WEBVTT - Tech News: Proposed Laws to Protect Consumers 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.479 Welcome to tech Stuff production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.840 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.360 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and a love 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.120 of all things tech. And this is the tech news 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:27.440 for Thursday, June one. And following up on antitrust news, 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.560 proposed piece of legislation here in the United States would 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.440 make it illegal for tech companies to prevent users from 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.720 removing pre installed apps on devices. So at the heart 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.680 of the matter here would be competitive advantage. And we'll 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.760 use Apple as an example. So currently Apple can and 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.800 does pre install its own apps on iPhones. Apple also 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.960 prevents users from being able to uninstall some of those apps. 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.360 So even if some other developer makes an iPhone app 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.200 that gets approved, goes into the iPhone App Store and 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.479 it does the same thing as a native Apple app, 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.520 you can't just swap them out. You can't uninstall the 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:14.959 Apple app and replace it with this new one. They 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.440 would have to sit side by side, so you could 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.000 install the new third party app, but the Apple app 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:26.280 would stay on your phone, mocking you, judging you. But 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.760 if this legislation becomes law, Apple would be required to 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.120 make its own apps removable so that people could choose 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.480 to go with a competitor if they wanted to. The 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.080 argument is that by making it impossible to remove the apps, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.080 Apple is discouraging competition, and since Apple is the source 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.160 of both those apps and the hardware that those apps 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.320 run on, this is a big problem. There are currently 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.720 a few different pieces of proposed antitrust legislation in the 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.640 US that could have an enormous impact on the tech 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.200 industry should they actually be passed into law. So will 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.880 keep pace with the story as it develops. Meanwhile, in 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.480 the US Senate, a proposed bill would require companies to 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.799 make it easier for customers to cancel a service at 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.519 the end of a free trial, and it's being called 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.720 the Unsubscribed Act, And this would address situations in which 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.680 a company entices new customers with a free trial and 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.760 then switches those customers to a paid subscription service without 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.959 you know, much notice or an easy way to cancel out. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.840 They would also affect companies that break out the monthly 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.240 rate of a service but they charge in larger increments, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:41.440 like they'll say, oh, you'll get you know charged a month, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.880 but then they actually make you pay for half a 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.280 year or a year all at once, which is not great, right, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.080 because what if you change your mind about the service 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.160 you've already paid for, you know, six months you don't 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.800 want to have to pay for half a year or more, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.360 and then a week in you realize this service isn't 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.360 for me. I think it's interesting to see more moves 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.440 to address consumer rights. We've seen that kind of a 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.919 few times in recent months, and I think this also 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.120 points to how more politicians have been on the receiving 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.920 end of these corporate policies. Typically here in the United States, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.680 we see politics lag behind tech quite a bit because, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.040 I mean, let's face it, a lot of politicians tend 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.560 to be old people who are perhaps not quite as 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.280 in touch with technology and tech services as younger people. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.720 That's a pretty general statement. I get it, uh, And 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:36.800 I don't mean to say that all old people are 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.520 clueless when it comes to tech. I am rapidly becoming 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.200 an old person, and I like to think that, you know, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.440 I got a clue or two. But politicians in particular 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:52.800 traditionally have not been on that bleeding edge of technology scale. Now, 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.040 while we're past the initial n f T craze, we've 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.200 got another one to talk about. Tim berners Lee, the 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.720 man who has since really invented the World Wide Web, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.560 is now going to auction off and n f T 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.880 representing the original files used to create the first web pages. 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.800 Now again we need to talk about what an n 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.240 f T actually is. That initialism stands for non fungible token, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.360 and that means it's a thing that represents something that 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.880 itself is not interchangeable. So a US dollar is interchangeable 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:29.039 with any other US dollar, or U S dollars interchangeable 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.920 with four U S quarters or twenty U S nickels, 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:33.920 and you get the point. But an n f T 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.839 represents a unique instance of something. However, that being said, 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.400 an n f T doesn't give the owner the right to, 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.400 you know, do anything with whatever it is that n 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.400 f T represents. It's more like you have a certificate 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.840 of ownership of that thing. Like if you've ever seen 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.320 ads for a company that will let you quote, purchase 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.120 and name a star, end quote. It's kind of like that, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.880 except it's a token that sits on top a blockchain 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.240 and you can buy and you can sell n f 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.080 t s, so you can make them a commodity. But 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.240 they really just represent the idea of ownership in a 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.400 way that's so nebulous that it makes me grouchy. Thanks 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.440 a lot in f T s over in China, the 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:21.520 Chinese military is training AI combat pilots and using those 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.000 pilots to train human pilots. So human pilots have been 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.600 training with and against, depending upon how you view it, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.800 AI controlled simulated aircraft. So this is all computer simulations. 