speaker 1: to the public backlash that the company has faced, particularly
Speaker 1: in light of those Wall Street Journal stories I mentioned.
Speaker 1: He also took the time to lament that you know,
Speaker 1: we all just have it all wrong. This new Instagram
Speaker 1: app isn't meant for little kids, he explained. It's meant
Speaker 1: for kids that are between the ages of ten and twelve.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to spare you my personal reaction to
Speaker 1: that particular response, because I think you could probably guess
Speaker 1: what it is. But he also tweeted out that kids
Speaker 1: are getting smart folks like younger ages, and then they
Speaker 1: go around and download apps and they misrepresent their ages
Speaker 1: in order to use those apps. So clearly it would
Speaker 1: be better to make apps for the kids. I would say,
Speaker 1: this doesn't explain how that stops kids from just continuing
Speaker 1: to download adult apps and to misrepresent their ages. Like
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to solve that problem. It's really just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: they're already on there, so what harm could we do
Speaker 1: by introducing more of what they're already on. If anything,
Speaker 1: this is really a call both to companies and to
Speaker 1: parents to take more steps to protect kids. And I
Speaker 1: think parents need to have a lot of that responsibility.
Speaker 1: But how you know, we can't give companies a get
Speaker 1: out of jail free card just because they have a
Speaker 1: token age verification system that doesn't actually verify ages. In
Speaker 1: my mind, that's just a type of se purity theater, Right,
Speaker 1: You've got the appearance of security, but it's not actually
Speaker 1: making anything more secure. Now that's my own personal opinion.
Speaker 1: I could be way off base. Mossi argues that the
Speaker 1: app that was planned for younger users would give parents
Speaker 1: more oversight into what their kids are doing. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, with every story that I cover
Speaker 1: in this vein, I am tempted to just go move
Speaker 1: into the woods and become a hermit, except I know me,
Speaker 1: I would die of exposure within like two days. I'm
Speaker 1: a soft city boy, but the urge to retreat is
Speaker 1: definitely there. The Chinese government is taking some pretty extreme
Speaker 1: steps to curb energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions within
Speaker 1: the country. More than half of all China's electricity comes
Speaker 1: from coal power plants, something like sixty three percent of
Speaker 1: it does, and while the country has committed to never
Speaker 1: building another coal power plant, it doesn't change the fact
Speaker 1: that right now China largely runs on coal. The price
Speaker 1: of coal in China has been on the rise lately,
Speaker 1: and so energy costs have subsequently been going up, and
Speaker 1: of course we have the carbon dioxide emissions issue. So
Speaker 1: to deal with these problems, China has started to cut
Speaker 1: off power to some major manufacturing centers in certain regions
Speaker 1: of the country, with the plan to potentially have a
Speaker 1: schedule in place for when those regions will be allowed
Speaker 1: to power these manufacturing centers and when those centers are
Speaker 1: going to go without power. Now, the hope is that
Speaker 1: doing all this will allow energy companies to get hold
Speaker 1: of some more commodities to offset production and stabilize prices,
Speaker 1: though there are some analysts who say that at best
Speaker 1: that would be like a temporary band aid. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, it means that it's not always going to
Speaker 1: be business as usual in China's manufacturing centers, and since
Speaker 1: a lot of the world's leading electronics companies depend upon
Speaker 1: Chinese factories, this could mean that some companies experience some
Speaker 1: production lays. Coupled with the ongoing semiconductor shortage, this could
Speaker 1: mean that we're in for some tough times when it
Speaker 1: comes to consumer electronics. However, I should add that the
Speaker 1: semiconductor industry in particular will be allowed to continue to
Speaker 1: operate throughout this process, so China's not going to shut
Speaker 1: off power to facilities that are making semiconductor chips. Also,
Speaker 1: a lot of companies have facilities in different regions of China,
Speaker 1: and some regions are not affected by this. Some regions
Speaker 1: will continue and not be cutting off power to manufacturing centers,
Speaker 1: so those companies might just shift operations around as much
Speaker 1: as they can to offset any delays they would face
