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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And this is the

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Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, May the fourth, twenty one, May

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Speaker 1: the fourth be with you. It's Star Wars Day. I

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Speaker 1: wish I had a full story about the retractable lightsaber

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Speaker 1: that tomorrow. The head of Walt disney World amusement parks

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Speaker 1: showed off last month, but I don't have any extra

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Speaker 1: info to give. I just I really want to see

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Speaker 1: one of these things working in action. From what we understand,

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Speaker 1: the one he had was a prototype. It wasn't like

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Speaker 1: fully machined to look like a lightsaber hilt, but it

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Speaker 1: demonstrated the basic technology, which is kind of like having

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Speaker 1: a pair of um tape measures extendable tape measures move

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Speaker 1: out and then retract back. Only they happen to have,

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Speaker 1: you know, lights that allow it to light up like

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Speaker 1: a lightsaber. Super cool. Can't wait to see it. Wish

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Speaker 1: I had more to talk about about that for Star

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Speaker 1: Wars Day, but don't, so instead let's move on to

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Speaker 1: the actual tech news. The top story is one I'm

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Speaker 1: sure many of you have already seen. Verizon is prepping

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Speaker 1: for the sale of two companies that have changed hands

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Speaker 1: a few times over the years, that being Yahoo and

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Speaker 1: A O L. All right, let's walk through this, shall

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Speaker 1: we so. Way back in the day, A O L

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Speaker 1: and Yahoo were both unquestionably two of the most powerful

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Speaker 1: companies of the early days of the Internet. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: was something of a running gag in the nineties that

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Speaker 1: if you went out to check your mail, you had

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Speaker 1: a decent shot of bringing back at least one A

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Speaker 1: O L boot c D into the house. The company

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Speaker 1: sent out starter kits like crazy in the nineties, and

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Speaker 1: for a lot of people in the early days of

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Speaker 1: the Internet, America Online was synonymous with Internet. A O

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Speaker 1: L's history dates back to the nineteen eighties. If you

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Speaker 1: look at the constituent parts that made up the company,

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Speaker 1: and it was an online service provider first, which meant

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Speaker 1: it kind of served as like a news portal and

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Speaker 1: a message board system and email for other AOLL members,

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Speaker 1: but not to like the Internet at large. Even hosted

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Speaker 1: a few games. Later, it incorporated a web browser and

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Speaker 1: became a gateway that a lot of folks relied upon

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Speaker 1: to actually explore the world Wide Web, not just a

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Speaker 1: you know, segmented version of it on a O L servers.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand, Time Warner and a o L announced

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Speaker 1: a merger plan which came to fruition in early two

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Speaker 1: thousand one, and in retrospect a lot of people identify

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Speaker 1: that particular merger as a huge mist eight. The value

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Speaker 1: of AOL Time Warner went into decline, which is a

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Speaker 1: gentle way of putting it. It kind of plummeted, and

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Speaker 1: Time Warner ultimately spun off a O L as a

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Speaker 1: separate company in two thousand nine. Verizon would turn around

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Speaker 1: and purchase a O L in two thousand and fifteen

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Speaker 1: for four point four billion dollars. As for Yahoo, it

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Speaker 1: started off as a web portal with curated content back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen nine four. Yahoo employees would actually find cool

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Speaker 1: stuff and feature it on the Yahoo page. It mostly

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Speaker 1: became known for search and also hosting and later generating

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Speaker 1: content and of course the recently deceased Yahoo answers service.

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Speaker 1: Yahoo was incredibly popular as a website, but it began

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Speaker 1: to lose ground to Google for the search business. It

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Speaker 1: was particularly susceptible to stock price inflation. During the dot

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Speaker 1: com bubble, shares rose up to around a hundred eighteen dollars,

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Speaker 1: but during the low point post the dot com bubble bursting,

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Speaker 1: the low was around eight dollars a share. That's an

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Speaker 1: a crazy drop from eighteen dollars per share to eight

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Speaker 1: dollars per share. Yikes. Microsoft attempted to acquire Yahoo in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, but that deal fell through. Yahoo

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Speaker 1: saw leadership changes happen a few times in the two thousand's,

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Speaker 1: with Marissa Meyer coming on over from Google to be

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Yahoo. In two thousand twelve. Meyer oversaw

