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Speaker 1: I'm Julie Douglas, host of The Stuff of Life, a

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Speaker 1: podcast that teases apart the tales we tell, because when

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Speaker 1: we crack open a story and look inside, we see

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Speaker 1: the seeds of what make our world so maddening, so strange,

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Speaker 1: and so achingly beautiful. The Stuff of Life is a

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Speaker 1: podcast about how we're all just getting by, learning and

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Speaker 1: surviving through the stories that we share. We'll look at

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Speaker 1: everything from fear and what fuels it, the inconceivability of

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Speaker 1: death and our desire to become immortal, to the big

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Speaker 1: universal question in life, why don't men dance? Join you

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Speaker 1: for the first episode on January. You can find The

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Speaker 1: Stuff of Life on iTunes or any other podcast provider.

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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with Hope Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host Jonathan Strictly. Now we're at the close

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Speaker 1: of two thousand fifteen, so that means it's time to

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Speaker 1: look at some of the big tech stories of the

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Speaker 1: past twelve months and to see what the tech world

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Speaker 1: has been up to over the last year. Now, in

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Speaker 1: full disclosure, I am recording this on December third, two

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Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, So when I get to the month of December,

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Speaker 1: there's not gonna be anything to talk about because nothing

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Speaker 1: really has happened yet. But there's a ton of stuff

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Speaker 1: to talk about from the previous months. So starting way

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Speaker 1: back in January, first, I'll talk about c e S

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Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. I attended that last year, as well

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Speaker 1: as the seven years before that. At any rate, it

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Speaker 1: was all about things like wearables, the Internet of Things,

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Speaker 1: automated systems, and four K displays and eight K displays.

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Speaker 1: Those were all the big, big items that were kind

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Speaker 1: of taking center stage at CES. There were a lot

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Speaker 1: of other devices that were also kind of capturing people's imagination.

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Speaker 1: I saw a lot of the very various devices meant

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Speaker 1: to allow you to scoot around, whether it was electric

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Speaker 1: skateboards like the hoverboard type stuff, or roller skates even

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Speaker 1: and some other ones. I didn't brave those. I didn't

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Speaker 1: try them because I was pretty convinced i'd be one

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Speaker 1: of the outlying statistics of people capable of falling down

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Speaker 1: on something that is supposed to be impossible to fall

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Speaker 1: off of. IM pretty sure I could. I could prove

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Speaker 1: them wrong on that one. We also saw more VR

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Speaker 1: headsets on display also a lot of conversion kits that

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Speaker 1: turned phones into VR screens. Augmented reality was still something

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Speaker 1: that we were kind of seeing some products show off,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think anyone has found the perfect implementation

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Speaker 1: of that, with the possible exception of the hollow lens,

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Speaker 1: but that isn't yet available for consumers. Uh We also

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Speaker 1: saw a lot of autonomous vehicles, which I would argue

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Speaker 1: as another technology that's still in the incubation period. I

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Speaker 1: think we've got a lot of evidence to show that

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Speaker 1: autonomous cars are safer and more reliable than human drivers

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Speaker 1: are on a day to day basis, but still gonna

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Speaker 1: take some time before that is ready for actual street use,

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Speaker 1: at least in widespread fashion. Early in January two thousand fifteen,

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Speaker 1: the White House approved of sanctions against North Korea. Now,

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Speaker 1: this was in response to the two thousand fourteen Sony hack.

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Speaker 1: Some cybersecurity experts expressed doubts that North Korea was the

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Speaker 1: originator of the attacks, but the government, specifically the FBI

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Speaker 1: and some other agencies said no, this this seems to

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Speaker 1: be the work of hackers out of North Korea. Uh

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Speaker 1: So there was some disagreement there in the cybersecurity industry,

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Speaker 1: but in general it looked like fingers were pointing to

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Speaker 1: North Korea, so the White House approved of sanctions against

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Speaker 1: North Korea. North Korea's reaction was understandably one of um disdain.

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Speaker 1: I guess is a good word, but whether North Korea

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Speaker 1: was ultimately responsible for the hack or not, that was

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Speaker 1: the expected reaction UM. During his State of the Union address,

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Speaker 1: United States President Barack Obama pledged to expand broadband service

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Speaker 1: to more United States citizens. Also wanted to push for

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Speaker 1: net neutrality and invest in cybersecurity measures, all of which

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Speaker 1: were prevalent on the minds of people. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: one of those things that especially the Sony hack had

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Speaker 1: brought into the limelight. Also in January and the wake

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Speaker 1: of the terrible Charlie Hebdo attacks in which journalists and

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Speaker 1: their families were threatened and killed. It was terrible. Anonymous,

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Speaker 1: the activist group announced a essentially a campaign against terrorists

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Speaker 1: and vowed to shut down communication tools and to weed

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Speaker 1: out terrorism using cyber attacks and and cyber strategies. And

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Speaker 1: this would go on throughout the entire year. Uh, it

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Speaker 1: really escalated in November, but it was going on throughout

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Speaker 1: the whole year. Also in January, Google ended up shelving

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Speaker 1: the Google Glass project. I wasn't really surprised by this.

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Speaker 1: I was a little sad. I'm a huge fan of

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Speaker 1: Google Glass, but I also felt that it wasn't quite

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Speaker 1: right for consumers, and it was incredibly expensive as dollars

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Speaker 1: for a pair of Google Glass. But Google has stressed

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Speaker 1: that it plans to incorporate the technology into future products,

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Speaker 1: both physical and software products, and also that Google Glass

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Speaker 1: would return at some point once it was ready. So

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Speaker 1: I don't know when that will be, but supposedly it

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Speaker 1: will come back. In January, Bill Gates expressed concern that

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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence could become the biggest threat to humanity. He

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Speaker 1: said this during a Reddit a m a, which has

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Speaker 1: Reddit for ask me anything, Uh, kind of interesting. Speaking

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Speaker 1: of Bill Gates, the company co founded Microsoft introduced Windows

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Speaker 1: ten on January twenty one, and also showed off the

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Speaker 1: hollow lens headset. That's that augmented reality device I had

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Speaker 1: talked about. I wish I had had a chance to

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Speaker 1: actually experience a hollow lens. I have not done that yet.

