Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff tech News edition
Speaker 1: for Tuesday, January five, twenty twenty one. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And welcome to the
Speaker 1: very first episode of tech Stuff, covering tech news every
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday. And I'll bring you headlines from the
Speaker 1: tech world and give you a little context and maybe
Speaker 1: some of that old Strickland flair which usually manifests as
Speaker 1: puns and stupid references. Spoiler alert, you'll get at least
Speaker 1: one of those in this episode. So let's hit the
Speaker 1: headlines now. In this first section, I thought I would
Speaker 1: cover some of the heaviest topics, and our first is
Speaker 1: a big one. My top story is that a judge
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom has denied a request from the
Speaker 1: United States to extradite Julian Assange to the u S.
Speaker 1: Assange is the founder of Wiki Leaks, or is often
Speaker 1: credited as such. That is, the organization dedicated to publishing
Speaker 1: internal documents from governments, companies, and other organizations in an
Speaker 1: effort to increase transparency. The official wiki Leaks site puts
Speaker 1: it like this, Our goal is to bring important news
Speaker 1: and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure,
Speaker 1: an anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists.
Speaker 1: Then they mentioned that that way is their electronic dropbox.
Speaker 1: One of our most important activities is to publish original
Speaker 1: source material alongside our news stories, so readers and historians
Speaker 1: alike can see evidence of the truth end quote. The
Speaker 1: organization has been connected to several high profile events around
Speaker 1: the world, just early involving clandest in government activities or
Speaker 1: ethically questionable corporate practices. Sometimes you end up getting both
Speaker 1: at the same time, and as such, the organization is
Speaker 1: frequently under let's call it intense scrutiny and pressure, political
Speaker 1: and business and otherwise. It has also occasionally shown a
Speaker 1: tendency to promote baseless conspiracy theories and be used as
Speaker 1: sort of an end to push Asane's particular political views.
Speaker 1: For example, during the twenty sixteen election cycle, WikiLeaks published
Speaker 1: many reports that were seen as particularly harmful for Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's ultimately unsuccessful campaign to become president. In addition, Julian
Speaker 1: Assange made statements saying Clinton would be a bad president
Speaker 1: and later investigations showed that WikiLeaks representatives had sent numerous
Speaker 1: messages to Donald Trump Jr. Coaching him on how the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign might contest election results of things not go
Speaker 1: their way now. In the end, the election, of course,
Speaker 1: went to Trump in twenty sixteen, but as we see
Speaker 1: his administration push very hard to overturn the election results
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty, it seems like some of that playbook
Speaker 1: might still be in use. Various agencies in the United
Speaker 1: States have been investigating Wiki leaks and Assange all the
Speaker 1: way back since in a federal grand jury indicted Assange,
Speaker 1: though at the time only a relatively small number of
Speaker 1: people actually knew what that indictment was because it was
Speaker 1: a sealed indictment. However, in twenty nineteen, Assange lost his
Speaker 1: asylum status at the Ecuador embassy in London. That in
Speaker 1: itself is a long story. Assange had been there since,
Speaker 1: but in twenty nineteen British officers would arrest Assange once
Speaker 1: Ecuador no longer gave him asylum, and this all stemmed
Speaker 1: from a twenty twelve decision in which the UK was
Speaker 1: going to extradite Assange to Sweden after Assange had become
Speaker 1: the focus of a sexual assault case. Now that's when
Speaker 1: Assange skipped bail and sought asylum at the Ecuador embassy.
Speaker 1: So this arrest was in response to him skipping bail.
Speaker 1: The Swedish authorities who were pursuing that sexual assault case
Speaker 1: against Assange had dropped charges in twenty nineteen. Now, Sange,
Speaker 1: for his part, said the only reason that he was
Speaker 1: fighting extradition to Sweden in the first place was that
Speaker 1: he saw that as a stepping stone for him getting
Speaker 1: extradited to the United States. In other words, he was saying,
Speaker 1: don't send me to Sweden because they're not really interested
Speaker 1: in pursuing a case against me. There's no case against me.