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Speaker 1: a huge acquisition with Tumbler. That year, Yeah who purchased

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Speaker 1: Tumbler for one point one billion dollars. This, by the way,

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Speaker 1: it would also be called a really bad business deal

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Speaker 1: in tech, at least in retrospect, though to be fair,

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Speaker 1: Yahoo had made an even worse deal much earlier back

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Speaker 1: in when it bought geo Cities for four billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: Tumbler is no longer under Yahoo, by the way, uh, Verizon,

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Speaker 1: after purchasing Yahoo, would spin off Tumbler and sell it

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Speaker 1: off to a different company. Verizon announced its intent to

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Speaker 1: acquire Yahoo in twenty sixteen for four point eight three

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. So now Verizon, the latest company to discover

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Speaker 1: that it couldn't really leverage the acquisitions it had made,

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Speaker 1: is now selling off both A O L and Yahoo.

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Speaker 1: The buyer is a private equity firm called Apollo Global Management,

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Speaker 1: and according to The New York Times, the talks are

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Speaker 1: still in the early stages and could fall apart. In fact,

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Speaker 1: who knows, maybe they've dissolved by the time you hear this.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but from what I understand, the two

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Speaker 1: companies together are valued in the four to five billion

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Speaker 1: dollar range. So that is effectively half of what Verizon

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Speaker 1: paid for them when it made the two separate purchases

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Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen and sixteen. So that's a toughie. As

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Speaker 1: for Apollo, it's hard for me to get a handle

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Speaker 1: on that company. It's acquired a lot of stuff already,

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Speaker 1: and it's not exactly all in the tech space. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it includes the Venetian resort in Las Vegas and the

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Speaker 1: retail store chain Michaels that sells, you know, hobby equipment,

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Speaker 1: So it is looks like it's just an inequity company

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Speaker 1: that's just investing in a very diverse group of businesses.

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Speaker 1: I will follow up on this story as it develops.

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Speaker 1: The Verges. Tom Warren has a fun piece titled Sony

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Speaker 1: Really Hated PS four cross Play Confidential Documents Reveal, and

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Speaker 1: I recommend actually, you know, going over and reading that

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Speaker 1: on the Verge. But here's the really short version. So

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Speaker 1: cross play is when you've got a game that has

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Speaker 1: some sort of online component and people who are playing

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Speaker 1: that game on different systems can still play together online

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Speaker 1: in that game. So let's use an example like Minecraft.

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Speaker 1: This game exists some pretty much every platform that exists.

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Speaker 1: You can play it on PC or Xbox or Nintendo

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Speaker 1: or PlayStation or mobile and friends and to like to

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Speaker 1: play in the same games together online. But if I'm

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Speaker 1: running Minecraft on an Xbox and you happen to have

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Speaker 1: it on PlayStation, we can't play together unless the title

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Speaker 1: we're playing supports cross play and more importantly, that the

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Speaker 1: consoles support cross play. Minecraft did support cross play, but

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Speaker 1: needed console buy in to make that happen. Nintendo was

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Speaker 1: a little slow to adopt it, possibly because Nintendo traditionally

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Speaker 1: doesn't care to get involved in any experience that the

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Speaker 1: company doesn't have full control over and if it should

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Speaker 1: pass that kids on Nintendo were to encounter adults on Xbox,

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Speaker 1: the whole world could catch on fire. But Nintendo did

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Speaker 1: ultimately support cross play, Sony not so much well. Warren

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Speaker 1: published an email that was written by an executive from

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Speaker 1: Epic Games. Those are the makers of Fortnite, and the

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Speaker 1: letter spells out the case to support cross play for Fortnite,

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Speaker 1: essentially pointing out that ultimately Sony had very little choice

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Speaker 1: in the matter, considering the PlayStation popularity of Fortnite and

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Speaker 1: how players wanted the chance to play with their friends

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Speaker 1: who might be playing the game on other platforms. The

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Speaker 1: letter is remarkable in that the executive makes several suggestions

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Speaker 1: as to how Epic could support PlayStation adoption, including several

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Speaker 1: ideas all geared toward making Sony you know, some sweet

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Speaker 1: sweet cash, But Sony declined to acquiesce to epics request

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Speaker 1: until Sony implemented a pretty brutal strategy. Essentially, if it's

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Speaker 1: clear that Sony PlayStation gamers are making up more than