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Speaker 1: I really hope to have that experience at some point.

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Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by the idea. I like the possibility of

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Speaker 1: the hollow lens adding a new dimension to computing, at

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Speaker 1: least some applications. Obviously, it's not ideal for everything. You're

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Speaker 1: not going to use the hollow lens for word processing,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine, but for gaming, for design, for understanding

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Speaker 1: how stuff works, that's something I'm really concerned with. I

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Speaker 1: really think the hollow lens is a potentially useful tool,

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Speaker 1: so I hope I get a chance to use it

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Speaker 1: at some point. At the end of January, the f

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Speaker 1: c C redefined broadband speed, calling it twenty five megabits

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Speaker 1: per second as download speed and three megabits per second

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Speaker 1: upload speed. It was a big increase from the earlier definition,

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Speaker 1: which I believe was ten megabit megabits per second down

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Speaker 1: and one megabit per second up. I got some I

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Speaker 1: s p s in a tizzy Internet service providers because

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Speaker 1: now they could not claim a ten megabit per second

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Speaker 1: speed as being broadband speed. They could not advertise broadband

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Speaker 1: speed unless it was at twenty five megabits per second

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Speaker 1: or faster, and uh that ended up impacting their business.

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Speaker 1: I'd say it was a positive impact for the consumer,

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Speaker 1: and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for

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Speaker 1: I s p s in general when it comes to

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Speaker 1: defining broadband speeds. But that's because as of my own

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Speaker 1: personal perspective, maybe if I were running an i SP

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Speaker 1: I'd have a very different opinion. Moving onto February, we

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Speaker 1: saw more data breach problems UH. An insurance company, a

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Speaker 1: large one called Anthem, disclosed an enormous hacker attack in

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Speaker 1: which millions of people's personal information had been leaked not

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Speaker 1: just direct customers of Anthem, but Anthem also handles insurance

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Speaker 1: from lots of other providers. It's kind of like the

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Speaker 1: back end for a lot of insurance companies, so potentially

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Speaker 1: millions of people had their personal information leaked to hackers

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Speaker 1: in that attack. Just a few days later, the White

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Speaker 1: House announced the formation of a cyber Threat Intelligence Center

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Speaker 1: or Intelligence Integration Center, which would collect information and organize

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Speaker 1: it and and distribute it in such a way to

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Speaker 1: prevent cyber attacks from being successful or responding to eiber threats,

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Speaker 1: although that also raised some people's flags worrying about how

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Speaker 1: this might end up impacting privacy issues uh February also

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Speaker 1: saw Twitter announced the new policy to handle trolls, streamlining

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Speaker 1: the internal process for identifying and dealing with online abuse

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, and said that after instituting the change, they

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Speaker 1: saw a five times increase in the number of people

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Speaker 1: being reported for harassment and abuse and they were responding

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Speaker 1: as fast as possible in order taking it seriously, which

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Speaker 1: was great news for people on Twitter. I have friends

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Speaker 1: who have been the victims of harassment on Twitter, and

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Speaker 1: it's a terrible thing. It's one of those things about

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Speaker 1: the Internet where the distance the Internet provides and the

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Speaker 1: anonymity you can have can create an environment that can

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Speaker 1: be pretty toxic in some cases, it's not always. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it also provides the ability for us to communicate with

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Speaker 1: folks we otherwise can never talk to. So there are

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Speaker 1: great things about this environment, but unfortunately there are some

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Speaker 1: bad things too. So this was Twitter's attempt to counteract

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Speaker 1: some of the bad. On February twenty six, the FCC

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Speaker 1: reclassified broadband as a utility and past net neutrality rules,

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Speaker 1: which lots of people on the Internet absolutely loved. I

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Speaker 1: s p s were not among them. Uh, And there

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Speaker 1: were some politicians who reacted negatively towards this, largely the

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Speaker 1: ones who who are also let's say influenced by lobbies

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Speaker 1: that represent I sps. We're still seeing those rules being

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Speaker 1: challenged by various affected parties. UM, we're going to continue

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Speaker 1: to see this shake out over time. But the reclassification

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Speaker 1: means that broadband would providers would no longer be able

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Speaker 1: to charge for prioritized traffic. In other words, they would

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Speaker 1: not be able to set an amount saying, uh, if

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Speaker 1: you create content and you want to go across our

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Speaker 1: networks at a decent speed, you have to pay this

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Speaker 1: amount that was no longer allowed. Uh. They also could

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Speaker 1: not selectively block or throttle traffic from sources. So in

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Speaker 1: other words, you shouldn't have a company like Comcast be

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Speaker 1: able to throttle content from a company like Netflix. That

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Speaker 1: that would be against the rules based upon this reclassification.

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Speaker 1: In March, a lot of news happened here. On March six,

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Speaker 1: the Dawn Probe entered orbit around Series, which meant that

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Speaker 1: for the first time ever, we had a spacecraft enter

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Speaker 1: the orbit of a dwarf planet, and that was pretty

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Speaker 1: incredible and uh, really exciting stuff. I was very pleased

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Speaker 1: to read the news about that, and the the information

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Speaker 1: about Series was really fascinating. We also learned in March

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Speaker 1: that Tinder. This will not be the only Tender story

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Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen. I find Tinder endlessly fascinating. Tinder

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Speaker 1: we found out charges older users more for their premium

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Speaker 1: service than younger users. So if you are a user

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Speaker 1: of a certain age and you want to use Tender premium,

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Speaker 1: your rates will be higher than people younger than you are.

