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 how the tech
Speaker 1: are you, y'all? I am in the studio recording today,
Speaker 1: which means that super producer Tari is actually listening on
Speaker 1: the cans right now across the room from me in
Speaker 1: the control room. And this is the first time we've
Speaker 1: done this, possibly since the pandemic. It has been a while, y'all,
Speaker 1: and already Tari is making her presence felt on this show,
Speaker 1: largely by suggesting numerous inappropriate titles for the episode, so
Speaker 1: her assistance, as always, is invaluable. Anyway, what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about first is, well, you know, around this
Speaker 1: time of year you can count on a few things
Speaker 1: here in the United States. For example, folks are already
Speaker 1: obsessing over Halloween, honestly, with my friend's list that actually
Speaker 1: started last month. Pumpkin spice flavors have made their way
Speaker 1: into pretty much everything you are able to eat or
Speaker 1: drink at this point. And also, you know that if
Speaker 1: it's this time of year, Apple's going to hold an
Speaker 1: event highlighting the next generation iPhone. This is where Tari's
Speaker 1: suggestions for titles came in, because technically they showed off
Speaker 1: the iPhone fifteen, but Tari says, it's more like they
Speaker 1: reintroduced the iPhone fourteen, or maybe the iPhone fifteen is
Speaker 1: really iPhone fourteen A or Part two or something like that.
Speaker 1: This already gives you a hint as to how certain
Speaker 1: Apple devotees are feeling toward the Apple fifteen. So what
Speaker 1: is different, Well, there is one big difference, and that
Speaker 1: is that this is the first iPhone to have the
Speaker 1: USBC charging port. This was a change that Apple had
Speaker 1: to make because the EU government has mandated that all
Speaker 1: smartphones as well as several other digital devices are going
Speaker 1: to have to adopt the USBC standard for charging, and
Speaker 1: that means that people will be able to use the
Speaker 1: same USBC cables to charge their stuff, rather than have
Speaker 1: to hunt between two or three different kinds of cables
Speaker 1: with different connectors. Now that's not to say that all
Speaker 1: USBC cables are equal. They're not, so there still can
Speaker 1: be some cable confusion, but less so than there would
Speaker 1: be if you've got like five different proprietary connectors or whatever. Also,
Speaker 1: Apple announced that the dynamic Island feature, which previously was
Speaker 1: only available on the phone fourteen Pro and the iPhone
Speaker 1: fourteen Pro Max, is actually going to be on all
Speaker 1: the iPhone fifteen models. So there's one difference, Tari. You
Speaker 1: get your dynamic island. You know that little black oval
Speaker 1: at the top of the screen that gives you your notifications.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't know what you're complaining about
Speaker 1: USBC port Dynamic Island sounds to me like you guys
Speaker 1: are getting tons of upgrades. Anyway. There are two broad
Speaker 1: versions of the basic iPhone fifteen. The base model has
Speaker 1: a screen that measures six point one inches on the diagonal.
Speaker 1: That one starts at seven hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 1: Then you have the iPhone fifteen Plus, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger. It's six point seven inches and it
Speaker 1: will start at eight ninety nine. Then you've also got
Speaker 1: the Pro and the Pro Max models as well. These
Speaker 1: will have the A seventeen Pro processor. Of the iPhone
Speaker 1: fifteen will have the A sixteen, which was what you
Speaker 1: saw on the I fourteen Pro, So yeah, A seventeen
Speaker 1: Pro processor. The iPhone fifteen Pro Max has a forty
Speaker 1: eight megapixel camera and a five times telephoto lens, so
Speaker 1: well there's that as well. The Pro starts at nine
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine dollars, the Promax starts at one one
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine dollars. All of these phones will be
Speaker 1: available for pre orders starting tomorrow. Apple also had updates
Speaker 1: to some other product lines, like air pods and the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. I think for the most part, we just
Speaker 1: saw sort of incremental changes in this update, apart from
Speaker 1: that migration to USBC, which is pretty that's a pretty
Speaker 1: big thing, but everything else was a kind of smaller
Speaker 1: innovation or incremental improvement. But you also have to realize
Speaker 1: that the smartphone is a mature technology at this point,
Speaker 1: right It's been around for more than a decade, so's
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine coming out with something that's significantly
Speaker 1: different from what we're already used to. Doesn't mean it's impossible,
Speaker 1: but as technology form factors mature, it's less realistic to
Speaker 1: expect huge updates and innovations in the They still can happen,
Speaker 1: but they're fairly rare. Yesterday, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer hosted an insight forum focusing artificial intelligence. Among the attendees,
Speaker 1: were the CEOs of Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Open Ai. Plus.