Speaker 1: They just want to get me so that I can
Speaker 1: then be sent to the United States. So the UK
Speaker 1: authorities took a Sage into custody, and then American lawyers
Speaker 1: delivered a couple of indictments and demanded a Sange be
Speaker 1: extradited to the US to stand trial, which kind of
Speaker 1: you know, goes to report what Assange was saying would
Speaker 1: happen if he had been sent to Sweden in the
Speaker 1: first place. So first up among those indictments was the
Speaker 1: sealed indictment which related back to a league from Chelsea Manning,
Speaker 1: and we learned that this indictment charges a Sange with
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. That's essentially a a hacker charge,
Speaker 1: and it has a maximum of a five year sentence.
Speaker 1: So while it's a crime, you wouldn't consider it something
Speaker 1: that a country would spend a decade plus pursuing. However,
Speaker 1: closely following that was another indictment, this one including seventeen
Speaker 1: charges against a Sange and stating that he violated the
Speaker 1: Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen. Now, this one is a
Speaker 1: much more serious charge or series of charges, I guess
Speaker 1: I should say, and it carries with it a potential
Speaker 1: maximum sentence of more than a hundred fifty years in prison.
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot to say about those charges, including
Speaker 1: the implications of what it would mean for journals if
Speaker 1: Assange were found guilty of them, but as of right
Speaker 1: now that's a moot point because the UK judge denied
Speaker 1: the extradition demands. The UK judge stated that Assange is
Speaker 1: not mentally fit for such a thing, that he might
Speaker 1: be a suicide risk were that to go through. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the request is denied due to concerns
Speaker 1: for the health of the accused. The US can appeal
Speaker 1: this decision, but as of this recording, Assange remains in
Speaker 1: custody in the UK. There have been talks of a
Speaker 1: possible presidential pardon from Donald Trump. That would be interesting
Speaker 1: because it was largely his administration that has pushed for
Speaker 1: the charges under the Espionage Act. The Obama administration chose
Speaker 1: not to do that, largely because of those concerns of
Speaker 1: how it would affect journalists. It's not like they had
Speaker 1: a soft spot for Assange, but more that it was
Speaker 1: hard to justify those charges if journalists would not be
Speaker 1: held to the same measure. I'm sure we're gonna have
Speaker 1: all lot more to talk about this story later on
Speaker 1: this year. But moving on over at Google, more than
Speaker 1: two hundred employees have signed cards supporting the formation of
Speaker 1: an employee union called the Alphabet Workers Union. Employee union
Speaker 1: is a difficult phrase for me to say, but Alphabet,
Speaker 1: in case you weren't aware, is the name of the
Speaker 1: holding company under which Google sits, along with companies like Weymo.
Speaker 1: The unionization follows several instances and which employees collectively protested
Speaker 1: Google corporate moves from being involved with military projects like
Speaker 1: Project Maven to Google's forced arbitration policy. Now that last
Speaker 1: one is a policy in which Google requires employees to
Speaker 1: first pursue any concerns they might have that could even be,
Speaker 1: you know, legal concerns. They have to first pursue them
Speaker 1: internally with Google HR before they can then look to
Speaker 1: external solutions like lead election. This became particularly important when
Speaker 1: Andy Rubin, a former Google executive and father of the
Speaker 1: Android smartphone platform, left Google amid sexual harassment allegations very
Speaker 1: credible ones, while also pocketing a ninety million dollar exit package.
Speaker 1: Membership in the union is being extended or will be extended,
Speaker 1: not just a full time employees, but also Google contractors,
Speaker 1: who lack many of the benefits that full time Googlers have.
Speaker 1: They also represent the bulk of the workforce at Google.
Speaker 1: The plan is for the Alphabet Workers Union to work
Speaker 1: with the Communications Workers of America or c w A
Speaker 1: in order to unionize, and if the process succeeds, Google
Speaker 1: employees will devote a percentage reportedly one per cent of
Speaker 1: their salary or their earnings from the company to union fees,
Speaker 1: which will pay for organization and legal fees, among other things.
