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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 how the tech are you. It's time for the

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Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, November third, two thousand twenty two.

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Speaker 1: Let's rip off the band aid, y'all and get the

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Speaker 1: obligatory updates about Twitter out of the way. First. Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk has said that banned accounts, such as the one

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Speaker 1: belonging to former US President Donald Trump, will remain off

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Speaker 1: Twitter until the company has established a clear process for

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Speaker 1: evaluating and potentially reinstating accounts. That means it's unlikely that

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Speaker 1: the former president will be able to hop back onto

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Speaker 1: Twitter before the US midterm elections, which happened on November eight. Next,

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Speaker 1: Musk is running damage control while trying to reassure advertise

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Speaker 1: users that Twitter will not descend into total chaos and

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Speaker 1: that companies should totally feel good about advertising there. This

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Speaker 1: argument was probably not helped by the fact that in

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Speaker 1: the wake of Musk taking over Twitter, the use of

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Speaker 1: racist language and hate speech increased by nearly five times

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Speaker 1: the frequency of their use prior to the takeover. That's

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Speaker 1: according to researchers from Montclair State University. The ad world

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Speaker 1: is already seeing a slowdown across the industry due to

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Speaker 1: economic issues. This is not just something that's affecting Twitter,

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Speaker 1: but some advertising companies have been advising their clients to

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Speaker 1: perhaps pause their spending on Twitter while they wait for

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Speaker 1: a clear content policy from the new CEO. As for

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Speaker 1: what's happening within the company itself, Bloomberg reports that Musk

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Speaker 1: is looking to cut roughly half of all staff, which

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Speaker 1: is still less than what we had previously heard with

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Speaker 1: the the term bandied about late last month. But good gravy,

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Speaker 1: that is a lot of people. Okay, that gets us

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Speaker 1: up to speed with what's going on there. Let's put

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Speaker 1: Twitter in the rear view mirror and keep on going.

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Speaker 1: The Register reports that Microsoft is considering a strategy to

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Speaker 1: offer PCs through subscriptions and ads rather than your traditional

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Speaker 1: upfront purchase price. So, in other words, if you're in

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Speaker 1: the market for a PC and Microsoft does this, you

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Speaker 1: could get a computer for like a low monthly subscription

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Speaker 1: and or agreeing to have ads served to you. Jeff Bert,

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Speaker 1: the reporter who wrote the article on the Register, reminds

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Speaker 1: us that this is just something that is being considered

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Speaker 1: and that we may actually never see ads subsidized PCs

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Speaker 1: from Microsoft. But considering the PC market in general has

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Speaker 1: seen a sharp decline in sales recently, I would not

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Speaker 1: be surprised to learn that companies are looking at alternatives

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Speaker 1: in an effort to remain profitable. Such a PC would

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Speaker 1: likely lean heavily on cloud based services and apps. That

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Speaker 1: means it might not necessarily be particularly beefy. So for

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Speaker 1: the gamers out there, I suspect this offer would not

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Speaker 1: really mean anything because it's not likely to be the

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Speaker 1: sort of PC that you would want to run games

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Speaker 1: off of. But if you want a productivity PC, this

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Speaker 1: might end up being away that you can get access

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Speaker 1: to one without having to pay hundreds of bucks to

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Speaker 1: buy one. If, as I said, Microsoft moves forward, we'll

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Speaker 1: have to wait and see. The PC market is not

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Speaker 1: the only one in the tech industry that is seeing

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Speaker 1: tough times ahead. Qualcom, which is a microchip provider. It

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Speaker 1: makes the processors that power tons of smartphones, including iPhones

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Speaker 1: and Android phones, is predicting that phone sales are going

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Speaker 1: to slow down significantly due to the uncertain economic climate.

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Speaker 1: Folks are understandably looking to spend less money as inflation

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Speaker 1: rises in various parts of the world, which makes sense.