Speaker 1: due to the downtime. This next story needs a little
Speaker 1: bit of a lead in, all right, So have you
Speaker 1: ever tried to log into a service but you couldn't
Speaker 1: remember which password you used for it? So you try
Speaker 1: a few of your old standbys, and after three or
Speaker 1: so attempts, you get shut out and told that you
Speaker 1: can't try and log in again for several minutes. Well,
Speaker 1: that kind of system is in place to protect against
Speaker 1: a type of password attack called brute force, and with
Speaker 1: that name you probably have a pretty good idea of
Speaker 1: how this works. Someone trying to access a system you
Speaker 1: know they don't have authorization will end up submitting guests
Speaker 1: after guests in the password field, perhaps using a dictionary
Speaker 1: of common passwords to start off, and then moving beyond
Speaker 1: that to other guesses should the dictionary fail to score
Speaker 1: any hits. This is all done automatically. By the way,
Speaker 1: There are computer programs that are just meant to do
Speaker 1: this kind of attack. This is not a quick way
Speaker 1: to gain access to a system, but with a sufficiently
Speaker 1: powerful computer system behind it, you can get it done.
Speaker 1: It just takes time. So these protection systems are in
Speaker 1: place in order to prevent that. Right, the brute force
Speaker 1: attack would take a lot longer to do because the
Speaker 1: attacker would regularly get shut out after giving a few
Speaker 1: incorrect passwords. Another way that you can protect systems is
Speaker 1: to require two factor authentication. So a password is one factor,
Speaker 1: it represents something you know. A two factor authentication process
Speaker 1: would require either that you also submit something that you own,
Speaker 1: like your phone. So this is like when you try
Speaker 1: and log into something and a system sends you a
Speaker 1: text message with an access code that you need to
Speaker 1: put in an addition to your password, or maybe it
Speaker 1: requires something that you are like your biometric data like
Speaker 1: a fingerprint scan, and it's used in connection with the password.
Speaker 1: These systems also protect against brute force because the attacker
Speaker 1: needs more than just the password in order to access
Speaker 1: the system. All right, now we've got all that. Other
Speaker 1: way we can get to the actual story. Microsoft has
Speaker 1: a product called Azure Active Directory or Azure a D,
Speaker 1: and apparently it has neither of those protections in place.
Speaker 1: It is a single factor authentication system, so you just
Speaker 1: need a password and you can submit password to your
Speaker 1: heart's content, and apparently, in at least some versions, the
Speaker 1: system doesn't log the password attempts, so there's no record
Speaker 1: kept that someone is trying and failing to submit a password. Now,
Speaker 1: consider for a moment that Azure Active Directory is a
Speaker 1: way for corporate users to sign into a corporate account
Speaker 1: and then connect to all integrated corporate systems and devices.
Speaker 1: It's a one login solution in other words, so you
Speaker 1: might use it to log into your corporate email, but
Speaker 1: then it also logs you into the corporate HR system
Speaker 1: or maybe like a project management system that all of
Speaker 1: these different things. Because they have the one login approach,
Speaker 1: you already have authorization, so you're not frustrated by the
Speaker 1: fact that you have to authenticate every single time you
Speaker 1: try to access any company system. It's meant to make
Speaker 1: things more streamlined. Right, As long as you were able
Speaker 1: to authenticate that one gateway, you can access everything. So
Speaker 1: that means that this is a potential huge security vulnerability,
Speaker 1: right if a hacker targets and Azure ad log in
Speaker 1: and they have a user name and they're just submitting passwords,
Speaker 1: and those failed passwords aren't getting logged, So no system
Speaker 1: administrators are aware of this because there's no you know,
Speaker 1: notification popping up saying hey, so and so has submitted
Speaker 1: five seven eighty three incorrect guesses for their password. Maybe
Speaker 1: you need to look into this. Then you could just
Speaker 1: keep on attacking until you got a hit and managed
Speaker 1: to get into the system. If you would like to
Speaker 1: learn more about what scenarios this would work in and
Speaker 1: what you need to be on the lookout for, I
Speaker 1: really recommend reading As Sharma's post on Ours Technica. It
Speaker 1: is titled new Azure Active Directory password brute forcing flaw
Speaker 1: has no fix. That headline kind of as it all.