Speaker 1: Wings The hope is to put pressure on Google leadership,
Speaker 1: which has been under criticism from multiple parties, both internally
Speaker 1: and externally over the past few years for everything from
Speaker 1: protecting executives from investigations into sexual harassment allegations to suppressing
Speaker 1: employee attempts to organize protests. Next, Tesla just fell short
Speaker 1: of its goal of producing five hundred thousand vehicles in
Speaker 1: even with a global pandemic in play. The company reported
Speaker 1: that it had shipped four hundred thousand, five hundred fifty
Speaker 1: vehicles in the year, and that's pretty impressive. But also
Speaker 1: it's a reminder that Elon Musk was a vocal opponent
Speaker 1: of government measures aimed at reducing the spread of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: He frequently promoted unscientific statements on Twitter, where he has
Speaker 1: lots of followers, and that's a very polite way of
Speaker 1: saying he was spreading misinformation like crazy, and he did
Speaker 1: that several times about the virus throughout the year. He
Speaker 1: also reopened his Tesla factory early. He defied a county
Speaker 1: order that said that businesses like that were to remain
Speaker 1: locked down and closed, and he just up and up
Speaker 1: said no, we're going to reopen, and it didn't take
Speaker 1: long at all for COVID cases to break out among
Speaker 1: the factory staff. As for Musk, he actually contracted COVID
Speaker 1: as well in November. His case was reportedly a mild one,
Speaker 1: and he perhaps changed his tune a little bit after that.
Speaker 1: So Tesla very nearly made its production goal for twenty
Speaker 1: but one does wonder what the cost of that was.
Speaker 1: Let's switch on over to SpaceX, another company associated with
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. SpaceX recently announced some interesting plans on how
Speaker 1: the company is going to retrieve the super heavy rockets
Speaker 1: for reuse. Uh So, right now SpaceX launch vehicles used
Speaker 1: Alcon nine boosters, and these boosters have legs on them,
Speaker 1: so the boosters actually will use their thrusters their engines
Speaker 1: to orient themselves vertically and slow their descent and land
Speaker 1: on those legs at the base of the boosters. But
Speaker 1: SpaceX plans for the super heavy boosters to not have legs.
Speaker 1: So how are those going to land safely so that
Speaker 1: they can then be retrieved and prepped for future use. Well,
Speaker 1: it's going to come down to the launch tower that's
Speaker 1: used as a stabilizer for when the space vehicle initially
Speaker 1: launches from Earth. If you've ever seen images or been
Speaker 1: at a launch, you've seen, you know, the rocket, the
Speaker 1: thing we think of as a rocket being very close
Speaker 1: to a giant tower, a stabilization tower. That's the secret here.
Speaker 1: So when the booster is returning to Earth after it
Speaker 1: has launched its payload, the tower will help catch the
Speaker 1: returning super heavy booster. The launch vehicle will use its
Speaker 1: engines to orient itself and slow it's descent, just like
Speaker 1: a Falcon nine would. So it's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're just gonna rush up to the top of the
Speaker 1: tower and put a big old catcher's mid on the
Speaker 1: end of it so that it can, you know, try
Speaker 1: and and catch that pop fly super booster. The arm
Speaker 1: will have a essentially kind of a hook on it
Speaker 1: in order to catch the booster as it descends slowly,
Speaker 1: so the engines on the booster will be engaged, it
Speaker 1: will be descending, and then it will descend next to
Speaker 1: the tower so that the tower can hook on to
Speaker 1: this super booster, and thus it never really touches down
Speaker 1: on the ground. It hangs there at the end of
Speaker 1: the the arm on the tower. Now, according to SpaceX.
Speaker 1: The goal is to cut down on the costs of
Speaker 1: building and operating the boosters because they won't you know,
Speaker 1: need that extra material for legs, and it will also
Speaker 1: potentially cut down on the time spent between launches. Now ideally,
Speaker 1: the returning booster could be serviced on the very pad
Speaker 1: that it launched from, prepping it for its next mission.