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Speaker 1: You want to make sure you're holding back money so

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Speaker 1: you can pay for necessities right, And as a result,

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Speaker 1: we're seeing fewer folks rush out to buy new tech

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Speaker 1: gadgets like computers and smartphones. Previously, Qualcom had predicted that

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Speaker 1: smartphone sales were going to decline in the single digit

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Speaker 1: percentage range, so anywhere between one and nine, but now

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Speaker 1: Qualcom has adjusted this prediction to say that it will

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Speaker 1: be more likely a low double digit percentage decline. The

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Speaker 1: uncertain economic climate is not the only factor at play here.

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Speaker 1: Another is that the supply chain issues, which were such

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Speaker 1: a huge challenge over the last couple of years, are

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Speaker 1: finally clearing up in some sectors. But this has actually

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Speaker 1: led to increased inventory, so you've got more supply and

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Speaker 1: declining demand. Qualcom predicts this decline demand will extend through

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Speaker 1: the rest of the year, and that they are currently

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Speaker 1: around eight to ten weeks worth of elevated inventory among

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Speaker 1: various carriers out there, So keep an eye out for

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Speaker 1: smartphone deals in case you're actually in the market to

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Speaker 1: get a new phone before the end of this year.

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Speaker 1: It is possible that we might see some enticing sales

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Speaker 1: around the holidays as companies attempt to offload some of

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Speaker 1: this inventory. It's not a guarantee, but it is a possibility.

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Speaker 1: And if you are someone who needs to get a

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Speaker 1: new phone and who has money set a site to

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Speaker 1: do that, be on the lookout for those potential deals.

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Speaker 1: They may very well be around the corner. No guarantee,

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Speaker 1: but I'd be shocked if we didn't see some massive

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Speaker 1: sales around the Black Friday event. You know, a wise

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Speaker 1: frog once said, it's not easy being green, but it's

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Speaker 1: also not easy to be radiant Orchid or tangerine tango

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Speaker 1: or specter a yellow. Those are names of colors designed

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Speaker 1: by Pantone. And you know it's not easy because if

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Speaker 1: you use Adobe's Creative Suite programs, you now have to

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Speaker 1: pay extra to Pantone in order to use those or

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Speaker 1: any other colors that they've created. Recently, Adobe users have

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Speaker 1: discovered that in order to use certain colors, they have

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Speaker 1: to agree to a fifteen dollar per month subscription to

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Speaker 1: Pantoe in order to access those. This is due to

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Speaker 1: a change in the licensing agreement between Adobe and Pantone.

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Speaker 1: And if you're not in design, you might think, what's

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Speaker 1: the big deal here? They are colors owned by some company.

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Speaker 1: Just use some other color. But Pantone has established itself

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Speaker 1: as sort of an industry standard for design when it

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Speaker 1: comes to color. The color matching in Pantone means you

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Speaker 1: know exactly what you're getting when you use those colors.

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Speaker 1: Of course, those colors might appear differently to the end

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Speaker 1: user depending upon how they're viewing them, like print versus

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Speaker 1: their screen versus a pristinely calibrated screen, etcetera. If a

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Speaker 1: designer has not coughed up this subscription fee, they will

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Speaker 1: encounter the color black rather than you know, poppy red

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Speaker 1: or vibrant green, or whatever Pantone color was supposed to

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Speaker 1: be there. This also applies to past designs. So if

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Speaker 1: you are a designer and you use the Adobe Suite

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Speaker 1: and you created stuff in the past and you have

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Speaker 1: not yet subscribed to this, if you go back and

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Speaker 1: open up any of your old designs that had Pantone

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Speaker 1: colors in it, you're going to see that those colors

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Speaker 1: have been replaced with black, and you'll get a message

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Speaker 1: saying that you need to subscribe to Pantone in order

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Speaker 1: to get access to those colors. Again. On top of

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Speaker 1: all this, it sounds like pantone solution, which is to

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Speaker 1: download a plug in extension that will supposedly work with

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Speaker 1: the Adobe Suite, hasn't had a success rate when it

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Speaker 1: comes to designers actually installing that plug in. Some people

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Speaker 1: are reporting that they have gone through the whole process

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Speaker 1: of subscribing and getting the plug in and installing it

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Speaker 1: and yet have not been able to access the plugins features,

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Speaker 1: so they haven't been able to get access to those colors.