Speaker 1: All right, We've got some more news stories to cover,
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: If you are in the United States, you might remember
Speaker 1: that a couple of years ago, the Chinese telecommunications company
Speaker 1: Huawei fell under a lot of scrutiny here in America,
Speaker 1: and in part this was because then President Trump had
Speaker 1: engaged in a trade war with China, and so at
Speaker 1: least some of that motivation for the pressure on Huawei
Speaker 1: was political trade pressure, but there was also a growing
Speaker 1: concern that a Chinese company, one that presumably has important
Speaker 1: and tight connections with China's communist government, might not be
Speaker 1: the best fit when it comes to building out telecommunications infrastructure. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you're worried about potential Chinese spies.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's better not to hire a Chinese communications company
Speaker 1: to install critical infrastructure components within your own communications network.
Speaker 1: It's like opening the door for potential spies. In other words,
Speaker 1: so the US moved to push American communications companies to
Speaker 1: scuttle Huawei systems and to replace them with other systems. Now,
Speaker 1: the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, says it has created
Speaker 1: a nearly two billion dollar program to reimburse telecom carriers
Speaker 1: that are going through the process of removing and replacing
Speaker 1: Huawei network hardware from their systems. These telecom companies are
Speaker 1: largely in rural areas in the United States, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that that relief is a literal relief to them.
Speaker 1: These are not necessarily your gigantic coast to coast companies.
Speaker 1: In other words, video game company Activision Blizzard has entered
Speaker 1: into a settlement agreement with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Speaker 1: This was in response to a lawsuit that the EOC
Speaker 1: brought against the company following multiple allegations of issues ranging
Speaker 1: from a hostile work environment to sexual harassment, to pay
Speaker 1: disparity and discrimination. As part of the settlement, activision. Blizzard
Speaker 1: will create a fund that will compensate employees who claim damages.
Speaker 1: So it Plays will submit a claim, it will be
Speaker 1: evaluated and then determined whether or not that employee merits
Speaker 1: getting money from this fund, and the total amount in
Speaker 1: that fund is in the neighborhood of eighteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: Any unclaimed funds after a certain period of time end
Speaker 1: up going to nonprofit organizations dedicated to attracting more women
Speaker 1: to enter into the video game development industry. Bobby Kodik,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the company, says that he and the
Speaker 1: executive team are dedicated to putting an end too the
Speaker 1: toxic work environment, which I really hope is a sincere statement.
Speaker 1: I mean, the cynical part of me says, well, of
Speaker 1: course you want to bring an end to that, because
Speaker 1: it's costing you money. As long as it wasn't costing
Speaker 1: you money, there was no real incentive. But the hopeful
Speaker 1: part of me says, we're trying to get better, and
Speaker 1: people genuinely want to make workplaces a more positive environment.
Speaker 1: So the optimist will continue to hope and the cynic
Speaker 1: will continue to mistrust. A researcher at the Ethereum Foundation
Speaker 1: named Virgil Griffith has pled guilty to charges that he
Speaker 1: helped the country of North Korea get around US sanctions
Speaker 1: that aimed to prevent North Korea from using blockchain technology.
Speaker 1: And that needs some explanation. So, first of all, Ethereum
Speaker 1: is a type of cryptocurrency, and when we talk about cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: a lot of people just think Bitcoin, or maybe if
Speaker 1: they're in it for the means, they might think dogecoin.