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Speaker 1: a given percentage of the bottom line of a game

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Speaker 1: that has cross platform play, Sony wants a royalty from

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Speaker 1: developers and wants to get money if it says, hey,

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Speaker 1: if we're contributing to the success of this game, we

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Speaker 1: want you to pay us for it. And this is

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Speaker 1: meant to quote offset the reduction in revenue end quote

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Speaker 1: resulting from Sony enabling cross play. So how does enabling

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Speaker 1: cross play reduce revenue? That's an excellent question. If the

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Speaker 1: games were exclusive to Sony, you'd have an easy argument, right,

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Speaker 1: you would say, well, if you have an exclusive title

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Speaker 1: suddenly become available on another platform, it means gamers have choice,

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Speaker 1: and if they have choice, then maybe they choose something else.

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Speaker 1: But if you have an online game that already is

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Speaker 1: on multiple platforms, well, people already have a choice. They

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Speaker 1: can go to whichever platform it's on and play it there.

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Speaker 1: So that's the whole point. They just want to be

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Speaker 1: able to play with each other, you know, whether you're

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Speaker 1: on Xbox or PlayStation or PC or whatever. That's the

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Speaker 1: whole point. I honestly don't know where the reduction and

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Speaker 1: revenue comes from. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't exist.

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Speaker 1: It may very well be a factor, and I just

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Speaker 1: I'm not getting it. I don't understand how it works.

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Speaker 1: So maybe it's a real thing. But and I'm just

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Speaker 1: looking at the wrong way. But when I look at

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Speaker 1: I think that doesn't seem to track to me. By

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Speaker 1: the way, if you guys here, and I should have

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Speaker 1: said this at the beginning, but if you hear any

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Speaker 1: thunder or whatever, Atlanta is in the middle of some

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Speaker 1: pretty nasty thunderstorms right now. In fact, we had a

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Speaker 1: tornado this morning. Um didn't touch down close to where

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Speaker 1: I live, but it did touch down in the city

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Speaker 1: of Atlanta, so across town from where I am. I'm

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Speaker 1: also in the city of Atlanta. I'm just not in

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Speaker 1: that part. But yeah, we're still getting some thunder. I

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Speaker 1: apologize for the Rumbley's, but um, the show, as they say,

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Speaker 1: has to keep going. I think that's I think that's

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Speaker 1: how that's saying goes, all right, So sticking with Sony

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Speaker 1: for just a second longer. The company also announced a

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Speaker 1: new partnership between Discord and Sony Interactive Entertainment. So. Discord

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Speaker 1: is a popular social platform that grew up around gaming

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Speaker 1: tho whole lot of activity and Discord doesn't involve gaming

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Speaker 1: at all, and Discord allows users to create what are

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Speaker 1: called servers, though these are not the same thing as

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Speaker 1: like Web servers. Anyway. Servers can host chat rooms, text

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Speaker 1: based chat rooms, or video and audio chat voice chat.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of gamers will use Discord as a

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Speaker 1: chat tool to communicate with their friends while they play

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Speaker 1: games together. You know, some games don't support in game chat.

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Speaker 1: Uh some games, Oh my gosh, the storms really coming in.

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Speaker 1: Some games support in game chat, but they don't have

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Speaker 1: really good tools for it, and Discords meant to work

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Speaker 1: around that. According to Jim Ryan, the president and CEO

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Speaker 1: of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the goal is to merge the

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Speaker 1: PlayStation and Discord experiences on consoles and mobile, and it

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Speaker 1: sounds like the timeline is aiming for a twenty two integration,

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Speaker 1: which sounds pretty nifty, unlike the thunder outside, which just

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Speaker 1: sounds intimidating. Is all get out now, I'm sure all

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Speaker 1: of y'all have heard about Clubhouse, the io s app

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Speaker 1: that lets people log into audio only rooms and listen

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Speaker 1: to people chat about stuff. Now, we got a lot

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Speaker 1: of early buzz with lots of famous people using it

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Speaker 1: to talk about famous people's stuff, or for tech executives

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Speaker 1: to talk about tech executive stuff, you know, like how

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Speaker 1: many islands they've bought or whatever. My own knowledge of

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Speaker 1: clubhouse is pretty vague because I don't own an iPhone,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not allowed in the clubhouse. It says no