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Speaker 1: After all, users have let their displeasure be known by

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Speaker 1: review bombing the plug in, which currently has a rating

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Speaker 1: of around one and a half stars, which is a

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Speaker 1: big old yikes. The Guardian reports that TikTok, which recently

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Speaker 1: updated its privacy policy, has revealed that staff around the

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Speaker 1: world can have access to user data, including within the

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Speaker 1: European Union. That is a big issue due to the

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Speaker 1: eu s stance on citizen privacy and how data should

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Speaker 1: be handled. The g d p R has extensive rules

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Speaker 1: about the fact that EU citizen data is supposed to

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Speaker 1: be kind of contained within the EU itself. You're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to have that data go outside the EU without

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Speaker 1: express permissions granted, and the thought of people in other

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Speaker 1: parts of the world into scriminately being able to access

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Speaker 1: personal information about EU citizens runs counter to those rules,

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Speaker 1: and according to The Guardian, even staff in China would

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Speaker 1: be able to look at user data in the EU.

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Speaker 1: That's something that we've seen kind of echoed here in

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Speaker 1: the US. We've seen policy makers and analysts raise red

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Speaker 1: flags that TikTok's parent company, which is byte Dance, a

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Speaker 1: Chinese company, could potentially end up sharing information by choice

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Speaker 1: or otherwise with the Chinese government. This is something that

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Speaker 1: TikTok reps have denied multiple times, but it remains a

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Speaker 1: concern in the US and in other places. This is

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Speaker 1: likely to feed into investigations in the EU by the

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Speaker 1: Irish Data Protection Commission. That's an agency that has had

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Speaker 1: multiple tech companies in their sites to hold them accountable

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Speaker 1: for their data practices with regard to EU citizen private information.

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Speaker 1: So not the end of the story by any means,

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Speaker 1: but it's another another sign of how this interconnected world

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Speaker 1: starts to run into some really challenging problems when you're

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Speaker 1: coming into realms like protecting user privacy and security. How

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Speaker 1: do you ensure that when you're talking about a global system,

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Speaker 1: but you don't have a global society, right, We have

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Speaker 1: a very fractured society around the world. So, yeah, interesting story.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll talk about a similar story

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Speaker 1: unfolding here in the United States, also involving TikTok. Right

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Speaker 1: after this break, we're back. So over here in the

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Speaker 1: United States, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has said that the

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Speaker 1: government should probably just outright ban TikTok from operating within

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Speaker 1: the United States. Card told reporters that he saw very

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Speaker 1: little chance for any sort of suitable arrangement to be

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Speaker 1: made regarding TikTok and the US government specifically with the

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Speaker 1: focus on national security concerns. He expressed pessimism that any

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Speaker 1: deal would be ironclad enough to prevent TikTok from sharing

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Speaker 1: data with bite Dance, and as such, there will be

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Speaker 1: no real way forward to really protect US data other

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Speaker 1: than just banning TikTok outright in the United States, which

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Speaker 1: is a pretty jarring thing to consider. I cannot remember

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Speaker 1: a time when the US government told a US based company,

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Speaker 1: we cannot let you exist here. I mean, apart from

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Speaker 1: companies that ended up being total scams. Right, total scams

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Speaker 1: you get because that is a deception played upon the

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Speaker 1: US population. The government may well get involved in those cases,

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Speaker 1: but for ones where it's not a scam but there

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Speaker 1: is a national security element to it, that's kind of

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Speaker 1: an outlier. TikTok, just to remind you again, it is

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Speaker 1: a subsidiary of the Chinese company Byte Dance, but TikTok

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Speaker 1: itself is US based, so it is a complicated matter. Um.

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Speaker 1: TikTok has obviously tried to settle these concerns in various ways.