Speaker 1: Ethereum is another big popular cryptocurrency that is currently trying
Speaker 1: to switch from a proof of work approach, which is
Speaker 1: what Bitcoin uses. That's where you're using very fast computers
Speaker 1: to try and solve a very hard computer problem before
Speaker 1: anyone else can, and it's the reason why these systems
Speaker 1: end up consuming so much energy and as a result,
Speaker 1: contribute to things like carbon emissions and energy spikes and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Ethereum is trying to move
Speaker 1: to a proof of stake approach, which does not require
Speaker 1: that kind of computational processing power in order to mine
Speaker 1: new coins. However, it does mean that you have to
Speaker 1: have a sufficient stake in ethereum in order to earn
Speaker 1: interest more ethereum. And so some people point out that
Speaker 1: that approach means that you already have to be wealthy
Speaker 1: in order to even enjoy that potential payout, so upside
Speaker 1: and downsides anyway, Like bitcoin, Ethereum uses blockchain to track
Speaker 1: transactions and to prevent people from spending the same ethereum
Speaker 1: unit twice. You know, if you have something that's digital,
Speaker 1: then arguably you could just copy it a billion times,
Speaker 1: so now instead of having one dollar bill, you have
Speaker 1: a billion dollar bills. Block Chain prevents that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff from happening. Well. Back in twenty nineteen, Virgil Griffith
Speaker 1: attended a blockchain conference in Pyongyang, and the US government
Speaker 1: alleges that Griffith's presentation at the conference was in effect
Speaker 1: an instruction manual for how North Korea could make use
Speaker 1: of blockchain technologies, despite US sanctions meant to prevent that
Speaker 1: very thing from happening. Griffith was arrested upon returning from
Speaker 1: the conference, and his trial was set to begin next week,
Speaker 1: but he decided to plead guilty to the charges, which
Speaker 1: could mean he could face up to twenty years in prison.
Speaker 1: We'll have to follow up on this as we learn more.
Speaker 1: No once we get to sentencing, Tesla has started to
Speaker 1: open up its full self driving or FSD program to
Speaker 1: a larger number of Tesla drivers, prompting them with a
Speaker 1: request feature that appears on the dashboard touchscreen, so you
Speaker 1: select it and then you can put in your request
Speaker 1: to be part of the program. So now if you
Speaker 1: have a Tesla that's capable of supporting FSD, you can
Speaker 1: ask to have that feature enabled on your Tesla. Except
Speaker 1: there is a catch. The company will run a safety
Speaker 1: check on each driver, checking their driving against five criteria
Speaker 1: to be certain that the drivers are responsible and safe.
Speaker 1: Those criteria include instances in which the driver prompted a
Speaker 1: forced autopilot disengagement. So autopilot is a driver assist feature
Speaker 1: that some Tesla owners have famously abused by treating it
Speaker 1: more as like a fully autonomous vehicle mode. And this
Speaker 1: particular feature asks drivers that they keep their hands on
Speaker 1: the wheel and they maintain their attention on the road,
Speaker 1: and if a driver does not do this, then the
Speaker 1: mode is supposed to alert the driver and disengage and
Speaker 1: thus force the driver to take over manual control of
Speaker 1: the car. So if that had happened, that would be
Speaker 1: a strike against you, would that would knock points off
Speaker 1: your safety score, but other criteria include stuff like how
Speaker 1: frequently the car had to engage features like a forward
Speaker 1: collision warning, which might indicate that you're following too closely
Speaker 1: or not paying enough attention, or how frequently the driver
Speaker 1: had to use hard breaking. Again, maybe you were traveling
Speaker 1: too fast or you break too late when you're coming
Speaker 1: up two stops. So you have to accrue a sufficient
Speaker 1: safety score before you will be given access to subscribe
Speaker 1: to FSD, But Tesla is not actually saying what that
Speaker 1: score threshold is. Only the drivers will be judged out
Speaker 1: of a total possible one hundred points, and most folks
Speaker 1: will land somewhere around eighty points. The FSD product requires
Speaker 1: a monthly subscription of one hundred ninety nine dollars a month,
Speaker 1: which is a princely sum. Tesla also offered a version
Speaker 1: where you could just buy it outright for the life