Speaker 1: In fact, the company has the ambitious goal of making
Speaker 1: the turnaround time less than an hour between touchdown and
Speaker 1: the next launch, which is crazy. If SpaceX can make
Speaker 1: that work, it would create the opportunity for an unprecedented
Speaker 1: number of space applications, from satellite launches to spacecraft with
Speaker 1: you know, actual human beings aborted. But all of this
Speaker 1: right now is just in the planning stages. The super
Speaker 1: heavy boosters themselves will not be ready for testing until later,
Speaker 1: but it could be a super nifty way for us
Speaker 1: to launch stuff into space and then reuse those very
Speaker 1: expensive boosters. We've got a lot more news, but before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take a quick break. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: and now let's all get ready to be terrified as
Speaker 1: we enter a news section I'd like to call I
Speaker 1: just can't hack it because well, all has to do
Speaker 1: with hacking. Now, when it comes to hacks, the Solar
Speaker 1: Winds story just gets worse as time goes on. All right,
Speaker 1: to catch you up, a company called Solar Winds makes
Speaker 1: enterprise level software and it helps customers manage various I assets.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about heavy duty software here, the type
Speaker 1: of thing that would be used by you know, big
Speaker 1: companies or even bigger government agencies and organizations. One of
Speaker 1: those pieces of software is called Orion, which is a
Speaker 1: particularly popular piece of I T management software that thousands
Speaker 1: of Solar Winds customers rely upon, tens of thousands in fact,
Speaker 1: and at some point hackers compromise the Orion software on
Speaker 1: the Solar Winds side, So they managed to infiltrate and
Speaker 1: inject malicious code directly into the Orion code at the
Speaker 1: Solar Winds location. And then that meant that whenever Solar
Speaker 1: Winds would push out an update or a patch to
Speaker 1: its customers, that malicious code went along for the ride. So,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with typical information security procedure, you know
Speaker 1: it's usually a good idea to install patches when they
Speaker 1: come out because those patches could address security vulnerabilities and
Speaker 1: thus make you less likely to become a target. But
Speaker 1: in this case, a patch would push out the malware
Speaker 1: that would then infect customer systems and give hackers administrative
Speaker 1: level access to their systems. According to Microsoft, a hacker
Speaker 1: could impersonate any of the affected organizations existing users, which
Speaker 1: is yawza. Microsoft said that its own systems were affected
Speaker 1: quote beyond just the presence of malicious solar winds code
Speaker 1: end quote, which does not sound like good news at all.
Speaker 1: What is slightly better is that, according to micro Soft,
Speaker 1: the hackers couldn't actually make changes to critical stuff. They
Speaker 1: could snoop and they could view source code, so they
Speaker 1: could go and look at the source code for various
Speaker 1: Microsoft products. Which that's not great news for Microsoft. It
Speaker 1: represents a potentially disastrous existential crisis for the company if
Speaker 1: the source code for their products were to be released, Um,
Speaker 1: that could mean that someone else could potentially, you know,
Speaker 1: make their own version of Microsoft products. Well. The company
Speaker 1: has also stated that none of its resources appear to
Speaker 1: have been used by the hackers to attack other targets,
Speaker 1: so that's also some good news. Now. The prevailing theory,
Speaker 1: based on investigations, is that these hacks originated out of Russia,
Speaker 1: and they constitute one of the largest espionage projects ever conducted.
Speaker 1: Affected systems include those belonging to the US Department of
Speaker 1: Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health, among numerous
Speaker 1: other high profile, highly sensitive department in US government. So
Speaker 1: how is this attack so successful? Well, there are a
Speaker 1: few contributing factors. One is that in an election year,
Speaker 1: much of the US cybersecurity assets were focusing on the election,
Speaker 1: which may have meant fewer assets were available to monitor
Speaker 1: everything else. Another is that the hackers were targeting a
Speaker 1: trusted tool, compromising that tool, and then counting on the
Speaker 1: software supply chain to do all the rest of the
Speaker 1: work for them. They didn't have to distribute the malware
Speaker 1: to all their various targets. They hit this one source
Speaker 1: and it did the distribution for them, so they just
Speaker 1: let solar Winds do all the work that way. And
Speaker 1: of course all these companies and agencies had no reason
Speaker 1: to suspect that solar Winds was going to compromise their systems.