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Speaker 1: Tender's response was that old people tend to have more money,

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Speaker 1: so that's why I guess. Uh. Later in March, a

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Speaker 1: hacker created a program that connected straight men with other

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Speaker 1: straight men, but it appeared that each of the straight

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Speaker 1: men were in touch with a woman and created a

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Speaker 1: situation in which straight men were essentially flirting with each

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Speaker 1: other and Uh. The way it worked was the hacker

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Speaker 1: created fake bait profiles of women, and when two men

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Speaker 1: identified that they were interested in that specific woman, his

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Speaker 1: program would link those two men up to each other,

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Speaker 1: but they would each believe they were actually talking to

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Speaker 1: the bait profile, not to another guy. And when asked

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Speaker 1: about his motivation for this, the hackers said that he

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Speaker 1: had female friends who complained about the types of messages

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Speaker 1: they would receive on Tender, that they thought that they

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Speaker 1: were distasteful and harassing, and he thought, well, this will

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Speaker 1: give guys a taste of their own medicine. Um. Of

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Speaker 1: course this targets all guys, not just the ones who

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Speaker 1: are being jerk faces. UM. At any rate, it was

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Speaker 1: kind of an amusing story. Also in March, we saw

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Speaker 1: the launch of two different broadcast services too that we're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be using Twitter as a means of of

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Speaker 1: linking profiles, uh, mere Cat and Periscope. Now, between the two,

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Speaker 1: Periscope did much better, but that's because Periscope was actually

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Speaker 1: being backed by Twitter. Mayor Cat was using Twitter to

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Speaker 1: link accounts to the Twitter service, so that if you're

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Speaker 1: using Mercat, the idea was that it could broadcast the

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Speaker 1: fact that you are online to your Twitter followers. And

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Speaker 1: then Twitter ended up blocking that app, um because they

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Speaker 1: had their own They had Periscope, and they had that power.

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Speaker 1: So Twitter is like, well, we're doing our own broadcast

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Speaker 1: phone to their followers, and we don't really want the competition.

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Speaker 1: So guess what, you don't get to play in our yard.

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Speaker 1: And that was a big blow to mere Cat. Periscope

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Speaker 1: is still one of those things that UM, I think

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Speaker 1: is fairly popular, but not overwhelmingly popular. We like to

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Speaker 1: do it here at How Stuff Works. If you have

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Speaker 1: not followed How Stuff Works on periscope, if you have periscope,

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Speaker 1: you might want to consider following How Stuff Works because

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Speaker 1: we do periscope pretty frequently. Uh and you'll see it

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Speaker 1: from all sorts of different shows, like Stuff They Don't

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Speaker 1: Want You To Know does a periscope every week. Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind also does a periscope every week.

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Speaker 1: I'll be doing periscopes pretty frequently on How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: Lauren vogelba on my former co host, She also periscopes

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Speaker 1: regularly for How Stuff Works, So check us out. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of fun and we like to respond to people.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can send questions in real time and

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Speaker 1: we can respond to you. That's a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: Moving on to April, that's when Apple officially put the

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Speaker 1: Apple Watch on sale. You can pre order and buy them,

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Speaker 1: and it started at around three dollars for your basic

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Speaker 1: Apple Watch model, so pretty expensive, particularly when you consider

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Speaker 1: the fact that it's not useful unless you also have

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Speaker 1: an iPhone Um. This is kind of typical with smart watches.

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Speaker 1: Most of them require another device to pair with and

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Speaker 1: that's where they get their data. So, for example the Pebble,

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Speaker 1: it pairs via Bluetooth to a smartphone and then you

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Speaker 1: get notifications on your smartphone and then gets sent to

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Speaker 1: your Pebble Watch, and then that's what gives you the notification.

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Speaker 1: Same sort of thing with the Apple Watch, except of

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Speaker 1: course it only works with the iPhone. It does not

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Speaker 1: work with other devices. Early reviews the Apple Watch where

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Speaker 1: a little mixed. A lot of them said that there

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Speaker 1: was a pretty high learning curve um and not everybody

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Speaker 1: don't have an iPhone, you're looking at almost a thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to get the watch plus a current iPhone UH

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Speaker 1: to be able to use the thing. So little bit

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Speaker 1: of a steep road. But for Apple fanatics, obviously it

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Speaker 1: was something that was greeted with glee. People couldn't wait

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Speaker 1: to get there. Well, I was gonna say get their

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Speaker 1: hands on it, but I guess get them on their

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Speaker 1: wrists would be more accurate. Also in April, HBO launched

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Speaker 1: HBO Now, which finally allowed people who did not have

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Speaker 1: HBO on their cable plan to get access to HBO content.

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Speaker 1: This is something people have been asking for for a

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Speaker 1: few years now, the idea of, you know, I want

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Speaker 1: everything else. Uh. It turns out that we're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to do that ala carte channel by channel, or at

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Speaker 1: least that's what it looks like right now, and HBO

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe to HBO now, you don't have to

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Speaker 1: have HBO on your cable subscription, and you can get

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Speaker 1: access to HBO content. So uh. This has also led

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Speaker 1: some people to say, perhaps this is the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the end of the cable industry, the cable television industry,

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Speaker 1: which would be really interesting if that's the case, because

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Speaker 1: HBO played a big role in the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: cable industry. If you listen to the episodes we did

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Speaker 1: about the HBO story, you can hear about how important

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Speaker 1: HBO was when cable was just growing. Also, in April,

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Speaker 1: Comcast and Time Warner ended up calling it quits on

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Speaker 1: their move for a merger. This relieved a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who said that if Comcast and Time Warner were

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Speaker 1: to merge into one company, then even the illusion of

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Speaker 1: competition would be erased in the cable company and I

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Speaker 1: s P world, there are a lot of places where

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Speaker 1: Time Warner is the only choice for your cable, Comcast

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Speaker 1: is the only choice for your cable. This merger would

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Speaker 1: have made the company even bigger. And while Comcast kept

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Speaker 1: saying that it would promote competition, a lot of critics said,

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Speaker 1: I can't possibly see how that would happen to us.