Speaker 1: You had Elon Musk there and the president of Nvidia
Speaker 1: was there too. The event happened behind closed doors and
Speaker 1: no media was invited. However, some of the executives gave
Speaker 1: a statement after the meeting was over, and not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: most of these executives were calling for a methodical and
Speaker 1: careful approach toward legislation and regulation. Now. They argue that
Speaker 1: AI has enormous potential to benefit business and society and
Speaker 1: warning that if the government is a little too strict
Speaker 1: with regulations, this can stifle innovation. It's an argument we
Speaker 1: have heard before, but one dissenting voice was Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Musk actually said that a federal oversight committee or agency
Speaker 1: would be appropriate, like to have a part of the
Speaker 1: government specifically to oversee AI development and deployment. He argued
Speaker 1: that companies don't really have an incentive to run AI
Speaker 1: projects responsibly if you don't have these sorts of constraints,
Speaker 1: and I kind of agree with him. We have seen
Speaker 1: time and again that in the absence of regulations, companies
Speaker 1: will take advantage of the very long leash they are
Speaker 1: allowed to be on, and this can lead to consequences
Speaker 1: that then we have to handle and far too late
Speaker 1: then the government will step in to do something about it.
Speaker 1: According to Schumer, the purpose of the meeting was for
Speaker 1: members of the US government to gain a better understanding
Speaker 1: around AI. You know what it is, what it can do,
Speaker 1: what the potential risks are, what are the benefits. And
Speaker 1: that is also understandable. While I cover tech for a
Speaker 1: living and I have a decent but by no means exhaustive,
Speaker 1: understanding of artificial intelligence, it could be easy to develop
Speaker 1: a view of the technology that's far too specific and
Speaker 1: far too narrow, or to just have a totally mistaken
Speaker 1: concept of what AI is all about. Schumer was quick
Speaker 1: to point out that this forum was to help educate
Speaker 1: leaders and that any legislation that follows will take some
Speaker 1: time to draft and then to amend, and then to
Speaker 1: vote unto law. So really this was just an early
Speaker 1: step in the process. We shouldn't expect to see AI
Speaker 1: legislation roll out anytime soon. I've got some more updates
Speaker 1: on the cybersecurity issue that has severely impacted MGM resorts,
Speaker 1: So in case you missed this news on Monday, properties
Speaker 1: belonging to the company MGM resorts in cities like Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Atlantic City, Detroit and others started to encounter massive computer
Speaker 1: system problems. Those problems shut down many, but not all,
Speaker 1: of the slot machines in some of these casinos. They
Speaker 1: took ATM offline. They forced MGM to replace their normal
Speaker 1: website with a new landing page directing people to contact
Speaker 1: resorts by phone for stuff like reservations and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and lots more other issues. And we can't
Speaker 1: be sure how extensive these attacks were or what other
Speaker 1: systems could be affected. In fact, we don't even know
Speaker 1: for a fact that it's an attack, or at least
Speaker 1: MGM Resorts has not come out and said that explicitly.
Speaker 1: We don't know if the issue has impacted customer data. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in that because literally a couple of
Speaker 1: hours before all this happened, I made a ding dang
Speaker 1: reservation at an MGM property for an upcoming work trip.
Speaker 1: Come on anyway. At first, a cybersecurity research group called
Speaker 1: VX Underground posted a message on X you know, formerly
Speaker 1: known as Twitter, that claimed a Russian based hacker group
Speaker 1: known as black Cat also known as Alpha so it's
Speaker 1: spelled alph that this group was behind the attack, and further,
Speaker 1: according to this research group, the hackers gained access through
Speaker 1: the old fashioned and tried and true method of social engineering.