Speaker 1: They were a trusted partner. So the hackers themselves are
Speaker 1: really careful, and they were able to escape detection until
Speaker 1: December twenty and we still don't know when this attack
Speaker 1: officially started. It looks like it started at least as
Speaker 1: far back as March, but maybe earlier than that. We
Speaker 1: don't know how bad the attack was, how how widespread
Speaker 1: it is, and how deeply ingrained it is in various systems,
Speaker 1: But I think it's safe for us to call it really, really,
Speaker 1: really bad. I think that's on track. On Monday, January three,
Speaker 1: twenty one, T Mobile revealed that it had been the
Speaker 1: target of a security breach. Moreover, the hackers may have
Speaker 1: gained access to sensitive information, including call related information made
Speaker 1: by T Mobile customers. Now, according to the company, this
Speaker 1: breach did not include stuff like customer names or their
Speaker 1: addresses either snail mail or email, or their pen or
Speaker 1: their social Security number or their payment information or other
Speaker 1: supersensitive data that would be really handy if someone had
Speaker 1: the hint of stealing identities, so that part is good
Speaker 1: that that information was not compromised. But at least some accounts,
Speaker 1: maybe as many as two hundred thousand of them, were accessed.
Speaker 1: Now according to T Mobile, the information that was accessible
Speaker 1: may include stuff like phone numbers, number of lines subscribed to,
Speaker 1: and in a small number of cases, some call related
Speaker 1: information collected as part of normal operation and service. I
Speaker 1: don't actually know what that means now. T Mobile has
Speaker 1: a history of security breaches, so this is not great
Speaker 1: news for them. There's currently an investigation into where those
Speaker 1: hacks may have originated, and the company has reached out
Speaker 1: to customers who were affected by this, the people who
Speaker 1: own the accounts that were accessed. Moving on, ticket Master
Speaker 1: is a big ticket sales and distribution company, and it
Speaker 1: has venues as its clients. I often think of myself
Speaker 1: as a ticket Master customer if I'm purchasing something to
Speaker 1: go see a show or whatever, but really the big
Speaker 1: customers for Ticketmaster are the theaters and concert venues and
Speaker 1: things like that. And the way this works is that
Speaker 1: the venues will set aside tickets for Ticketmaster and they
Speaker 1: get to decide what the face price value of those
Speaker 1: tickets are. So if you see a ticket on Ticketmaster,
Speaker 1: know that that price was decided upon by the venue,
Speaker 1: not by Ticketmaster. But Ticketmaster does put in service fees
Speaker 1: that generates revenue for the company. So if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen a ticket where there's crazy high service fees, just
Speaker 1: that's where Ticketmaster's revenue comes in. I have personally seen
Speaker 1: tickets where the service fees were fifty of the ticket price,
Speaker 1: which I think is truly ridiculous. Anyway, Ticketmaster was found
Speaker 1: guilty of illegally accessing computer systems belonging to a competitor. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, they were found guilty of hacking. And
Speaker 1: in this case, the competitor was crowd Surge. Live Nation
Speaker 1: that's a Ticketmaster's parent company hired a guy named Stephen
Speaker 1: Meade in two thousand thirteen, and Mead was crowd Surge's
Speaker 1: former general manager of US operations. Mead revealed passwords to
Speaker 1: a tool called artist Toolbox, and that was an app
Speaker 1: that provided real time data about tickets that were being
Speaker 1: sold by crowd Surge. So Ticketmaster had an inside view
Speaker 1: as to crowd surges actual business. Now, according to the charges, quote,
Speaker 1: Ticketmasters employees brazenly held a division wide summit at which
Speaker 1: the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company's computers,
Speaker 1: as if that were an appropriate business tactic end quote.