Speaker 1: of the car for ten thousand dollars. And I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts about this, and one of those
Speaker 1: is that the name of it full self driving is
Speaker 1: just as misleading as the name autopilot is, because it's
Speaker 1: really just more features that augment autopilot, so it can
Speaker 1: do stuff like in at least some cases have a
Speaker 1: car navigate out of a parking space on its own,
Speaker 1: so you can have it pull out of a space
Speaker 1: and then you get into the car. You don't have
Speaker 1: to squeeze by and that kind of stuff. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't always work in every situation, and it can also
Speaker 1: do things like obey traffic signals and stop signs, so
Speaker 1: it can travel on surface streets in this mode, and
Speaker 1: not just on highways. It can navigate from one highway
Speaker 1: to another. But it is not true self driving, or
Speaker 1: at least it's not truly fully self driving. It can't
Speaker 1: autonomously operate the car in all situations and scenarios, and
Speaker 1: many critics, including myself, have argued that the name doesn't
Speaker 1: reflect what the product actually does. Also, I find it
Speaker 1: somewhat telling that the company refers to the system as
Speaker 1: full self driving, but it is requiring drivers who are
Speaker 1: applying for this to pass a safety test before they
Speaker 1: get access to the features, because if it were really
Speaker 1: a full self driving feature, you would want bad drivers
Speaker 1: to get that, right, I mean, if the vehicle is
Speaker 1: capable of driving itself, which I argue full self driving
Speaker 1: at least heavily implies, presumably it will do so safely
Speaker 1: without the risk of an accident, and it makes more
Speaker 1: sense to give bad drivers that service and thus remove
Speaker 1: their human error from the road. But the fact that
Speaker 1: Tesla requires drivers to meet a minimum safety requirement tells
Speaker 1: me that that's not really what FSD does, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if it really did that, then you wouldn't need the
Speaker 1: safety check. If you need a safety check, you need
Speaker 1: to make sure that the person who's driving the car
Speaker 1: is going to be responsible, which tells you that FSD
Speaker 1: is not really FSD. It's an augmentation system, not a
Speaker 1: truly autonomous system. And I've got a lot of really
Speaker 1: critical thoughts about Tesla doing this kind of stuff because
Speaker 1: I feel that they set an unrealistic expectation in their
Speaker 1: customer base, and then people have an overreliance on technology
Speaker 1: that is not able to measure up to what the
Speaker 1: people are putting it to, Like they're putting way too
Speaker 1: much responsibility on the tech, and the tech just isn't
Speaker 1: up to the challenge, and part of that is fueled
Speaker 1: by the way Tesla markets it's technology. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's reprehensible. If I'm being you know, blunt, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna take a break and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: find a way down off this high horse. But we'll
Speaker 1: be back with some more news in just a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back now. By the time you hear this episode,
Speaker 1: Amazon will have held a hardware event and revealed some
Speaker 1: new products, potentially a bunch of new ones. The event
Speaker 1: was invitation only. I did not get an invite. It's hurtful,
Speaker 1: so I have no idea what it is that they revealed.
Speaker 1: In fact, as I record this, the event has not
Speaker 1: yet happened, but it will within like twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: of me saying the sentence. The Verge has made some
Speaker 1: guesses as to what could be revealed, so I thought
Speaker 1: I would share with you what the Verge is guessing,
Speaker 1: and then you can compare and see if the Verge
Speaker 1: got it right. And I hope they did because I really, actually,
Speaker 1: I really like that site a lot. Anyway, the Verge
Speaker 1: predicts that Amazon will likely have a wall mounted echo device,
Speaker 1: so you know, another smart speaker screen device that you
Speaker 1: could actually mount on your wall. They also are predicting
Speaker 1: that there's probably going to be a sound bar system
Speaker 1: with Alexa integration in it. I mean We're already seeing
Speaker 1: sound bars that have Alexa integration incorporated into them, but
Speaker 1: this would be an official, like Echo soundbar type thing.