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Speaker 1: It looks like you would essentially just dominate eight the

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Speaker 1: entire landscape. And if you listen to the Comcast story episodes,

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Speaker 1: you know comcasts history is essentially one of acquisitions. It's

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Speaker 1: a company that bought other companies, and that's how it grew.

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Speaker 1: Year over year. It added customers, not by improving their

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Speaker 1: their offerings necessarily, although you know, obviously I'm sure the

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Speaker 1: company tried to do that. Year over year two, it

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Speaker 1: largely added customers by buying up other networks and then

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Speaker 1: incorporating those networks into Comcast. But this one did not

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Speaker 1: work out, and so they abandoned it, largely because they

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Speaker 1: were facing some pretty stiff opposition in the general public.

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Speaker 1: They were also seeing opposition from special interest groups from

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Speaker 1: other companies, and it was pretty clear there was gonna

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Speaker 1: be a really hard sell for them to be able

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Speaker 1: to merge, so they ultimately decided to quit finishing out

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Speaker 1: the news for April. A computer glitch in a digital

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Speaker 1: slot machine convinced a woman she had one forty one

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Speaker 1: million dollars. It turned out to just be a glitch,

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Speaker 1: a mistake. I can't imagine what this must have felt like.

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Speaker 1: So the woman ended up suing the casino, saying she

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Speaker 1: was owed the money she was told she had one.

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Speaker 1: Imagine you're playing a video slot machine and you get

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Speaker 1: a message saying, hey, you just won forty one million dollars.

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Speaker 1: I think you'd be pretty disappointed to go to the

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Speaker 1: cashier and find out, Nope, that's the computer error. You

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Speaker 1: aren't owed any money, or maybe you're owed a couple

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Speaker 1: of bucks. I think it was two dollars sixty three cents. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: for this person, the lawsuit was decided in favor of

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Speaker 1: the casino, and the judge said, here's the thing, and

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Speaker 1: the rules for the game are laid out. They're displayed

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Speaker 1: on the device or on the machine or they show

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Speaker 1: up on the screen and explains what the rules are.

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Speaker 1: And included in those rules was the fact that the

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Speaker 1: maximum payout of this machine was ten thousand dollars us

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Speaker 1: that you could not win more than that, and based

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Speaker 1: upon the results of that spin of the slot machine,

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Speaker 1: the woman would not have one a jackpot in the

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Speaker 1: first place. It was just a computer glitch. And that

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Speaker 1: you cannot expect a casino to change the rules of

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Speaker 1: a game while a game is being played. That would

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Speaker 1: be unfair to one party or the other, or both.

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Speaker 1: And so ultimately the judge said, you can't hold a

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Speaker 1: casino responsible for the malfunction of a screen. It's an

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Speaker 1: unfortunate experience, but it's not one that will result in

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Speaker 1: forty one million dollars going to you, Sad Trombone. In

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Speaker 1: May two fifteen, the big story was there was another

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Speaker 1: data security breach, and this time it hit the I

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Speaker 1: R S. By August, the U. S Government said that

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Speaker 1: as many as three thirty four thousand taxpayer accounts had

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Speaker 1: been compromised. Now in May, when they first announced the

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Speaker 1: discovery of the breach, they thought it was closer to

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand. So it got worse as time went

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Speaker 1: on and as the investigation continued, the hackers had actually

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Speaker 1: used a program called get Transcript. That's the program I

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Speaker 1: r S had implemented, which was meant to allow users

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Speaker 1: to get a look at their tax transactions over time.

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Speaker 1: So the hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities and to get

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Speaker 1: transcript program to get personal information from taxpayers. It's pretty ugly,

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Speaker 1: but that's really the only story out of May. So

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Speaker 1: moving on into June, June and July, these are two

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Speaker 1: months with lots and lots of stories, so I'll try

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Speaker 1: and breathe through these as quickly as possible. First of all,

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Speaker 1: in June, Apple had its Worldwide Developers Conference, one of

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Speaker 1: the big events Apple holds every year, and at that

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Speaker 1: conference they unveiled OS ten dot eleven, also known as

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Speaker 1: El Capitan. They also announced Apple Music, which was a

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Speaker 1: It is a streaming music service competes with other streaming

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Speaker 1: music services, everything from Google Play and Amazon Music and

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Speaker 1: Pandora and Spotify, all those sort of things over and

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Speaker 1: read it. There was a bit of a brewjaha when

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Speaker 1: Reddit ended up essentially removing a few subreddits because they

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Speaker 1: were all centered around harassment, harassing different groups and read

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Speaker 1: it said that while it strives to be a platform

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Speaker 1: for free expression, it will not tolerate harassment. That actually

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Speaker 1: caused a bit of a stir. It was also announced

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Speaker 1: in June that Twitter CEO Dick Costolo would be stepping

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Speaker 1: down from the position and Jack Dorsey, the co founder

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Speaker 1: of Twitter, would be stepping in as the interim CEO.

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Speaker 1: By October this would change, Dorsey would be named the

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Speaker 1: new per minute CEO of Twitter, and so he is.

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Speaker 1: Also in June, Verizon completed its acquisition of A o L,

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Speaker 1: which was a four point four billion dollar deal, so

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Speaker 1: A o L is now a property of Verizon. Also

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Speaker 1: in June e three happened the big news there. Bethesda,

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Speaker 1: the company that creates games like Fallout and Skyrim, held

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Speaker 1: its first ever press conference and blew people away with

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Speaker 1: the the real pit Boy that you could order, as

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Speaker 1: well as a Fallout shelter which went which became available

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Speaker 1: that day at least for iOS devices. It was a

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Speaker 1: big hit. Microsoft showed off the hollow lens and that

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Speaker 1: got a big reaction. They also announced that the Xbox

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Speaker 1: One would get backwards compatibility with a selection of Xbox

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Speaker 1: three sixty titles. That was a big hit as well.