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Speaker 1: androids allowed, so I'm not I'm not in there. I

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Speaker 1: do know that there have been numerous concerns about the

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Speaker 1: security of Clubhouse, however, but that's not what this story

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Speaker 1: is about. Instead, I want to talk about Twitter because

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Speaker 1: it's been slowly rolling out its own version of the

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Speaker 1: same general idea, and Twitter's version is called spaces and

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Speaker 1: now any Twitter user who has at least six hundred

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Speaker 1: followers can potentially host an audio only chat room, and

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Speaker 1: that includes me. I've got more than six hundred followers.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I'll try it out. Twitter also plans to experiment

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Speaker 1: with ticketed events in the near future, so in these experiences,

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Speaker 1: hosts will determine a ticket price to charge p bol

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Speaker 1: who want to be part of this experience. Hosts will

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Speaker 1: also get a chance to decide the limit the cap

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Speaker 1: of the number of tickets that are allowed to be sold,

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Speaker 1: and Twitter will undoubtedly take a cut of those sales,

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Speaker 1: but the company claims that the host will earn most

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Speaker 1: not likely to try and host a ticketed event because

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Speaker 1: I don't need the experience of that level of rejection. Plus,

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Speaker 1: I mean, what the heck would I even do that

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Speaker 1: would seem worthy of asking folks to hand over their

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Speaker 1: hard earned cash just to hear me yap about stuff.

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Speaker 1: I guess I could do my amazing rendition of classic

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Speaker 1: Beastie Boys songs, but most of the time people pay

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Speaker 1: me to stop doing that. But hey, maybe we'll do

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Speaker 1: an experiment with tech stuff at some point. Maybe I'll

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Speaker 1: do like a teaser for upcoming episodes, or maybe a

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Speaker 1: discussion about past topics. Who knows. Anyway, keep an eye

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Speaker 1: out for spaces on Twitter. Sharman The Toilet Paper Company

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Speaker 1: has done it again. A few years back at at

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Speaker 1: e S the company introduced and um cheeky little robot

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Speaker 1: that would fetch toilet paper for you in case you

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Speaker 1: were out. This was a little two wheeled robot had

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Speaker 1: a little like bare face on it, and it could

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Speaker 1: balance a roll of toilet paper on top of the

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Speaker 1: robot had like a spindle on the very top that

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Speaker 1: you could put a roll of toilet paper on. They

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Speaker 1: were presenting this as if the robot was retrieving the

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Speaker 1: paper for you. But obviously someone had to put the

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Speaker 1: toilet paper roll on the robot and then it could

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Speaker 1: wheel around and get to you. It also was not

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Speaker 1: um autonomous, it was remote controlled. It was all like

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Speaker 1: a publicity stunt. It's very cute. But now Sharmon has

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Speaker 1: swooped in to help folks who are stuck on video

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Speaker 1: calls when suddenly they feel the need to visit the facilities.

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Speaker 1: The company calls it the b R B butt, the

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Speaker 1: b right back butt, and it's in beta right now.

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Speaker 1: And here's how it works. You start up the bot

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Speaker 1: app and it actually takes video of you, and you're

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Speaker 1: prompted to do a few different reactions so that the

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Speaker 1: bot can learn how you respond to certain stimuli such

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Speaker 1: as maybe someone makes a joke or someone says something

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Speaker 1: particularly interesting. Uh. It even prompts you to make some

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Speaker 1: vocal responses, specifically I'll get right on that. Then when

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Speaker 1: you feel the need to scoot off to the bathroom,

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Speaker 1: you can activate the bot, which will then supposedly have

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Speaker 1: an AI powered video doppel ganger of yourself sitting in

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Speaker 1: your place, reacting on your behalf. The idea being that

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Speaker 1: is using AI and machine learning to do this um.

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Speaker 1: It works with a few different video conferencing services, and

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Speaker 1: what I've seen is pretty funny. Uh. I don't know

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Speaker 1: that it's actually using AI and machine learning all that much.

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Speaker 1: To me, it just looked like it was running through

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Speaker 1: the various facial expressions on kind of a loop. But

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Speaker 1: I could be totally wrong about that. However, the company

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Speaker 1: doesn't plan to release this app to the general public.