Speaker 1: They allegedly called someone in it and they got access
Speaker 1: to the system that way. However, more recent reports mentioned
Speaker 1: a different hacker group as being responsible for the attack,
Speaker 1: or perhaps working in collusion with Alpha. This other group
Speaker 1: is called Scattered Spider, and hackers in that group are
Speaker 1: mostly located in places like the United States and the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. The general consensus is that this is a
Speaker 1: ransomware attack, though again MGM Resorts is not yet commented
Speaker 1: on that. And interestingly, it appears as though Caesar's Entertainment,
Speaker 1: which also owns multiple casinos and resorts, was attacked by
Speaker 1: this very same group a few weeks ago, and according
Speaker 1: to some unnamed sources, the company agreed to pay millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in ransom to regain control of their sets.
Speaker 1: And if that's true, the company has yet to disclose
Speaker 1: that attack. And I feel that if in fact it
Speaker 1: is true that Caesar's Entertainment was attacked a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: MGM Resorts executives are going to be seeing red because
Speaker 1: they might feel that maybe had they known about the
Speaker 1: attack on Caesar's, they might have been better prepared for
Speaker 1: the one that hit them now. Anyway, apparently the rest
Speaker 1: of the story kind of fits what VX Underground reported
Speaker 1: that hackers seemingly got access through social engineering, although the
Speaker 1: most recent account says that they targeted a third party
Speaker 1: IT vendor and got access through them. And this is
Speaker 1: really bonkers because presumably these IT professionals should be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for social engineering attacks. Anyway, it really hammers
Speaker 1: home that people tend to be the weakest link in
Speaker 1: security systems, and that companies are justified in educating and
Speaker 1: testing their employees regarding cybersecurity practices and good gull on
Speaker 1: a selfish level, I sure hope this is sorted out
Speaker 1: by the time I had to Vegas next week. Also,
Speaker 1: paying ransoms is a bad idea. Companies should not do
Speaker 1: that because paying a ransom sends the message that the
Speaker 1: attack wasn't just successful, it was profitable, and that means
Speaker 1: you get more attacks in the future. Okay, while I
Speaker 1: regain my composure, let's take a quick break to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors. We're back. As I mentioned in Tuesday's episode,
Speaker 1: Google is on trial this week. The US Department of
Speaker 1: Justice has accused Google of engaging in non competitive practices,
Speaker 1: using the company's dominant position in web search to stifle
Speaker 1: any potential competition, and according to the DOJ, part of
Speaker 1: those efforts include paying billions of dollars a year to
Speaker 1: smartphone companies and web browser companies to make Goo Google
Speaker 1: the default search engine on those devices and browsers. The
Speaker 1: DOJ says that Google spends around ten billion dollars a
Speaker 1: year in payments to companies like Samsung and Apple and
Speaker 1: Mozilla and others for the privilege of Google Search being
Speaker 1: the default go to search engine, and that this prevents
Speaker 1: any other company from having a fair shot. Now, we're
Speaker 1: still in the very early stages of this trial and
Speaker 1: there's no telling where it will go. For one thing,
Speaker 1: another news article revealed that the judge in this case,
Speaker 1: I'm at Meta, may not have a really strong grasp
Speaker 1: of the tech being discussed. According to Ours Technica, Meta
Speaker 1: has asked if Mozilla is a browser or a search engine,
Speaker 1: which I get it. If you're not using this stuff
Speaker 1: a lot, and you're not covering the world of tech,
Speaker 1: you might not know what Mozilla is. But it could
Speaker 1: mean that this could be a particularly complicated case for
Speaker 1: the judge to preside over. And as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: Google's lawyers say that the company really hasn't done anything
Speaker 1: wrong and that it just makes a superior product and
Speaker 1: that's why it has a dominant position in the market.
Speaker 1: It's not that they have acted unfairly to get and
Speaker 1: hold that position, rather than no one else makes stuff
Speaker 1: that's as good as Google does. A paper just published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders lays out
Speaker 1: a case that TikTok videos covering autism have information that
Speaker 1: is quote not aligned with the current scientific understanding of
Speaker 1: autism end quote. This is according to Eric Dolan Ofsypost
Speaker 1: dot org. So the researcher has created a brand new
Speaker 1: TikTok account because they wanted to make sure that they
Speaker 1: didn't have any algorithmic bias if they used an already
Speaker 1: existing account, so brand new account. Then they started searching
Speaker 1: for videos and they use the search query hashtag autism.