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.200 So according to the military, the AI displays an incredible 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.120 ability to learn and apply knowledge and rapidly gain a 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.920 level of expertise similar to that of China's Golden Helmet squadron, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.279 and the Golden Helmet is an elite group of human pilots. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.320 The humans participating in the sessions say that the AI 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.840 pilots are able to adapt quickly, so you might defeat 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:02.120 them once using certain tactics, and then they would turn 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.839 around and use those exact same tactics in the next 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.640 matchup and defeat the human pilots. The project is really, again, 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.320 more about training up human pilots. It's not really about 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.039 creating autonomous fighter jets down the line, at least not yet. 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.280 Guy Snodgrass, a former U. S. Navy commander, expressed some 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.600 skepticism about the usefulness of this project. His point of 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.880 view is that the Chinese pilots might just be learning 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.240 how to fight against AI opponents rather than how to 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.719 engage with actual human pilots who may display very different 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.000 tactics and behaviors, and since we're not in a world 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.760 with robot jet fighters, that could end up being useless 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.800 in a real combat situation. Amazon appears to be removing 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.200 certain tech brands and online storefronts from the Amazon service, 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.000 and the reason behind this ties into the issue of 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.600 fake reviews, something that Amazon has really been struggling with recently. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.800 Several brands have made it a practice to include a 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.400 card or a slip of paper inside the box of 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.640 various gadgets stuff like you know, charging cables or computer 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.680 mice or something like that, and those cards give you 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.800 an offer to get a like gift card usually or 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.120 credit in a store in return for posting a favorable 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.800 review on Amazon. Typically, the card has some instructions on 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.560 it to guide the consumer through that process of posting 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.680 the review and then sending it to the vendor in 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.920 order to verify that the review was posted, and in return, 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.160 the consumer gets a gift card or credit, so it's 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.480 kind of like bribing for a good review. This practice 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.000 does drive up reviews that might not actually reflect the 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.720 quality or reliability of a product, and Amazon has become 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.840 pretty sensitive to this problem of fake reviews recently, so 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.560 now Amazon appears to be removing entire brands from the store. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.200 On a related note, Amazon has called social media platforms 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.840 to task, saying that they are helping perpetuate the fake 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.480 review problem. Amazon says that companies that deal in fake 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.760 reviews either as a vendor that's trying to get people 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.800 to positively review it's stuff or as kind of a 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.920 middleman service provider that allows other vendors to purchase good reviews, 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.520 they often turn to social media to recruit folks in 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:23.640 those efforts, and Amazon says that Amazon's alerted various social 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.960 media platforms about this problem and that the platforms have 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:31.000 traditionally been pretty slow to do anything about it. Now, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.000 you could argue that Amazon's structure is what ultimately enables 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.600 the practice of fake reviews to flourish, but there is 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.920 no doubt that using social media to recruit more folks 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.880 to the effort is a problem. I don't think it's 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.760 fair to place all or even most of the blame 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.640 on social media. But I do think that a lot 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.360 of social media platforms, notably Facebook, have traditionally moved very 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.479 slowly to address problems with fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive practices 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.720 on the platform. Twitter is not much better. It's honestly 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.040 a really big mess. General Motors, the number one auto 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.400 brand in the United States, announced yesterday that the company 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:15.040 will invest thirty five billion dollars in electric vehicle technologies 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:20.080 through five That marks a significant increase in investment, and 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.120 it coincides with a general trend across the world that 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.520 sees auto companies moving away from producing fossil fuel powered 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.880 vehicles and moving more toward electric ones. According to Reuters, 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.880 a consulting firm called Alex Partners projects that by electric 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.600 vehicles will make up nearly of our all car sales, 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.720 and today it's more like two. We're definitely headed toward 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.839 a future in which all new vehicles will be electric vehicles. 