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Speaker 1: It's another kind of PR stunt sort of thing. It

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Speaker 1: does seem like a real shame because I could just

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Speaker 1: imagine it saving me a lot of time by having

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Speaker 1: it attend meetings on my behalf. But it looks like

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to be out of luck on that one.

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Speaker 1: And our final story, Apple has rolled out the iOS

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Speaker 1: Update fourteen point five, which includes in it new rules

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Speaker 1: regarding apps that Facebook really really hates. In fact, I

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Speaker 1: think Facebook hates this more than Sony hates cross play.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure other apps hate it too, but

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Speaker 1: Facebook has made it incredibly apparent. So the new rules

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Speaker 1: say that apps are no longer allowed to track users

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Speaker 1: from app to app, like what what other apps they're

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Speaker 1: using and how they're using other apps, like tracking information

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Speaker 1: outside of the apps themselves without giving the option for

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Speaker 1: the users to opt out. So they have to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: we want to track all your activity, but you do

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Speaker 1: have the option to say don't do that. But Facebook

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Speaker 1: loves to track users. I mean, that is the product

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Speaker 1: that Facebook is selling. It's your data. Facebook can take

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Speaker 1: that data, your data, and use it to sell ads space.

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Speaker 1: So Facebook's value proposition to advertisers is, hey, we know

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Speaker 1: what our users like. We know what they look at

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Speaker 1: on Facebook, we know what they look at on Instagram,

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Speaker 1: and we know what they're looking at outside of Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Instagram because we can track which apps they're using

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Speaker 1: and how they're using and what they're doing on those apps.

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Speaker 1: So if you advertise with us, we will make sure

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Speaker 1: that your ads are seen by the people most likely

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Speaker 1: to act on those ads. That's the sales pitch that

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Speaker 1: Facebook is giving to advertisers. It means that Facebook can

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Speaker 1: charge a lot for ultra targeted ads and make billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars every year. But the new Apple rules say

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Speaker 1: that apps like Facebook and Instagram, which I'm sure I

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Speaker 1: don't need to remind you Facebook owns have to alert

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Speaker 1: users to this practice and give them the option to

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Speaker 1: opt out. Now It's clear Facebook does not want to

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Speaker 1: do that, but it has to or it risks being

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Speaker 1: dropped from the Apple Store. That would be disastrous. So instead,

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Speaker 1: the company's opt out message says, Hey, you're on iOS

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Speaker 1: fourt teen point five. This version of iOS requires us

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Speaker 1: to ask for permission to track some data from this

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Speaker 1: device to improve your ads, and it goes on to

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Speaker 1: say that the information used helps quote keep Facebook free

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Speaker 1: of charge end quote. Now the implication here is that

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Speaker 1: we're Facebook not allowed to track all your activity. If

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Speaker 1: you were to say, nah, Facebook, I don't want you

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Speaker 1: to do that, that maybe down the line you'd have

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Speaker 1: to pay for the Facebook app, and the same would

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Speaker 1: be true for Instagram. Now, I don't buy any of

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Speaker 1: that for a second, because Facebook can still serve tons

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Speaker 1: of ads. Even if you opt out, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to an ad free experience. You're still going to get

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Speaker 1: lots of ads. It's just that those ads won't be

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Speaker 1: quite as laser focused targeted on you as they would

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Speaker 1: be otherwise. Trust me, Facebook is not in danger of

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Speaker 1: being doubt into the cold, harsh world without a scrap

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Speaker 1: of bread to eat or place to sleep. Facebook, believe me,

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Speaker 1: is doing just fine. But it sure is eager to

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Speaker 1: discourage people from opting out of this tracking. Oh Also,

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Speaker 1: discouraging folks from opting out is technically against Apple's rules,

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Speaker 1: or at least the spirit of those rules. So we'll

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Speaker 1: have to wait and see if this type of messaging

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Speaker 1: sticks around or if Apple pressures Facebook to knock it off.

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Speaker 1: And that wraps up the news for Star Wars Day,

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Speaker 1: May the fourth. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you

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Speaker 1: have any suggestions for things I should cover in future

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Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: The handle is text stuff h s W. Perhaps I'll

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Speaker 1: be holding some spaces sessions at some point to chat

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Speaker 1: with folks. Don't know yet. Haven't really looked into it

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Speaker 1: other than seeing the news out of We'll see and

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Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text

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Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.