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Speaker 1: Another big hit was Star Wars battle Front. Excuse me,

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Speaker 1: noll mm hmmm. Another big hit with Star Wars Battlefront. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It got a great reaction from the crowd when it

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Speaker 1: was announced. It has since come out and I think

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Speaker 1: see mainly positive reviews, but there are certainly some criticisms

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Speaker 1: I've seen. I I played in the beta and thought

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Speaker 1: it was really It captured the feeling of Star Wars

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Speaker 1: really well, but the gameplay left something to be desired,

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Speaker 1: at least for me. But then I haven't played all

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Speaker 1: the game modes either. I only played the couple that

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Speaker 1: were available in the beta, so perhaps I would change

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Speaker 1: my mind if I played the full game. But there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of other things that came out of

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Speaker 1: E three, uh. Final Fantasy Seven's getting a remake, the PlayStation,

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Speaker 1: made a great presentation. Their conference was really well received,

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Speaker 1: and in general it's like it was a pretty good

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Speaker 1: year for E three, despite the fact that there were

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Speaker 1: no huge announcements of new types of where with the

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Speaker 1: exception of the hollow lens functionality where you could play

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Speaker 1: Minecraft on a physical table and you could actually look

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Speaker 1: at a representation of Minecraft as if it were sitting

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Speaker 1: in front of you. Also in June, DARPA had its

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Speaker 1: Robotics Challenge, which was super cool and involved teams that

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Speaker 1: have worked on robot designs both from a software and

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Speaker 1: hardware perspective. Some teams were using robots that were built

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Speaker 1: by other companies or organizations, but they were the ones

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Speaker 1: who developed the software for them, and the challenge was

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Speaker 1: to complete a series of tasks that would be similar

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Speaker 1: to what you would encounter in the wake of a

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Speaker 1: nuclear reactor disaster, like what happened in Fukushima, Japan, after

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Speaker 1: the nuclear reactor there had to melt down. The robots

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Speaker 1: had to do things like drive a vehicle, get out,

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Speaker 1: go through a door, climb some stairs, cut a hole

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Speaker 1: in the wall, and some other tasks as well. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: the team that won was Team kist K A I

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Speaker 1: S T, which completed all eight tasks in forty four

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Speaker 1: minutes eight seconds. So it wasn't exactly speedy, but it

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Speaker 1: was very impressive because it is difficult to build a

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Speaker 1: robot that is capable of doing lots of different things. Typically,

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Speaker 1: we design robots to do a specific task and that

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Speaker 1: makes it easier to design. You just have to consider

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Speaker 1: what things need to happen in order for this task

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Speaker 1: to be completed as efficiently as possible. But when you

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Speaker 1: have to design a robot that does multiple tasks, that's hard,

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00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: especially if you're trying to make it do all these

433
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 1: tasks as well as it possibly can and not kind

434
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: of just bumble its way through. It's pretty tough. And

435
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: if you watch videos from that DARPA challenge, you'll see

436
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: lots of examples of robots falling over, which is both

437
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 1: kind of funny and sad at the same time, but

438
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: it really demonstrates how hard this field is. It's a

439
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: very challenging field. In July two, thift well, on July eight,

440
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: we had a real nasty trio of tech failure stories hit.

441
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: At the same time, United Airlines had to halt flights

442
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: for more than an hour due to an issue with

443
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: quote degraded network connectivity for various applications end quote. In

444
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: other words, it pretty much looked like it was a

445
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 1: router failure, which Cisco immediately got on the job trying

446
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 1: to fix. On that same day, the New York Stock

447
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: Exchange suffered technical issues that caused halt trading to halt

448
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: for more than three hours and The Wall Street Journal's

449
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: website went offline only eight so all three of these

450
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: things are happening. This actually led some people to question

451
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: if perhaps they were connected in some way, and maybe

452
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: it was indicative of a cyber attack. It looks like

453
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: it was just coincidence that all three of these things

454
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: hit on the aim day, but it definitely created some

455
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: nervous laughter in various offices wonder who's next. Also in July,

456
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: the FCC approved a T and T S merger with

457
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: Direct TV, which was a forty eight point five billion

458
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: dollar deal. You could say that two thousand fifteen was

459
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: a year of attempted and successful mergers and acquisitions. A

460
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: lot of big companies UH actually made deals, and a

461
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: few like Comcast and Time Warner that I talked about earlier,

462
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: attempted to but failed. UH. It was a big year

463
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: for that. The FCC said that the reason they approved

464
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: the merger was that they felt it would lead to

465
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: stronger broadband and video bundles that could improve competition with

466
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: established cable companies. If that's in fact the case, I'm

467
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: in favor of it. I'm a little skeptical, but I

468
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: would like to see more competition in that space for

469
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: reason that I've already talked about. Also in July, Amazon

470
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: held its first Prime Day, which is kind of like

471
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales event catered specifically

472
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: to Prime customers. Clearly this was a move to get

473
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: more Prime subscriptions going and it worked really well. So

474
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: now Amazon is going to do it every single year.

475
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: No big surprise there. In sad news. In July, Nintendo

476
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: president Satoro Iwata passed away at age fifty five. He

477
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: passed away on July eleven. He was very much a

478
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: beloved figure at Nintendo, not just as a president, but

479
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: as a game developer, and he had shown great passion

480
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: for video games. He actually said that he considered himself

481
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: first and foremost a gamer, So his passing shock not

482
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: just Nintendo, but the video game world in general. Also

483
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: in July, Reddit CEO Ellen Powell stepped down. She was

484
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: replaced by Reddit founder Steve huff and It's also a

485
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: former ceo Reddit. Her departure followed a controversial decision to

486
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: fire Victoria Taylor, who was the coordinator of the Asked

487
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: Me Anything feature at redditum Full details of exactly what

488
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: happened were never released, but it appeared, at least in

489
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: some reports, that Victoria Taylor was resisting certain changes that

490
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: read it was hoping to implement in the A M

491
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: A world, and as a result she was let go.

