Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, November third, two thousand twenty two.
Speaker 1: Let's rip off the band aid, y'all and get the
Speaker 1: obligatory updates about Twitter out of the way. First. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has said that banned accounts, such as the one
Speaker 1: belonging to former US President Donald Trump, will remain off
Speaker 1: Twitter until the company has established a clear process for
Speaker 1: evaluating and potentially reinstating accounts. That means it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: the former president will be able to hop back onto
Speaker 1: Twitter before the US midterm elections, which happened on November eight. Next,
Speaker 1: Musk is running damage control while trying to reassure advertise
Speaker 1: users that Twitter will not descend into total chaos and
Speaker 1: that companies should totally feel good about advertising there. This
Speaker 1: argument was probably not helped by the fact that in
Speaker 1: the wake of Musk taking over Twitter, the use of
Speaker 1: racist language and hate speech increased by nearly five times
Speaker 1: the frequency of their use prior to the takeover. That's
Speaker 1: according to researchers from Montclair State University. The ad world
Speaker 1: is already seeing a slowdown across the industry due to
Speaker 1: economic issues. This is not just something that's affecting Twitter,
Speaker 1: but some advertising companies have been advising their clients to
Speaker 1: perhaps pause their spending on Twitter while they wait for
Speaker 1: a clear content policy from the new CEO. As for
Speaker 1: what's happening within the company itself, Bloomberg reports that Musk
Speaker 1: is looking to cut roughly half of all staff, which
Speaker 1: is still less than what we had previously heard with
Speaker 1: the the term bandied about late last month. But good gravy,
Speaker 1: that is a lot of people. Okay, that gets us
Speaker 1: up to speed with what's going on there. Let's put
Speaker 1: Twitter in the rear view mirror and keep on going.
Speaker 1: The Register reports that Microsoft is considering a strategy to
Speaker 1: offer PCs through subscriptions and ads rather than your traditional
Speaker 1: upfront purchase price. So, in other words, if you're in
Speaker 1: the market for a PC and Microsoft does this, you
Speaker 1: could get a computer for like a low monthly subscription
Speaker 1: and or agreeing to have ads served to you. Jeff Bert,
Speaker 1: the reporter who wrote the article on the Register, reminds
Speaker 1: us that this is just something that is being considered
Speaker 1: and that we may actually never see ads subsidized PCs
Speaker 1: from Microsoft. But considering the PC market in general has
Speaker 1: seen a sharp decline in sales recently, I would not
Speaker 1: be surprised to learn that companies are looking at alternatives
Speaker 1: in an effort to remain profitable. Such a PC would
Speaker 1: likely lean heavily on cloud based services and apps. That
Speaker 1: means it might not necessarily be particularly beefy. So for
Speaker 1: the gamers out there, I suspect this offer would not
Speaker 1: really mean anything because it's not likely to be the
Speaker 1: sort of PC that you would want to run games
Speaker 1: off of. But if you want a productivity PC, this
Speaker 1: might end up being away that you can get access
Speaker 1: to one without having to pay hundreds of bucks to
Speaker 1: buy one. If, as I said, Microsoft moves forward, we'll
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. The PC market is not
Speaker 1: the only one in the tech industry that is seeing
Speaker 1: tough times ahead. Qualcom, which is a microchip provider. It
Speaker 1: makes the processors that power tons of smartphones, including iPhones
Speaker 1: and Android phones, is predicting that phone sales are going
Speaker 1: to slow down significantly due to the uncertain economic climate.
Speaker 1: Folks are understandably looking to spend less money as inflation
Speaker 1: rises in various parts of the world, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure you're holding back money so
Speaker 1: you can pay for necessities right, And as a result,
Speaker 1: we're seeing fewer folks rush out to buy new tech
Speaker 1: gadgets like computers and smartphones. Previously, Qualcom had predicted that
Speaker 1: smartphone sales were going to decline in the single digit
Speaker 1: percentage range, so anywhere between one and nine, but now
Speaker 1: Qualcom has adjusted this prediction to say that it will
Speaker 1: be more likely a low double digit percentage decline. The
Speaker 1: uncertain economic climate is not the only factor at play here.
Speaker 1: Another is that the supply chain issues, which were such
Speaker 1: a huge challenge over the last couple of years, are
Speaker 1: finally clearing up in some sectors. But this has actually
Speaker 1: led to increased inventory, so you've got more supply and
Speaker 1: declining demand. Qualcom predicts this decline demand will extend through
Speaker 1: the rest of the year, and that they are currently
Speaker 1: around eight to ten weeks worth of elevated inventory among
Speaker 1: various carriers out there, So keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: smartphone deals in case you're actually in the market to
Speaker 1: get a new phone before the end of this year.