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Speaker 1: This summer, it migrated all of US user data to

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Speaker 1: servers that are on Oracles systems, so those servers are

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Speaker 1: not Chinese based servers, and TikTok was really hoping that

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Speaker 1: that would help take some of the heat off the

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Speaker 1: company as various policy makers began to question whether or

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Speaker 1: not the company represents a threat to national security. All

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Speaker 1: that being said, FCC Commissioner car has expressed his own opinion.

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Speaker 1: He does not factor into the negotiations between TikTok and

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Speaker 1: the US government, so it's not his decision to make.

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Speaker 1: He's just saying, I can't it imagine a deal that

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Speaker 1: would be sufficient to protect U S citizens. And really

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Speaker 1: the only way forward I see if you want to

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Speaker 1: protect citizens is to ban TikTok. That you know. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: that does not mean the US government will ban TikTok.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I think that's an a very small possibility.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it'll happen. Uh, it's hard for me to say.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I have no insight on this other than

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Speaker 1: it feels to me like that's unlikely. But even if

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Speaker 1: the government does do that, you know, I will cover

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Speaker 1: the story, although you'll probably be aware of it already

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Speaker 1: because there'll be kids all over the place saying things

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Speaker 1: like why dance if nobody is watching. Back in October,

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Speaker 1: pro Publica published the results of an investigation into a

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Speaker 1: Texas based services company on the matter of price fixing.

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Speaker 1: I actually thought about covering the story when it first broke,

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Speaker 1: but thought it was a little too regional. It's not really,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, let's let's get into it. So the company

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Speaker 1: is called real Page and one of the services that

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Speaker 1: it offers to property managers you know, landlords, is called

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Speaker 1: yield Star, and this is software is designed to suggest

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Speaker 1: optimal rental prices for property managers. The ideas that the

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Speaker 1: software can help a landlord set a proper rental price

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Speaker 1: for any given property, whether it's an apartment or a

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Speaker 1: home or whatever. It takes all these different factors into account.

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Speaker 1: You know, market factors for that specific region, what are

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Speaker 1: other landlords charging that kind of thing, and you get

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Speaker 1: daily updates with suggestions about where to set rental prices.

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Speaker 1: And Pro Publica alleges that because you have so relatively

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Speaker 1: few property managers out there, this software leads to situations

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Speaker 1: where you effectively have price fixing and collusion between landlords,

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Speaker 1: even though they're not directly talking to one another. By

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Speaker 1: the ample fact that they're all relying upon this kind

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Speaker 1: of software, it is the software that is effectively handling

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Speaker 1: all the collusion. So Pro publica as investigation also revealed

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Speaker 1: that like in parts of Seattle, for example, seventy of

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Speaker 1: all rental housing is overseen by just ten property managers.

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Speaker 1: So you have just ten entities overseeing seventy of the

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Speaker 1: rental properties in this one place. So if these ten

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Speaker 1: property managers are using this software, then the vast majority

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Speaker 1: of rental properties are going to have their prices determined

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Speaker 1: by this software that's looking to maximize revenue for the landlords.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's why landlords want to use the software

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Speaker 1: in the first place, right, They want to be able

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Speaker 1: to determine how much can I charge in rent for

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Speaker 1: this property that will maximize my own personal revenue, Which

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Speaker 1: makes sense, that's the whole nature of being a landlord.

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Speaker 1: But if this software is doing it for all of

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Speaker 1: different property managers within a region, they can start hiking

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Speaker 1: up that price and there's a lack of competition. You're

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Speaker 1: not going to be told, hey, you need to set

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Speaker 1: your price at this level, because it will definitely still

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Speaker 1: make you a profit, but it will undercut your competition

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Speaker 1: and more people will be drawn to your properties instead.

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Speaker 1: It's more like, here's how much everyone's charging, so here's

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Speaker 1: how much you can charge. And ultimately it's the end customer,

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Speaker 1: you know, the renters who are hurt by this lack

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Speaker 1: of competition, they don't have alternatives they can go to

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Speaker 1: where they're not spending more than what the market would

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Speaker 1: typically bear to rent their properties. So now U S.