Speaker 1: Crowd Surge filed the lawsuit against Live Nation, you know,
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster's parent company, in so this shows that these cases
Speaker 1: take a real long time to get through the entire
Speaker 1: court system. Ticketmaster was found guilty. They're going to have
Speaker 1: to pay a ten million dollar fine, and they also
Speaker 1: have to create and maintain a compliance and ethics program
Speaker 1: to prevent this sort of stuff from happening again in
Speaker 1: the future. Also, the people who were primarily responsible for
Speaker 1: this whole thing are no longer with the company. And
Speaker 1: to round out our hackasan let's talk about Adobe Flash.
Speaker 1: You remember Adobe Flash. It's the browser plug in that
Speaker 1: was designed to allow for more rich web based content
Speaker 1: and experiences. So Flash enabled a lot of that sort
Speaker 1: of rich content stuff like audio and video, and and
Speaker 1: games and other elements that became common on the web.
Speaker 1: But the plug in also became a focal point for
Speaker 1: various criticisms, especially by the time you get to about
Speaker 1: twenty ten or so. And the plug in was also
Speaker 1: owned to expose users to security vulnerabilities, which been it
Speaker 1: offered up chances for hackers to exploit that plug in
Speaker 1: and thus cause mischief. And generally speaking, it's a bad
Speaker 1: idea to install the security vulnerability into your system, as
Speaker 1: all the people who are affected by this Solar Winds
Speaker 1: hack have learned. Now over the past several years, there's
Speaker 1: been a pretty consistent move away from Flash to the
Speaker 1: point that very few sites online still use it. Most
Speaker 1: of them have switched to other tools, primarily HTML five,
Speaker 1: which supports a lot of the functionality of Flash, so
Speaker 1: you could build out web tools and web features that
Speaker 1: did the same thing Flash did, but without having to
Speaker 1: actually use the plug in in. Adobe announced it was
Speaker 1: going to end support for the Flash player by the
Speaker 1: end of twenty looking at my calendar, it is now so.
Speaker 1: Adobe says it will block content from running in Flash
Speaker 1: players starting on January twelve of this year, and Adobe
Speaker 1: also urges all users who have the Flash browser plug
Speaker 1: in to uninstall it on their computers because it will
Speaker 1: at that point only represent a potential open door for hackers.
Speaker 1: There will be no legitimate use for Flash at that stage. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've gotten through the hacking news for this Tuesday. Let's
Speaker 1: move on to something else after we take this quick break.
Speaker 1: Let's wrap up our first tech stuff news episode with
Speaker 1: a few eclectic items, and we're gonna go back to Microsoft.
Speaker 1: So besides the fact that they're dealing with the solar
Speaker 1: winds problem, which I'm not gonna go back into, that's
Speaker 1: the bummer, right, Microsoft has planned a revamp for Windows, apparently,
Speaker 1: not that the company has necessarily said anything officially. However,
Speaker 1: The Verge reported that a job listing on Microsoft's site
Speaker 1: would be the source of this big piece of news,
Speaker 1: and that job listing, which was for a software engineer, says, quote,
Speaker 1: on this team, you'll work with our key platform Surface
Speaker 1: and O e M partners to orchestrate and deliver a
Speaker 1: sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences, to signal to our
Speaker 1: customers that Windows is back, and ensure that Windows is
Speaker 1: considered the best user OS experience for customers. End quote. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think they should call to come back. Windows
Speaker 1: has been here for years, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: the ladies love Windows. Interestingly, it's kind of cool and
Speaker 1: weird to see Microsoft really turn its attention two Windows.
Speaker 1: Jerry Nixon once called Windows tend the quote last version
Speaker 1: of Windows end quote, meaning that Microsoft would push out
Speaker 1: updates to that OS over time, but Windows ten would
Speaker 1: just remain the official operating system of Microsoft, rather than
Speaker 1: going with an all new version. So this story seems
Speaker 1: to support that because we're not talking about Windows eleven,
Speaker 1: so that to me is kind of fascinating. Various reports
Speaker 1: say that Microsoft is planning some changes to the user
Speaker 1: interface of Windows ten and to modernize it. Now, here's
Speaker 1: hoping that they make changes in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: totally alienate the user base. I find that most users
Speaker 1: tend to despise change, even if the changes are good ones.