Speaker 1: There's also the possibility that the company will have a
Speaker 1: dash cam for cars that has Alexa integration built into it.
Speaker 1: That seems to be, you know, a pretty safe bet.
Speaker 1: But one thing that the Verge says we probably will
Speaker 1: not see is more information about a robot that Amazon
Speaker 1: has had in development for several years. It's a home
Speaker 1: assistant robot that was called Vesta, but apparently there have
Speaker 1: been some concerns within the company that there might not
Speaker 1: be sufficient demand for Vesta and that if Amazon released
Speaker 1: it as a product, it could just be a total flop,
Speaker 1: and that they would end up costing the company more
Speaker 1: because not enough people would buy it. So it's possible
Speaker 1: that the company is actually backing away from that project.
Speaker 1: We will have to wait and see what it is,
Speaker 1: they said, or you won't have to wait and see, because,
Speaker 1: like I said, by the time you hear this, they've
Speaker 1: already had that event. Anyway. Amazon is also facing some
Speaker 1: opposition in the state of California, and it's not the
Speaker 1: only one. Governor Knewsome signed a bill into law last
Speaker 1: week that will require companies that employ more than one
Speaker 1: thousand warehouse workers that they will have to disclose how
Speaker 1: they judge worker productivity, including how they set productivity quotas.
Speaker 1: Amazon and other companies that meet that criteria will then
Speaker 1: have thirty days after the bill becomes an actual law,
Speaker 1: which will happen on January first, twenty twenty two. At
Speaker 1: that point, they will have to disclose how they measure
Speaker 1: productivity and how they collect that information. And this law
Speaker 1: gives employees the right to sue their employers for unsafe quotas.
Speaker 1: So if a company is like working people beyond reason,
Speaker 1: if the quotas are so stringent and so restrictive that
Speaker 1: people can't you go to the bathroom, or they can't
Speaker 1: take a reasonable number of breaks, or they run the
Speaker 1: risk of injuring themselves because they have to work so
Speaker 1: hard in order to meet very high quotas. Well, now
Speaker 1: those employees could potentially sue their employers, and the employers
Speaker 1: would be held accountable for that in a court of law,
Speaker 1: at least in California. Now it will take quite a
Speaker 1: bit of effort on the part of workers in this process.
Speaker 1: It's not like a worker can just step forward and
Speaker 1: say I don't like working here and I'm going to
Speaker 1: sue the company. The law will demand that workers who
Speaker 1: assert that the company they work for has unsafe quotas,
Speaker 1: they will be required to provide ninety days so three
Speaker 1: months worth of documentation on productivity quotas that they have
Speaker 1: to meet in order to be considered you know, successful
Speaker 1: or failing at their job. In addition, California regulators will
Speaker 1: also be authorized to investigate work sites that have an
Speaker 1: injury rate that is one and a half times or
Speaker 1: greater than the industry average. If you remember from a
Speaker 1: previous Tech News episode, I talked about how Amazon delivery
Speaker 1: centers have an unusually high injury rate compared to other
Speaker 1: Amazon facilities and others within the delivery and warehouse industries.
Speaker 1: That might be a case where a state regulator would
Speaker 1: have the authorization to go in and conduct a full
Speaker 1: investigation to get to the bottom of why is that
Speaker 1: happening and to hold the company accountable for it down
Speaker 1: UNDA in Australia, and I apologize for that. I know
Speaker 1: I can never do an Australian accent. Australian and Scottish
Speaker 1: are two that I will never ever ever be able
Speaker 1: to do anyway down in Australia, citizens can rest assured
Speaker 1: that nature, which as I understand it is eighty percent
Speaker 1: more deadly in Australia, is prepared to fight the robot uprising.