Speaker 1: They then weeded out things like duplicate videos, so if
Speaker 1: it showed up more than once, they would eliminate the extras.
Speaker 1: They eliminated any videos from non English speaking hosts. They
Speaker 1: took those out to They also got rid of any
Speaker 1: videos that didn't cover autism but were showing up in
Speaker 1: search results. And what they had left once they did
Speaker 1: that initial culling was three hundred and sixty five videos,
Speaker 1: one for every day of the year. They then went
Speaker 1: further and they continued to weed out videos. They took
Speaker 1: out ones that were more about a person's experience with autism,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like life story stuff, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to focus solely on videos that were claiming to
Speaker 1: be educational or informational to be providing information about autism.
Speaker 1: They wanted to just focus on those. This got them
Speaker 1: down to one hundred thirty three videos. Then they started
Speaker 1: to really look at these videos and compare them against
Speaker 1: the body of accepted scientific knowledge surrounding autism to see
Speaker 1: how accurate. They were. They would label videos as being inaccurate,
Speaker 1: containing over generalizations, or being accurate right. They would look
Speaker 1: and say, which of these does this fit or how
Speaker 1: many instances are we finding per video. They would also
Speaker 1: only label a video inaccurate if something in the video
Speaker 1: clearly contradicted accepted scientific knowledge. So they wanted to be
Speaker 1: as fair as possible in this approach. Even with all
Speaker 1: those steps, they found that seventy three percent of those
Speaker 1: one hundred thirty three videos contained at least some inaccurate
Speaker 1: information or over generalized claims regarding autism. They also noted
Speaker 1: that these videos get a lot of views, like the
Speaker 1: one hundred thirty three videos collectively accounted for nearly two
Speaker 1: hundred million views, and while the medical professionals who were
Speaker 1: hosting videos were more likely to get things correct, they
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily the most viewed videos. There were other content creators,
Speaker 1: either those who claimed to have autism or to be
Speaker 1: a caregiver for someone with autism, that were giving information
Speaker 1: that just won scientifically correct or at least not in
Speaker 1: agreement with the scientific consensus on autism. So the researchers
Speaker 1: are actually suggesting that TikTok works to create a space
Speaker 1: where people who want to talk about autism and talk
Speaker 1: about their life experiences and that sort of thing, that
Speaker 1: they have a space where they can do that, but
Speaker 1: that that space is separate from discussions that are about
Speaker 1: the scientific understanding of autism to try and minimize the
Speaker 1: dissemination of misinformation about autism. They so that it's good
Speaker 1: to have the platform to expand people's understanding of autism
Speaker 1: and to reduce stigma. That's good. What we don't want
Speaker 1: to do is to fuel misinformation. So I think it
Speaker 1: was actually a pretty measured approach outlined in the paper.
Speaker 1: The study itself is called The Reach and Accuracy of
Speaker 1: Information on Autism on TikTok. The Verge reports that TikTok
Speaker 1: has started to include excerpts from and links to Wikipedia
Speaker 1: articles in your search results. This seems to follow the
Speaker 1: trend of younger people treating TikTok as a search engine,
Speaker 1: which I still have to wrap my mind around because
Speaker 1: I'm old. The Verge reached out to TikTok, and a
Speaker 1: spokesperson confirmed that the platform has partnered with Wikipedia and
Speaker 1: that in fact, this feature has actually been live for
Speaker 1: several weeks. It's just been gradually rolling out, and TikTok
Speaker 1: didn't make a big old fuss about it. They just
Speaker 1: kind of let it roll out. Now. I do not
Speaker 1: use TikTok, so I have not seen this in action myself,
Speaker 1: but apparently the Wikipedia stuff appears between videos in your
Speaker 1: search results. So you search for something, you scroll down
Speaker 1: and in between video like four and five, there might
Speaker 1: be a Wikipedia excerpt or link there, and it's not universal.