492
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: That seems to be what happened based upon certain reports.

493
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: But like I said, a full disclosure of exactly what

494
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: happened has never really been made, at least not that

495
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: I could find. All right, let's go back to Tinder.

496
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: I told you I was going to talk about it

497
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: a couple of times throughout the year. So in July

498
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: the service announced verified accounts for celebrities. So when you

499
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: see a profile for Leonardo DiCaprio in your area, you

500
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: can look for that little verification sign to make sure

501
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: it's actually Leonardo DiCaprio and not just some guy named

502
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: Vinnie who's hoping he his passing resemblance to Leonardo will

503
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: get him somewhere. So yea, I being a married guy,

504
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been married for more than eighteen years now,

505
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: I find this tender stuff to be really amusing. And

506
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, I am so glad I am

507
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: not in the dating world, because I also think I'd

508
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: be terrified if no one ever swiped right on me.

509
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: Also in July, it was revealed that the website Ashley Madison,

510
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,479
Speaker 1: which is dedicated to helping married people find people folks

511
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: who who will have an affair with them, it had

512
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: been hacked. I'm sure you heard this story. It was

513
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,479
Speaker 1: in all the news outlets for a long time, probably

514
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: because of the salacious content here, and a lot of

515
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: that information was released online. It was dumped into various

516
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: sites where it was quickly propagated, and it embarrassed customers

517
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: and the company alike. It also revealed some interesting data.

518
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: A lot of people combed through this to get a

519
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: better look at what it represented. It appears that an

520
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of the accounts on Ashley Madison belonged to men.

521
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: Uh that a good number of the accounts belonging to

522
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: women actually are dummy accounts and were perhaps used to

523
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: act as essentially bait to lure men to use the service.

524
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: You know, doesn't do the men much good if there's

525
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: no one there on the service for them to connect

526
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: with and have their affair. I guess the hacker or

527
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 1: hackers chose the name the Impact Team and said that

528
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: they had targeted a l M, which is the parent

529
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: company that owns Ashley Madison and other related sites because

530
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: of unethical practices. Largely they want about if you wanted

531
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: to delete your account of Ashley Madison, you had to

532
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: pay nineteen dollars for the privilege of having your information deleted,

533
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 1: and even then there was no guarantee that it was

534
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: actually deleted. So that was the reason the hacker gave

535
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: for targeting Ashley Madison. And this was a story that

536
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: for at least a couple of weeks was in the

537
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: headlines just because you kept getting names of people who

538
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: were uh found within the database. And it was an

539
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: ugly affair. And I can't believe I just used that pun.

540
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,240
Speaker 1: It was totally unintentional. I really do promise. I didn't

541
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 1: mean to. As the words were coming out of my mouth,

542
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: I was regretting it anyway. Last story July, uh f

543
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: c A, which is the parent company of brands like Jeep, Dodge,

544
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,879
Speaker 1: and Chrysler, had a massive recall of one point four

545
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: million cars over concerns about how hackers could get remote

546
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: access to vehicles through their connectivity features. On July twenty one,

547
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: senators introduced the Secure Pity and Privacy in Your Car

548
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 1: Act which was meant to help curtail uh, the sort

549
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: of incidents. It was supposed to create security standards for

550
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: new vehicles in the connected age. Uh. This was a

551
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 1: very sobering moment. It was certainly something we were expecting

552
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: to happen because we knew that there were researchers, security

553
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: researchers who are going to unveil something about hacking cars

554
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 1: at various security conferences like def Con and you know,

555
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: other black hat style conferences, to say this is a

556
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: growing concern and if companies aren't going to address it,

557
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: we will go public with it so that consumers are

558
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: aware of the potential danger they face by having a

559
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:54,280
Speaker 1: connected car. And UH, honestly, I feel conflicted about this approach,

560
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: but if a company is not taking steps to fix

561
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: those problems for the products getting to the hand of consumers,

562
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: something does have to happen. I mean, it's it's not

563
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: worth putting people's lives in danger to sell a few

564
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 1: more vehicles. But this was a big deal, a recall

565
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 1: of one point four million cars across Jeep dodging Chrysler brands.

566
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: Moving on to August, only a couple of stories, but

567
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: one of them was huge August was when Google restructured

568
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: and became Alphabet so technically, and I did a podcast

569
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: where I described this. It was a really weird situation

570
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: where Google formed a wholly owned subsidiary called Alphabet, then

571
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: reorganized so that Alphabet became the parent company and Google

572
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: was a subsidiary of Alphabet. There are other subsidiaries of

573
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: Alphabet as well. And the idea is that these various

574
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: new companies that formerly were departments under Google will be

575
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: able to experiment and grow independently of Google. They will

576
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: no longer depend upon Google to grow, and it's supposed

577
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: to streamline those those different groups so that they can

578
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: function better without having to depend upon uh companies that

579
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: they don't have any other influence with. So we'll see

580
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 1: how that pans out over time. Also more Tender news

581
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: in August, after five months as CEO, Chris Payne stepped

582
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: down and co founder Shaan Rad was reinstated as CEO. Ultimately,

583
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: Tender said they was very diplomatic. They said that Chris

584
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: Payne was not a good long term fit for CEO.

585
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: Moving on to September, the Recording Industry Association of America

586
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 1: or r i a A reported that streaming music generated

587
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,280
Speaker 1: a third of all music revenue for the first half

588
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: of two thousand fifteen. That's huge. It marks an incredible

589
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: shift from the to the way you know, we listen

590
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: to music. It's used to be that you would buy

591
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: albums or buy singles, you know, from the days of

592
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: vinyl albums, two tapes, to c D s and then

593
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: digital albums. Now we're using streaming services a lot more,

594
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: enough for it to make up a third of the revenue.