Speaker 1: It is possible that we might see some enticing sales
Speaker 1: around the holidays as companies attempt to offload some of
Speaker 1: this inventory. It's not a guarantee, but it is a possibility.
Speaker 1: And if you are someone who needs to get a
Speaker 1: new phone and who has money set a site to
Speaker 1: do that, be on the lookout for those potential deals.
Speaker 1: They may very well be around the corner. No guarantee,
Speaker 1: but I'd be shocked if we didn't see some massive
Speaker 1: sales around the Black Friday event. You know, a wise
Speaker 1: frog once said, it's not easy being green, but it's
Speaker 1: also not easy to be radiant Orchid or tangerine tango
Speaker 1: or specter a yellow. Those are names of colors designed
Speaker 1: by Pantone. And you know it's not easy because if
Speaker 1: you use Adobe's Creative Suite programs, you now have to
Speaker 1: pay extra to Pantone in order to use those or
Speaker 1: any other colors that they've created. Recently, Adobe users have
Speaker 1: discovered that in order to use certain colors, they have
Speaker 1: to agree to a fifteen dollar per month subscription to
Speaker 1: Pantoe in order to access those. This is due to
Speaker 1: a change in the licensing agreement between Adobe and Pantone.
Speaker 1: And if you're not in design, you might think, what's
Speaker 1: the big deal here? They are colors owned by some company.
Speaker 1: Just use some other color. But Pantone has established itself
Speaker 1: as sort of an industry standard for design when it
Speaker 1: comes to color. The color matching in Pantone means you
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're getting when you use those colors.
Speaker 1: Of course, those colors might appear differently to the end
Speaker 1: user depending upon how they're viewing them, like print versus
Speaker 1: their screen versus a pristinely calibrated screen, etcetera. If a
Speaker 1: designer has not coughed up this subscription fee, they will
Speaker 1: encounter the color black rather than you know, poppy red
Speaker 1: or vibrant green, or whatever Pantone color was supposed to
Speaker 1: be there. This also applies to past designs. So if
Speaker 1: you are a designer and you use the Adobe Suite
Speaker 1: and you created stuff in the past and you have
Speaker 1: not yet subscribed to this, if you go back and
Speaker 1: open up any of your old designs that had Pantone
Speaker 1: colors in it, you're going to see that those colors
Speaker 1: have been replaced with black, and you'll get a message
Speaker 1: saying that you need to subscribe to Pantone in order
Speaker 1: to get access to those colors. Again. On top of
Speaker 1: all this, it sounds like pantone solution, which is to
Speaker 1: download a plug in extension that will supposedly work with
Speaker 1: the Adobe Suite, hasn't had a success rate when it
Speaker 1: comes to designers actually installing that plug in. Some people
Speaker 1: are reporting that they have gone through the whole process
Speaker 1: of subscribing and getting the plug in and installing it
Speaker 1: and yet have not been able to access the plugins features,
Speaker 1: so they haven't been able to get access to those colors.
Speaker 1: After all, users have let their displeasure be known by
Speaker 1: review bombing the plug in, which currently has a rating
Speaker 1: of around one and a half stars, which is a
Speaker 1: big old yikes. The Guardian reports that TikTok, which recently
Speaker 1: updated its privacy policy, has revealed that staff around the
Speaker 1: world can have access to user data, including within the
Speaker 1: European Union. That is a big issue due to the
Speaker 1: eu s stance on citizen privacy and how data should
Speaker 1: be handled. The g d p R has extensive rules
Speaker 1: about the fact that EU citizen data is supposed to
Speaker 1: be kind of contained within the EU itself. You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to have that data go outside the EU without
Speaker 1: express permissions granted, and the thought of people in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world into scriminately being able to access
Speaker 1: personal information about EU citizens runs counter to those rules,
Speaker 1: and according to The Guardian, even staff in China would
Speaker 1: be able to look at user data in the EU.
Speaker 1: That's something that we've seen kind of echoed here in
Speaker 1: the US. We've seen policy makers and analysts raise red
Speaker 1: flags that TikTok's parent company, which is byte Dance, a
Speaker 1: Chinese company, could potentially end up sharing information by choice
Speaker 1: or otherwise with the Chinese government. This is something that
Speaker 1: TikTok reps have denied multiple times, but it remains a
Speaker 1: concern in the US and in other places. This is
Speaker 1: likely to feed into investigations in the EU by the
Speaker 1: Irish Data Protection Commission. That's an agency that has had
Speaker 1: multiple tech companies in their sites to hold them accountable
Speaker 1: for their data practices with regard to EU citizen private information.