Speaker 1: But often they are not good ones. I think about
Speaker 1: every time that Microsoft has tried to make a bold
Speaker 1: move from a UI perspective, it frequently gets a lot
Speaker 1: of pushback. Now, sometimes those implementations are just not great.
Speaker 1: Windows Vista was a problem. Windows eight, A lot of
Speaker 1: people really hated a specially the tiles version, which seemed
Speaker 1: to be more geared toward a touch screen experience. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I still primarily interact
Speaker 1: with my computers using a keyboard and mouse, not a
Speaker 1: touch screen. So here's hoping that this revamped look for
Speaker 1: Windows is not going to make some similar missteps, and
Speaker 1: that what we get our actual genuine improvements. That's my hope. Microsoft,
Speaker 1: by the way, has said that they are doing this,
Speaker 1: or rather analysts have said Microsoft is doing this largely
Speaker 1: because there was an uptick in Windows use during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Not a big surprise there as people started to turn
Speaker 1: to their computers to access more stuff in what I
Speaker 1: am told is the outside world. I assume it still exists.
Speaker 1: I just haven't seen it in a long time. Okay,
Speaker 1: So our next story is about Netflix and Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: and other streaming po platforms in India. So these platforms
Speaker 1: have really given Indian filmmakers and series creators a new
Speaker 1: outlet and a new way to reach audiences, not just
Speaker 1: within India but beyond. Amazon Prime recently reported that one
Speaker 1: fifth of all the people who are watching content that's
Speaker 1: originating from India are actually outside of India. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, Indian series and Indian movies are being watched
Speaker 1: by people outside of India of the time, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. That extended reach also means that more series
Speaker 1: from India and more films from India are being recognized
Speaker 1: by awards organizations. You know know, they're getting some critical reception
Speaker 1: that otherwise they never would get. It be very insular
Speaker 1: where most of the the cinema and series out of
Speaker 1: India remain in India, so that's kind of neat. But
Speaker 1: Indian television and cinema is also highly controlled in that country.
Speaker 1: The Indian government has strict regulations in place and those
Speaker 1: put incredible restrictions on what filmmakers and series makers can show.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff they are not allowed to do,
Speaker 1: and the streaming platforms were not subject to those regulations.
Speaker 1: Once again, we see technology outpacing the legal system. It
Speaker 1: doesn't just happen here in the United States, happens everywhere,
Speaker 1: and so the platforms became a place where people could
Speaker 1: tell stories that otherwise they would be unable to tell
Speaker 1: in traditional media because of those restrictions. However, that inevitably
Speaker 1: drew criticism from people who said that that kind of
Speaker 1: content was harmful to Indian society, essentially saying, you're doing
Speaker 1: the stuff that we've already told TV and movies they
Speaker 1: can't do because we think it's harmful, so we have
Speaker 1: to stop you now too. In November of the government
Speaker 1: declared that streaming services should fall under the same sort
Speaker 1: of regular lations as traditional media. In India, the streaming
Speaker 1: platforms kind of banded together. You know, normally they compete
Speaker 1: against one another. They don't necessarily want anyone else to
Speaker 1: do as well as they're doing. However, this is an
Speaker 1: act of self preservation. They want the government to allow
Speaker 1: them to adopt a self regulation code and then use
Speaker 1: that rather than government intervention. So this would be similar
Speaker 1: to stuff like the m P A A or the
Speaker 1: E S R B for video games. This is the
Speaker 1: idea of having an industry regulate itself and protecting itself
Speaker 1: from government intervention. I don't know if that's going to
Speaker 1: work out. We'll have to keep an eye on this
Speaker 1: and see how the story progresses. Now, how about a
Speaker 1: little bit of Atari. And that was a big Autari
Speaker 1: fan growing up in the early eighties. Atari was synonymous
Speaker 1: with video games. The Atari twenty video game console was
Speaker 1: a breakout success. One of my favorite memories as a
Speaker 1: kid as playing on my old Attari. But the video
Speaker 1: game Crash really did a serious number on Atari. The
Speaker 1: company would split into two, with different parts going to
Speaker 1: different owners, and the Attari of today is not really
Speaker 1: related to that Attari of the late seventies and early eighties.