Speaker 1: You're not guaranteed to see Wikipedia content connected to any
Speaker 1: in every search. Some topics appear to have Wikipedia in
Speaker 1: tries included, and others. TikTok is also plopping down videos
Speaker 1: from sponsors in between those search results. So it sounds
Speaker 1: like using TikTok is starting to become more like using
Speaker 1: a regular web search engine. You know, you get some excerpts,
Speaker 1: you get some summaries, you get some links to the
Speaker 1: stuff you are actually looking for, and you get a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of sponsored content peppered throughout fun times. A
Speaker 1: high profile Russian journalist and publisher named Galina Timchenko revealed
Speaker 1: this week that her iPhone was compromised by the NSO
Speaker 1: Group's spyware product Pegasus earlier this year, so in case
Speaker 1: you need a refresher. Pegasus is a piece of software
Speaker 1: that lets someone send an I message to a target
Speaker 1: iPhone or iOS device, and because of a flaw in
Speaker 1: Apple's software, this message would compromise that target device and
Speaker 1: turn it into a surveillance gadget. The attacker could activate
Speaker 1: the device's camera and its microphone remotely, so you can
Speaker 1: spy using a person's own phone. You can also like
Speaker 1: search stuff that's in the phone's memory and essentially access
Speaker 1: all of its contents. Anyway, according to MEDUSA, that's a
Speaker 1: news outlet that Galina Timchenko co founded, someone used Pegasus
Speaker 1: to infiltrate Timchenko's phone just a few hours before she
Speaker 1: was scheduled to meet with exiled members of Russia's media
Speaker 1: in a meeting in Berlin. MEDUSA says this is the
Speaker 1: first confirmed case of a Russian journalist being the target
Speaker 1: of a Pegasus attack, which isn't a surprise. The NSO
Speaker 1: group says that the tool, the Pegasus tool will not
Speaker 1: work on phone numbers from the United States or from Russia,
Speaker 1: and they won't do business with Russia, and Russia won't
Speaker 1: do business with them, largely because Russia believes in funding
Speaker 1: their own spyware technologies. They don't outsource it, they build
Speaker 1: that stuff themselves. So anyway, NSOL Group has said that
Speaker 1: Pegasus was intended for people to use to identify and
Speaker 1: surveil like terrorists and other dangerous people. But we've seen
Speaker 1: time and again that NSO groups customers have been using
Speaker 1: Pegasus to really spy on anybody they don't like and
Speaker 1: that includes journalists and activists and other politicians that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff, not active threats against the state, and so
Speaker 1: NSO groups claims that it's kind of innocent of all
Speaker 1: these issues fall on deaf ears for me anyway, because
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear their customers include some very
Speaker 1: not nice people who are using this tool to spy
Speaker 1: on folks who are not an active like threat existential
Speaker 1: threat to the state. So yeah, still no word exactly
Speaker 1: on who might have been responsible for this attack. You know.
Speaker 1: The thought is that it probably wasn't Russia, but it's
Speaker 1: hard to say or if it was Russia, the attack
Speaker 1: was carried out through an intermediary of some sort, So yeah,
Speaker 1: no telling who it was that directed the attack on
Speaker 1: Galina Timchenko. But yeah, it's a continuing issue and now
Speaker 1: has affected a Russian journalist. She joins the ranks. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I've got a few more news stories to cover. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's wrap up with some more news stories. This is
Speaker 1: a big one. So there's this rumbling over in the
Speaker 1: video game development world, and I don't mean the little
Speaker 1: motors that cause game controllers to vibrate There's a company
Speaker 1: that's called Unity, right. They make a popular game engine,
Speaker 1: the Unity Engine, and this company has announced a big
Speaker 1: change in its subscription tier that has upset a lot
Speaker 1: of developers. So the way this used to work is
Speaker 1: that as a developer, you would subscribe to a tier
Speaker 1: of service with Unity, and in return, you would get
Speaker 1: access to the Unity Engine and you would get a
Speaker 1: suite of editing tools, and that was it. You would
Speaker 1: pay the subscription that would give you access and you
Speaker 1: went on your merry way. There were no royalty fees
Speaker 1: you had to worry about. In fact, if you were
Speaker 1: a really small developer, let's say that you made less
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand dollars per month in revenue, well
Speaker 1: then you would get no fees at all to subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Personal Tier, the lowest tier of service of
Speaker 1: Unity Engine. However, now Unity has announced that starting next year,
Speaker 1: the company will charge developers a certain amount per install
Speaker 1: once a title reaches a particular threshold. So, for example,
Speaker 1: let's say you're an independent game developer and you have
Speaker 1: subscribed to that Unity Personal Tier or the lowest tier,
Speaker 1: you will have to fork over twenty cents per install,
Speaker 1: not per sale, per install of your game once you
Speaker 1: have hit two hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue or
Speaker 1: you have hit an install base of two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: players for that game. For customers who are paying more
Speaker 1: money for a higher tier of service, they'll actually see
Speaker 1: a lower per install fee and a higher threshold they
Speaker 1: have to meet before they have to pay it. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you're paying more money for a
Speaker 1: higher subscription tier, you're paying fewer royalties or less amount
Speaker 1: of royalties, at least on a per install basis. So
Speaker 1: developers got really really upset. Some of them called out
Speaker 1: to the developer community to stop using Unity Engine full stop.