595
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: So while the music industry might not like the streaming model,

596
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: it looks like that's the way the consumer wants to

597
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: listen to music, or at least a growing number of consumers,

598
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: so that's really interesting. Apple held its annual press event

599
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 1: in September that was focused on products like the iPhone.

600
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: It also announced the iPad Pro, the large tablet that

601
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: measures like twelve point nine inches, and they also introduced

602
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 1: a new stylus device called the Pencil, And that's probably

603
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: what would have made Steve Jobs pull his hair out

604
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: in frustration, because he famously dismissed the idea of a

605
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 1: stylus when he launched the iPad. Apple also announced a

606
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: new generation of the Apple TV set top box with

607
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: Sirie integration one that is not without its problems, as

608
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: I am led to understand from a friend of mine

609
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: who owns one of these um The iPhone also got

610
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 1: an update with the six S and the six S Plus,

611
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: and they also introduced a new interface called three D

612
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: touch UH. In September, John McAfee, the founder of the

613
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 1: McAfee anti virus program and the all around eccentric dude

614
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: some people might say eccentric as being exceedingly kind, he

615
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:35,839
Speaker 1: announced his intention to run for president. McAfee has a

616
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: reputation for let's say, questionable behavior and has a pretty

617
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: weird past. We did an episode about him this year

618
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,240
Speaker 1: on tech Stuff, so if you want, you can hunt

619
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 1: down the John McAfee story on tech Stuff to hear

620
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:54,440
Speaker 1: more about this guy's life. On September, news broke that

621
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: Volkswagen had been using what has been called a defeat

622
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: device to rig emissions to staying for its diesel vehicles.

623
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: We also did an episode about this on tech Stuff.

624
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: So this device essentially turned on some emissions equipment, some

625
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: protocols in Volkswagens so that when you are are actually

626
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: doing an emissions test, the emissions are well below the

627
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: limits that are are placed there. However, when you get

628
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: into regular driving conditions, the defeat devices switched off and

629
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: your vehicle starts to pollute a lot more, but the

630
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: performance goes way up. And once this was discovered, it

631
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a real pr nightmare for Volkswagen

632
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: that is continuing to this day. Also in September, Elon

633
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: Musk or Elon Musk appeared on The Late Show with

634
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert and suggested that we could tear a form

635
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 1: Mars if we just detonated some nuclear bombs at the polls,

636
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: kind of like melting all that Ason, possibly creating an atmosphere,

637
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: and I don't know what else, because I honestly I

638
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,399
Speaker 1: think if we did do that, we would raise such

639
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: enormous dust clouds in Mars' atmosphere that you wouldn't be

640
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: able to do any useful terraforming for quite a long time.

641
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: In the first place, I don't think it would necessarily work.

642
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one who thinks that, but what

643
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 1: do I know. I'm not an expert. Speaking of Elon

644
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: Musk and Tesla, Tesla launched the Model X SUV in September.

645
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: That's an suv capable of going from zero to sixty

646
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: miles per hour in four point eight seconds, unless you

647
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: cough up the cash for the priceier performance model that

648
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: can go zero to sixty and three point two seconds.

649
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: It also has a top speed of a hundred fifty

650
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: five miles per hour. That's wicked fast. So the price

651
00:41:55,640 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: for a Signature Series Model X SUV is a hundred

652
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars. The standard model is slightly less expensive,

653
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: still well out of my price range. However, in October,

654
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: the film Steve Jobs, which was written by Aaron Sorkin, debuts.

655
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: It would go on to earn only eighteen million dollars

656
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: domestically if you if you factor in all the theaters worldwide,

657
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: it's still a little less than twenty four million dollars,

658
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: and that makes it a flop. Reportedly, it had a

659
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: budget of thirty million, so it made less than it

660
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: cost to make. A lot of people in the tech

661
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: industry seemed to be happy about this. They criticized the movie,

662
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 1: saying that it was not a realistic portrayal of Steve Jobs.

663
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: On October five, People That's p e E p l

664
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: E disappeared before it could even launch, so people in

665
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: case You're not familiar, UH was an app that was

666
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: supposed to allow people to rate one another, kind of

667
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: like Yelp for people. So if I had an interaction

668
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: with you and I thought you were being a little strappy,

669
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 1: Kevin Free would say I could give you a negative

670
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: reading on people and warn others of your strappiness. You

671
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: could do the same for me, saying this man is

672
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,720
Speaker 1: bald and unpleasant. And it got a lot of people

673
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: worried that the negativity that you can encounter online could

674
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 1: spill over into our personal lives even more than it

675
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: already is. So by October five, it was supposed to

676
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: launch a November of this year, but by October most

677
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: traces of it disappeared. The website was gone, It's Facebook

678
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: and Twitter accounts disappeared. The Instagram account was switched to private,

679
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: So it looks like people, after facing some public criticism

680
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: and ridicule, maybe gone. Also in October, Amazon announced it

681
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 1: would stop selling Apple TV and Chrome Cast on its site,

682
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: instead fun people to buy stuff like Fire TV and

683
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: become Amazon Prime members. You might say that's a little

684
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: bit of self interest or a lot. It's a lot

685
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: of self interest. Edward Snowden joined Twitter in October. He's

686
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: the whistleblower who revealed the n s A practices. Um

687
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: quickly became very popular on Twitter. People wanted to hear

688
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: more about his perspective on cybersecurity and privacy issues. Facebook

689
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: was rumored to be adding a dislike button in October,

690
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 1: but instead introduced reactions. These are sort of emoticons that

691
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: allow users to react to a status update beyond just

692
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: the thumbs up. Because sometimes you see status updates that

693
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: wererant a different reaction, you don't necessarily want to like

694
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: that status update, and so this would give you a

695
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: few more options without it becoming a tool that you

696
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: could abuse and make people feel badly about it. At

697
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: least that's the theory. Also, the New Horizon in his

698
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 1: probe explored Pluto, and that was pretty awesome. We started

699
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: getting some really cool information about Pluto. In October, NASA

700
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: announced the probe had found evidence of exposed water ice

701
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: on the surface of Pluto. Also, we got some incredible

702
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: images of Pluto stuff I didn't think I would ever

703
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: live to see, so I was really exciting. Tesla was

704
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: back in the headlines. It gave an overnight update that

705
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: allowed Tesla vehicles autonomous capabilities, it is limited. You cannot

706
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: use this to just take you from point A to

707
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: point B with never touching the steering wheel or the

708
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: accelerator or the break. It's not intended to be that.