Speaker 1: So not the end of the story by any means,
Speaker 1: but it's another another sign of how this interconnected world
Speaker 1: starts to run into some really challenging problems when you're
Speaker 1: coming into realms like protecting user privacy and security. How
Speaker 1: do you ensure that when you're talking about a global system,
Speaker 1: but you don't have a global society, right, We have
Speaker 1: a very fractured society around the world. So, yeah, interesting story.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll talk about a similar story
Speaker 1: unfolding here in the United States, also involving TikTok. Right
Speaker 1: after this break, we're back. So over here in the
Speaker 1: United States, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has said that the
Speaker 1: government should probably just outright ban TikTok from operating within
Speaker 1: the United States. Card told reporters that he saw very
Speaker 1: little chance for any sort of suitable arrangement to be
Speaker 1: made regarding TikTok and the US government specifically with the
Speaker 1: focus on national security concerns. He expressed pessimism that any
Speaker 1: deal would be ironclad enough to prevent TikTok from sharing
Speaker 1: data with bite Dance, and as such, there will be
Speaker 1: no real way forward to really protect US data other
Speaker 1: than just banning TikTok outright in the United States, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty jarring thing to consider. I cannot remember
Speaker 1: a time when the US government told a US based company,
Speaker 1: we cannot let you exist here. I mean, apart from
Speaker 1: companies that ended up being total scams. Right, total scams
Speaker 1: you get because that is a deception played upon the
Speaker 1: US population. The government may well get involved in those cases,
Speaker 1: but for ones where it's not a scam but there
Speaker 1: is a national security element to it, that's kind of
Speaker 1: an outlier. TikTok, just to remind you again, it is
Speaker 1: a subsidiary of the Chinese company Byte Dance, but TikTok
Speaker 1: itself is US based, so it is a complicated matter. Um.
Speaker 1: TikTok has obviously tried to settle these concerns in various ways.
Speaker 1: This summer, it migrated all of US user data to
Speaker 1: servers that are on Oracles systems, so those servers are
Speaker 1: not Chinese based servers, and TikTok was really hoping that
Speaker 1: that would help take some of the heat off the
Speaker 1: company as various policy makers began to question whether or
Speaker 1: not the company represents a threat to national security. All
Speaker 1: that being said, FCC Commissioner car has expressed his own opinion.
Speaker 1: He does not factor into the negotiations between TikTok and
Speaker 1: the US government, so it's not his decision to make.
Speaker 1: He's just saying, I can't it imagine a deal that
Speaker 1: would be sufficient to protect U S citizens. And really
Speaker 1: the only way forward I see if you want to
Speaker 1: protect citizens is to ban TikTok. That you know. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that does not mean the US government will ban TikTok.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that's an a very small possibility.
Speaker 1: Maybe it'll happen. Uh, it's hard for me to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have no insight on this other than
Speaker 1: it feels to me like that's unlikely. But even if
Speaker 1: the government does do that, you know, I will cover
Speaker 1: the story, although you'll probably be aware of it already
Speaker 1: because there'll be kids all over the place saying things
Speaker 1: like why dance if nobody is watching. Back in October,
Speaker 1: pro Publica published the results of an investigation into a
Speaker 1: Texas based services company on the matter of price fixing.
Speaker 1: I actually thought about covering the story when it first broke,
Speaker 1: but thought it was a little too regional. It's not really,
Speaker 1: but yeah, let's let's get into it. So the company
Speaker 1: is called real Page and one of the services that
Speaker 1: it offers to property managers you know, landlords, is called
Speaker 1: yield Star, and this is software is designed to suggest
Speaker 1: optimal rental prices for property managers. The ideas that the
Speaker 1: software can help a landlord set a proper rental price
Speaker 1: for any given property, whether it's an apartment or a
Speaker 1: home or whatever. It takes all these different factors into account.
Speaker 1: You know, market factors for that specific region, what are
Speaker 1: other landlords charging that kind of thing, and you get
Speaker 1: daily updates with suggestions about where to set rental prices.
Speaker 1: And Pro Publica alleges that because you have so relatively
Speaker 1: few property managers out there, this software leads to situations
Speaker 1: where you effectively have price fixing and collusion between landlords,
Speaker 1: even though they're not directly talking to one another. By
Speaker 1: the ample fact that they're all relying upon this kind
Speaker 1: of software, it is the software that is effectively handling
Speaker 1: all the collusion. So Pro publica as investigation also revealed
Speaker 1: that like in parts of Seattle, for example, seventy of
Speaker 1: all rental housing is overseen by just ten property managers.
Speaker 1: So you have just ten entities overseeing seventy of the
Speaker 1: rental properties in this one place. So if these ten
Speaker 1: property managers are using this software, then the vast majority
Speaker 1: of rental properties are going to have their prices determined
Speaker 1: by this software that's looking to maximize revenue for the landlords.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why landlords want to use the software
Speaker 1: in the first place, right, They want to be able
Speaker 1: to determine how much can I charge in rent for
Speaker 1: this property that will maximize my own personal revenue, Which
Speaker 1: makes sense, that's the whole nature of being a landlord.