Speaker 1: Now I say that because the drone company Wing, which
Speaker 1: is part of Google's parent company Alphabet, so this is
Speaker 1: like Google and Weymo, part of the Alphabet family, Wing
Speaker 1: has put its delivery service, which uses drones to deliver packages,
Speaker 1: on pause following a few cases of bird attacks on
Speaker 1: their drones. Google has been conduct tests of home delivery
Speaker 1: via drone in Canberra, Australia, which has been particularly useful
Speaker 1: during the pandemic where a lot of Australia is on
Speaker 1: lockdown and there are very stiff restrictions on when, if
Speaker 1: at all, people are allowed to leave their homes. But
Speaker 1: ravens have taken to attacking the drones, presumably out of
Speaker 1: concern that the drones are a predator. It is nesting
Speaker 1: season and so there's a fear from these ravens apparently
Speaker 1: that the drones are predators. Not predator drones, those are different.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a pun. So the ravens are just
Speaker 1: sort of protecting their nests. In other words, at least
Speaker 1: one of the attacks has downed a drone. So I'm
Speaker 1: very glad to hear this news because I would worry
Speaker 1: that the drones could potentially cause harm to the birds.
Speaker 1: And obviously I also worry that the birds could cause
Speaker 1: some packages to go undelivered, and if those packages are
Speaker 1: like critical, like maybe it's medication or something, that could
Speaker 1: be a really bad thing. And also, I bet it's
Speaker 1: weird to fill out a port saying you never got
Speaker 1: your package because birds were roughing up the delivery person. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Wing is studying ways to work around this issue, including
Speaker 1: learning more about bird behavior and any measures that the
Speaker 1: company could take to make certain their drones cause no
Speaker 1: environmental harm. And finally, on Monday, TikTok said it had
Speaker 1: passed the one billion monthly user mark that would be
Speaker 1: active users. The installed base is actually quite a bit
Speaker 1: larger than that. Of course, some people have TikTok installed
Speaker 1: on more than one of their own devices, so it's
Speaker 1: not apples to apples thing. TikTok launched in August twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: so it took a little more than three years to
Speaker 1: reach one billion monthly users. Let's Compare that to Facebook,
Speaker 1: the king of social network platforms, reached one billion users
Speaker 1: eight years after the company launched. TikTok did it in
Speaker 1: less than half that time. TikTok is really a true
Speaker 1: beast of a player in the social networking space. Its
Speaker 1: parent company byte Dance reported it's revenue doubled in size
Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty thanks largely to TikTok.
Speaker 1: Now I'm behind the times on TikTok. I am thankful
Speaker 1: that the app reminded me of that great Mika song
Speaker 1: Grace Kelly. You know, it's the one where everyone's going
Speaker 1: to I could be Brown, I could be blue, I
Speaker 1: could be Violet Sky. Great song, great album. Actually went
Speaker 1: out and bought that album on vinyl after being reminded
Speaker 1: of that song that I hadn't thought about in years.
Speaker 1: So thank you TikTok. I appreciate it. As for myself,
Speaker 1: I have only ever done one TikTok video. It is terrible.
Speaker 1: That's all I have to say about that. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm also old, so there are other old people who
Speaker 1: are way better at TikTok than I am. I just
Speaker 1: don't think I'm ever gonna get there. Maybe I'll give
Speaker 1: it another try at some point. Anyway, that's it. That's
Speaker 1: the tech news that I have for you on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: September twenty eight, twenty twenty one. I hope you are
Speaker 1: all well. If you have anything you would like to
Speaker 1: share with me, maybe a topic you would like me
Speaker 1: to cover on tech Stuff, then reach out to me
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is tech stuff
Speaker 1: HSW and I'll talk to you again and really soon.
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