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Speaker 1: Senator Shared Brown is calling for an FTC review into

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Speaker 1: the matter after Pro Publica published this investigation. This kind

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Speaker 1: of collusion has happened in the past, but in this

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Speaker 1: case It's really interesting because it's the software that's facilitating

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. Uh it, it really gives the participating

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Speaker 1: landlords and out right it's not they can say, hey,

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Speaker 1: we weren't trying to collude, we weren't trying to fix prices.

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Speaker 1: We were using a tool to help determine how to

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Speaker 1: run our business. Anyway. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see

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Speaker 1: if this will lead to a full FTC investigation in

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Speaker 1: what that outcome could be, because it could mean that

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Speaker 1: we see a real strict kind of limitation put on

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Speaker 1: this type of software in general, the type that's meant

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Speaker 1: to maximize revenue for for certain types of services, because

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Speaker 1: it could lead to that anti competitive situation. Finally, Meta,

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Speaker 1: in its ongoing quest to make the future of the

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Speaker 1: Internet happen even if nobody wants it, announced that it

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Speaker 1: is testing a new feature on Instagram. That feature lets

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Speaker 1: a quote small group of creators in the US end

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Speaker 1: quote meant in f T s, and then users can

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Speaker 1: purchase the n f T S. So it's an n

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Speaker 1: f T marketplace that's integrated into Instagram that they're testing.

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Speaker 1: The n f T marketplace is going to be on

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Speaker 1: top of the polygon blockchain. Polygon is just one of

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Speaker 1: many block chains out there, and that would be the

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Speaker 1: foundation for this particular n f T marketplace. So you could,

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Speaker 1: you know, trade on the Instagram platform or directly onto

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Speaker 1: the Polygon blockchain. Users will be able to display their

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Speaker 1: n f T s on Instagram, So I guess that's

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Speaker 1: a that's an attractive feature. Now, I admit I am

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Speaker 1: not the audience for this. Heck, I'm not even on

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Speaker 1: Instagram anymore, so I definitely not the person this is

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Speaker 1: targeted to. I still find the idea of buying n

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Speaker 1: f T s to be questionable at best. Um and

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Speaker 1: creating a culture where displaying n f T purchases rubs

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Speaker 1: me the wrong way. It kind of starts to get

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Speaker 1: into this kind of concern ubicuous consumption idea. Listen, I

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Speaker 1: grew up in the eighties. I just I find all

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Speaker 1: that ikey at this point. So all of that kind

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Speaker 1: of strikes me the wrong way. At this stage. However,

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Speaker 1: I can understand the idea as being a way to

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Speaker 1: support maybe a specific artist. Right. So let's say that

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Speaker 1: there's a cartoonist who has an Instagram account, and this

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Speaker 1: cartoonist has decided to mint n f T s of

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Speaker 1: their work based off their work. So you purchase an

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Speaker 1: n f T to show your support for that artist.

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Speaker 1: You really like that artist, You buy an n f

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Speaker 1: T to support that person, and so that's the nature

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Speaker 1: of that transaction. And then you also have the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to display your n f T on Instagram, which could

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Speaker 1: act as a kind of promotion for that artist. You're

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Speaker 1: you're saying, I support this person, I think they're worthy

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Speaker 1: of support. You should check them out when you think

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Speaker 1: of it that way. I can groove on that, but

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Speaker 1: I find the whole n f T approach to be

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Speaker 1: questionable at best. I have proven myself to be completely

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Speaker 1: out of touch on these sorts of things. So I'm

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Speaker 1: just gonna stop talking now and I'll wait to fade

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Speaker 1: into oblivion while I do that. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to get in touch with me and let me know

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Speaker 1: about things I should talk about in future episodes, you

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Speaker 1: can do so by downloading the I Heart radio app,

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Speaker 1: navigate over to the tech stuff page, and you can

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Speaker 1: use the little microphone icon to record a message up

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Speaker 1: to thirty seconds in length. Let me know what you

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Speaker 1: would like to hear. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Speaker 1: Or you can pop on over to Twitter while it's

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Speaker 1: still a thing and send me a message there. The

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Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W and

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again, really SI. Tech Stuff is

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Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite. It's only