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.800 And I should also add that while electric vehicles could 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.360 lead to a decrease in carbon emissions, though that also 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.720 depends upon where the electricity to power those vehicles has 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.360 come from. Evs are also the source of some pretty 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.920 serious environmental concerns. The lithium used in lithium ion batteries 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.760 is a substance that you know, people mind, and some 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.880 of those mining operations can have a catastrophic effect on 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.400 the environment, at least in the immediate area around the mines. Plus, 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.960 there are some serious concerns about worker welfare and safety 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.080 because many of these minds are in places where workforces 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.160 can be heavily exploited by companies that run the minds. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.720 So I guess the moral of that story is that 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.199 these issues are really complicated and there are no simple solutions. 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:43.720 SpaceX is facing some tough questions from Texas law enforcement. Allegedly, 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.040 private security guards working for SpaceX denied people access to 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.040 a county road, a public road, in other words, a 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.280 road that SpaceX doesn't own, and the local government says 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.880 that it never gave SpaceX authorization to close down the 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.440 public roads, so by denying citizens the use of those roads, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.120 those employees, the security guards, and potentially the company itself, 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.720 has broken the law. In addition, there are questions as 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.920 to whether the security personnel had the required licenses to 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.959 serve as security or to carry a weapon, though at 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.120 the time of the reporting, it was unclear as to 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.520 whether the security personnel in question were armed or not. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.960 Earlier this year, the japan Supersonic Research Organization got off 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.400 the ground figuratively speaking, in an effort to develop supersonic 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:39.680 passenger jets. The organization now includes several Japanese aerospace and 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.560 manufacturing companies. There hasn't been a supersonic passenger jet since 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.160 the Concord, which operated for several years before some high 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:52.240 profile disasters and the harsh reality of economics forced the 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:57.160 company out of business. Creating a fuel efficient supersonic jet 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.800 is one of several challenges that One of the reasons 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.360 that was so expensive with the Concorde is just jet 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:09.480 fuel prices were really dragging down the company figuratively speaking, again, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.480 because it's just too expensive to operate. You had to 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.520 charge higher and higher prices for for flights and eventually 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.720 get to a point where you kind of price yourself 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.520 out of the market. But another big challenge is to 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.520 limit the effects of sonic booms. When you travel faster 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.120 than the speed of sound, you create a sonic boom 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.400 and that travels with you. So if an aircraft is 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.040 flying faster than the speed of sound, there's a boom 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.120 that kind of trails behind the aircraft, and it does 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.600 so consistently as long as that aircraft is going faster 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.760 than speed of sounds. So anything the aircraft passes over 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.400 will experience a sonic boom shortly afterward. For that reason, 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:53.080 the Concords supersonic flight paths were restricted to being over 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.760 the Atlantic. Once they got to the point where they 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.640 were going to pass over land, they had to slow 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:04.120 down below supersonic speeds because nobody wants these enormously allowed 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.720 booms to pass over their their area, like it could 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.520 be strong enough to shatter glass in some cases. There's 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:16.360 no word yet if the Japanese are planning on restricting 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.920 their supersonic aircraft to flying just over the oceans when 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.440 they're in supersonic mode um and we probably won't see 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.320 these aircraft until about twenty thirty or so. However, the 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.240 engineers do say that the design of the aircraft they 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.240 have created should mean that it will produce a sonic 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.960 boom that's only half as loud as the Concords, so 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.120 that's some progress. There are a lot of other companies 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:45.960 and organizations around the world working on supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:48.960 and a lot of them are working on ways to 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.400 try and minimize that sonic boom so that these aircraft 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.920 could travel not just over the ocean, but over land 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:59.280 as well at supersonic speeds. But that's something that's still 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.920 in development, and I mean there are big challenges like 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.959 how do you make something like that fuel efficient so 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.439 that it makes economic sense to operate it. If it's 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.199 too expensive to operate for anyone to ever bother flying 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.120 on it, well then there's doesn't too much of use, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.680 does it. And that's it. That's all the news that 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:21.200 I have for you today, Thursday, June one. If you 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.480 have any suggestions for topics I should cover in future 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.200 episodes of tech Stuff, let me know on Twitter. The 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.240 handle is tech stuff hs W and I'll talk to 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:38.520 you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.360 Radio production. 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