709
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: It's more like a really sophisticated driver assist system, not

710
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: a fully autonomous vehicle. That being said, there are a

711
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: lot of people who did videos of themselves behind the

712
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 1: wheel of a Tesla in autonomous mode not touching any

713
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: of the controls, which is remarkably day dress. As Tesla

714
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: has said, don't do that, but hey, you know you can't.

715
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess if you give people a toy,

716
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: they're gonna play with it. Also in October, Consumer Reports

717
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 1: revised its previous rating for the Tesla Model s Now. Originally,

718
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 1: they said the Tesla Model s was so good it

719
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: broke their ratings scale. They said it was it was

720
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: just remarkable how its performance was above and beyond every

721
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: other vehicle on the road. They revised that and said

722
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:39,760
Speaker 1: while the performance was still incredible, they were not reliable.

723
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: In other words, when they're working, they work great, but

724
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 1: they don't always work. So they pulled the recommendation rating

725
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: from the car as a result of these reliability issues,

726
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: and on October fifteen, we finally had Back to the

727
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: few Future Day. That's the date that Marty McFly and

728
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 1: Doc Brown visit in Back to the Future Too, and

729
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,399
Speaker 1: as part of that celebration, Nike announced that it would

730
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 1: be releasing self lacing shoes, which are also featured in

731
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: Back to the Future Too. Didn't get a whole lot

732
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: of other things that are in Back to the Future Too,

733
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: which I'm fine with. I don't need to see Jaw's

734
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:26,800
Speaker 1: nineteen Also, we saw that Yahoo announced its video streaming service,

735
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 1: which had picked up Community after it had been canceled

736
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: on broadcast television. The streaming service lost forty two million

737
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 1: dollars in the third quarter of largely due to the

738
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: expense of producing high end shows like Community. Uh. They

739
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: had not figured out how to monetize it, so things

740
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: were looking pretty grim for that Yahoo's streaming service, and

741
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal reported that chrome os is living

742
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,799
Speaker 1: on borrowed time, that in it will end up being

743
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: holded into Android, and that by you will no longer

744
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 1: be able to buy a Chromebook anywhere. They won't be

745
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: on sale anymore. Finally, November and I say finally because

746
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 1: remember it as December three as I record this, so

747
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 1: I don't really have any December news. On Black Friday,

748
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 1: which is the day after Thanksgiving here in the United States,

749
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: there was about just shy of a billion dollars nine

750
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: five million dollars in sales from smartphones and tablets. Not

751
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,760
Speaker 1: of the smartphones and tablets, but rather people were using

752
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: their mobile devices to do shopping, with iOS users spending

753
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: the most money. Apparently, mobile shopping had increased by from

754
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: the previous year, so it looks like more and more

755
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: people are using their mobile devices for their shopping needs. Ah.

756
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting to me, and it's again another implication

757
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: that the Internet is changing wildly, that that are noble

758
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: devices are becoming our our primary means of interacting with

759
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: the Internet these days. It's not true for me, but

760
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: it's certainly the the prevalent uh theme that I'm seeing

761
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: in every other you know, demographic, just not bald guys

762
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: who host tech stuff. And finally, it's rumored that the

763
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,919
Speaker 1: next iPhone will no longer have a three point five

764
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: millimeter headphone jack. Instead, you will have to use either

765
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: Bluetooth or a lightning connector to connect your your headset

766
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,439
Speaker 1: to your phone. Now, that means that if you're using

767
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: a hard wired headset, you will not be able to

768
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: do so while also charging the phone. You will have

769
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: to do one or the other. And it also means

770
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,319
Speaker 1: that if you want a hard wired headset, you're gonna

771
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: have to rely on a proprietary connector for headphones, which

772
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: really limits where you can get your headphones at least

773
00:49:55,040 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: until other manufacturers are able to produce lightning connector headsets,

774
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: and that tends to upset consumers. I know that I

775
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:06,879
Speaker 1: go crazy when I buy something that has its own

776
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 1: proprietary connector, because it means that if I lose that cable,

777
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,760
Speaker 1: that's it. I have to buy a replacement. In some places,

778
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: you can't even get replacement cables, at least not easily.

779
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 1: I'm thinking largely of h certain products from a company

780
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: that rhymes with Pony, but at any rate, that's tough.

781
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: Like I would much prefer to have UH universal connectors

782
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: because I've got tons of like many in micro USB cables,

783
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: for example, I would much rather have those, even if

784
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: they don't perform as well as lightning, because if I

785
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: lose one, I've still got replacements but that's the problem.

786
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 1: I guess, all right. So that wraps up the year

787
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 1: in review. Our next episode will be our predictions for

788
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, my favorite time of year when I

789
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: put on my prognosticator hat and I make wildly inaccurate predictions.

790
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: So I hope you guys enjoy those next episodes. I

791
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:06,399
Speaker 1: hope that your two thousand fifteen was a good one.

792
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,280
Speaker 1: I hope two thousand sixteen is even better. And guys,

793
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: if you have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

794
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: let me know. Send me a message. I'd love to

795
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: hear from you. My email address is tex Stuff at

796
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com or drop me aliance on Twitter,

797
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,839
Speaker 1: Tumbler or Facebook to handle it. All three of those

798
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 1: is text stuff hs W and I will talk to

799
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:39,280
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this and bathands

800
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it stuck works dot com.