Speaker 1: But if this software is doing it for all of
Speaker 1: different property managers within a region, they can start hiking
Speaker 1: up that price and there's a lack of competition. You're
Speaker 1: not going to be told, hey, you need to set
Speaker 1: your price at this level, because it will definitely still
Speaker 1: make you a profit, but it will undercut your competition
Speaker 1: and more people will be drawn to your properties instead.
Speaker 1: It's more like, here's how much everyone's charging, so here's
Speaker 1: how much you can charge. And ultimately it's the end customer,
Speaker 1: you know, the renters who are hurt by this lack
Speaker 1: of competition, they don't have alternatives they can go to
Speaker 1: where they're not spending more than what the market would
Speaker 1: typically bear to rent their properties. So now U S.
Speaker 1: Senator Shared Brown is calling for an FTC review into
Speaker 1: the matter after Pro Publica published this investigation. This kind
Speaker 1: of collusion has happened in the past, but in this
Speaker 1: case It's really interesting because it's the software that's facilitating
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Uh it, it really gives the participating
Speaker 1: landlords and out right it's not they can say, hey,
Speaker 1: we weren't trying to collude, we weren't trying to fix prices.
Speaker 1: We were using a tool to help determine how to
Speaker 1: run our business. Anyway. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: if this will lead to a full FTC investigation in
Speaker 1: what that outcome could be, because it could mean that
Speaker 1: we see a real strict kind of limitation put on
Speaker 1: this type of software in general, the type that's meant
Speaker 1: to maximize revenue for for certain types of services, because
Speaker 1: it could lead to that anti competitive situation. Finally, Meta,
Speaker 1: in its ongoing quest to make the future of the
Speaker 1: Internet happen even if nobody wants it, announced that it
Speaker 1: is testing a new feature on Instagram. That feature lets
Speaker 1: a quote small group of creators in the US end
Speaker 1: quote meant in f T s, and then users can
Speaker 1: purchase the n f T S. So it's an n
Speaker 1: f T marketplace that's integrated into Instagram that they're testing.
Speaker 1: The n f T marketplace is going to be on
Speaker 1: top of the polygon blockchain. Polygon is just one of
Speaker 1: many block chains out there, and that would be the
Speaker 1: foundation for this particular n f T marketplace. So you could,
Speaker 1: you know, trade on the Instagram platform or directly onto
Speaker 1: the Polygon blockchain. Users will be able to display their
Speaker 1: n f T s on Instagram, So I guess that's
Speaker 1: a that's an attractive feature. Now, I admit I am
Speaker 1: not the audience for this. Heck, I'm not even on
Speaker 1: Instagram anymore, so I definitely not the person this is
Speaker 1: targeted to. I still find the idea of buying n
Speaker 1: f T s to be questionable at best. Um and
Speaker 1: creating a culture where displaying n f T purchases rubs
Speaker 1: me the wrong way. It kind of starts to get
Speaker 1: into this kind of concern ubicuous consumption idea. Listen, I
Speaker 1: grew up in the eighties. I just I find all
Speaker 1: that ikey at this point. So all of that kind
Speaker 1: of strikes me the wrong way. At this stage. However,
Speaker 1: I can understand the idea as being a way to
Speaker 1: support maybe a specific artist. Right. So let's say that
Speaker 1: there's a cartoonist who has an Instagram account, and this
Speaker 1: cartoonist has decided to mint n f T s of
Speaker 1: their work based off their work. So you purchase an
Speaker 1: n f T to show your support for that artist.
Speaker 1: You really like that artist, You buy an n f
Speaker 1: T to support that person, and so that's the nature
Speaker 1: of that transaction. And then you also have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to display your n f T on Instagram, which could
Speaker 1: act as a kind of promotion for that artist. You're
Speaker 1: you're saying, I support this person, I think they're worthy
Speaker 1: of support. You should check them out when you think
Speaker 1: of it that way. I can groove on that, but
Speaker 1: I find the whole n f T approach to be
Speaker 1: questionable at best. I have proven myself to be completely
Speaker 1: out of touch on these sorts of things. So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna stop talking now and I'll wait to fade
Speaker 1: into oblivion while I do that. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with me and let me know
Speaker 1: about things I should talk about in future episodes, you
Speaker 1: can do so by downloading the I Heart radio app,
Speaker 1: navigate over to the tech stuff page, and you can
Speaker 1: use the little microphone icon to record a message up
Speaker 1: to thirty seconds in length. Let me know what you
Speaker 1: would like to hear. I look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1: Or you can pop on over to Twitter while it's
Speaker 1: still a thing and send me a message there. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again, really SI. Tech Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
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