Speaker 1: Just don't use Unity, use something else. And they have
Speaker 1: accused Unity of pulling sort of a bait and switch
Speaker 1: routine which got companies invested in using the Unity Engine
Speaker 1: and then they had the rug pulled out from under
Speaker 1: them with this change in policy. One developer, Megacrit, which
Speaker 1: produced the game Slay the Spire, posted a message that
Speaker 1: said its next game, which has already been in development
Speaker 1: for two years, will actually migrate to a different game
Speaker 1: engine if Unity does not change its policy. That's a
Speaker 1: heck of a thing to say, To say you're willing
Speaker 1: to throw away essentially two years of work in order
Speaker 1: to switch over. They also posted the statement quote we
Speaker 1: have never made a public statement before that is how
Speaker 1: badly you fed up end quote, only they didn't use
Speaker 1: the word ft if you catch my drift. Eurogamer reports
Speaker 1: that Unity executives sold off thousands of their shares in
Speaker 1: the company earlier this year, which some might interpret as
Speaker 1: the executives knowing that this change would likely lead to
Speaker 1: a decline in Unity's share price. It certainly looks suspicious
Speaker 1: considering the timing. In fact, the CEO of the company
Speaker 1: has sold more than fifty thousand shares this year, bought
Speaker 1: no shares in this company this year two thousand of
Speaker 1: those transactions or those shares, I should say, we're done.
Speaker 1: Just last week. Unity has now backtracked a little bit
Speaker 1: on this policy. They are now saying that the charges
Speaker 1: will only come after a user has first installed the title,
Speaker 1: and that's it just the first time. The reason for
Speaker 1: that is that some developers were concerned that users who
Speaker 1: are particularly angry at a developer could potentially install the
Speaker 1: uninstalled then reinstall a game many, many, many times, and
Speaker 1: if there's a charge for every install, it means that
Speaker 1: these trollish gamers can install bomb a developer. If the
Speaker 1: developer has to pay for every single install above a
Speaker 1: certain threshold, that could bleed them dry. So now Unity
Speaker 1: is saying, Okay, it only counts the first time you
Speaker 1: install it on a device. However, we are still going
Speaker 1: to count it for every device they install it on.
Speaker 1: So if they have like fifteen devices and they install
Speaker 1: the game on all fifteen, that counts fifteen times, but
Speaker 1: it won't count if they delete it and then reinstall it.
Speaker 1: That that should be done anyway. Developers are not mollified
Speaker 1: by this, so I expect we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot more conversation around this moving forward. In the video
Speaker 1: game space. The Wall Street Journal reports that SpaceX's Starlink
Speaker 1: division is underperforming, at least from a business perspective, based
Speaker 1: upon what the company had previously projected. So The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal says that back in twenty fifteen, SpaceX presented
Speaker 1: potential investors in Starlink with a pitch, and they said
Speaker 1: that by twenty twenty two, Starlink would have twenty million
Speaker 1: subscribers and would generate close to twelve billion dollars in
Speaker 1: revenue and around seven billion dollars in profit. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: this pitch was designed to convince investors to invest money
Speaker 1: in two SpaceX's coffers, right, Like, that's the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of it. But then, how well did the company deliver
Speaker 1: on these estimations. Well, again, according to The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, revenues for Starlink were one point four billion. Now,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, one point four billion is a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and it was a big jump from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty one, Starlink made two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two million, So one point four billion
Speaker 1: is a lot of money. But as impressive as one
Speaker 1: point four billion is, it falls pretty darn short of
Speaker 1: the twelve billion that SpaceX was projecting back in twenty fifteen. Also,
Speaker 1: the Jeneral reports that the service has more than a
Speaker 1: million customers. According to SpaceX VP Jonathan Haffeler, it's like
Speaker 1: a million and a half customers worldwide. But again, back
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, SpaceX was saying they estimated that they
Speaker 1: would have twenty million customers by now, not one and
Speaker 1: a half. So it does sound like the division is
Speaker 1: going to potentially turn out a profit this year, so
Speaker 1: that's good, but it's not performing up to the estimates
Speaker 1: that investors were being told back in twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how they're gonna feel about that. And finally,
Speaker 1: astronomers have analyzed data gathered by the James Webb Space
Speaker 1: Telescope and discovered that an exoplanet called K two eighteen
Speaker 1: B has some interesting signs that could potentially mean the
Speaker 1: planet might support life or maybe support the life in
Speaker 1: the past. Now, before we get too excited, let's try
Speaker 1: and be calm and rational. So this planet is in
Speaker 1: the so called Goldilocks zone around its home star, so
Speaker 1: that means it's not too far out from the star
Speaker 1: to receive too little energy to support life, and it's
Speaker 1: not too close to its star where the radiation from
Speaker 1: the star would burn away any life that could be
Speaker 1: on the planet. It's in the zone that's just right,
Speaker 1: the Goldilock zone, so theoretically it should be receiving the
Speaker 1: right amount of energy to sustain life, at least life
Speaker 1: as we are familiar with it now. On top of that,
Speaker 1: according to the data that the scientists studied, the planet's
Speaker 1: atmosphere includes carbon dioxide and methane in it, and also
Speaker 1: a whole lot of hydrogen. Plus the scientists say they
Speaker 1: believe there could be signs of another molecule, this one
Speaker 1: called dimethyl sulfide. So here on Earth, the stuff that
Speaker 1: produces dimethyl sulfide is life, specifically like microbial life like phytoplankton,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So again this points to the
Speaker 1: possibility that there is life on this other planet. K
Speaker 1: two eighteen B is much bigger than the Earth, is
Speaker 1: more than eight times as large as the Earth. It's
Speaker 1: also one hundred and ten light years away, so we're
Speaker 1: not gonna pop by to borrow a cup of sugar
Speaker 1: anytime soon. But still, pretty aren't exciting. And that's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of tech Stuff. I hope you are
Speaker 1: all well. As I said, pretty soon, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be traveling for work. I'm going to continue to bring episodes.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're going to have an interview with someone
Speaker 1: from Surf air Mobility, a company that is looking to
Speaker 1: be a pioneer in the regional air mobility space. It's
Speaker 1: a really interesting conversation that's on Monday, so check that out. Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I believe we've got another Smart Talks with IBM episode.
Speaker 1: I think I don't have my calendar pulled up, but
Speaker 1: I think that happens on Tuesday. But you should also
Speaker 1: get some more new episodes throughout the week, I hope,
Speaker 1: assuming everything's going well, and yeah, we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of weird stuff coming out soon because I'm
Speaker 1: going all the way out to Las Vegas to record
Speaker 1: a show and then cover Mobile World Congress and then
Speaker 1: come back home. So here's hoping that goes well. Here's
Speaker 1: hoping MGM Resorts has cleared away the problems by the
Speaker 1: time I get there. From a purely selfish level, I mean,
Speaker 1: I want it to be solved because I'm sure the
Speaker 1: people working for MGM Resorts right now are at their
Speaker 1: wits end. It has to be really stressful, I imagine.
Speaker 1: So I hope that's all been cleared up, and I
Speaker 1: hope again that you are all well out there, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again. Really. So tech Stuff is
Speaker 1: an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.