Speaker 1: It's more of a product of various companies purchasing the
Speaker 1: brand name of Atari and then selling it or going
Speaker 1: bankrupt and some other entity comes in and swoops it up.
Speaker 1: It's more like that, So it's more like the name
Speaker 1: exists and it can still be stamped on two different products.
Speaker 1: And some of the intellectual property still belongs to the
Speaker 1: Atari brand. But it's a very different company today than
Speaker 1: what it was in the eighties. Back in Atari was
Speaker 1: in bankruptcy, but since then it has made a nice
Speaker 1: little recovery. In it reported a two point four million
Speaker 1: dollar profit. It made thirty million in revenue, and that's
Speaker 1: not too bad, but much of that profit is dependent
Speaker 1: upon video game licenses that are set to expire before
Speaker 1: too long, so they're looking ahead to say what do
Speaker 1: we do next in order to remain a viable company. Uh.
Speaker 1: Today Atari is a very modest company. There's something like
Speaker 1: twenty eight employees there, and it announced things like the
Speaker 1: VCS console in which was a throwback to the Ayred.
Speaker 1: It looks a lot like the Atari twenty. However, it
Speaker 1: can play not just classic games, like classic Atari titles,
Speaker 1: it can also stream modern games, so think of something
Speaker 1: like Google Stadium, but in an Atari twenty form factor.
Speaker 1: And reportedly it can stream games of four K resolution
Speaker 1: at sixty frames per second, assuming you've got the pipes
Speaker 1: big enough for that kind of Internet activity. And that's
Speaker 1: a big step up from the old twenty six hundred days.
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to stress that these consoles finally
Speaker 1: started shipping in after a couple of big delays on
Speaker 1: the horizon. Attari has made a licensing deal with a
Speaker 1: hotel chain to develop Atari themed hotels in eight different markets,
Speaker 1: probably looking at twenty two as the earliest date for
Speaker 1: those to start to open, which not a big surprise.
Speaker 1: The pandemic has had an enormous impact on construction, not
Speaker 1: to mention travel and hospitality. But the idea is that
Speaker 1: these hotels will convey that retro sense of gaming that
Speaker 1: Atari evokes, and that gaming will be worked into the
Speaker 1: themes of the hotel. I assume you would even be
Speaker 1: playing games in your hotel room. I can't imagine going
Speaker 1: to an Atari themed hotel and not having that capability
Speaker 1: built into the entertainment system. So that'll be really interesting
Speaker 1: to see. And maybe this is the start of a
Speaker 1: new era in Atari his tree, which would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And our last story is about Epic Games, the company
Speaker 1: that is behind the incredible success Fortnite. Uh this is
Speaker 1: not another story about Epic versus Apple or Epic versus Google. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's Epic versus the mall, or rather Epic and the Mall,
Speaker 1: so Epic Games is taking control of a shopping mall
Speaker 1: in Carrie, North Carolina, and it's called the Carrie Town Center.
Speaker 1: And the idea here is that Epic is going to
Speaker 1: turn this into their headquarters for Epic Games. And the
Speaker 1: long term plan is for this to open by twenty
Speaker 1: four and it will have offices in it, it will
Speaker 1: have recreational spaces in it. At the time that I'm
Speaker 1: recording this, there aren't any like artist renditions of what
Speaker 1: it's going to look like or anything yet. But the
Speaker 1: idea is to convert this dormant space into something useful,
Speaker 1: and that's really important. I mean, malls have been in
Speaker 1: a serious decline even before we had the pandemic, with
Speaker 1: you know, more people turning to online shopping and other
Speaker 1: means of shopping for stuff. Then the pandemic of course
Speaker 1: made that way worse. It created an environment where in
Speaker 1: person shopping is frankly dangerous. So as a result, many
Speaker 1: malls are becoming waste lands, and shops can't afford to
Speaker 1: maintain a space in a place where people can't go anyway,
Speaker 1: So a lot of of the customers of malls, the
Speaker 1: stores are closing down or at least removing their presence
Speaker 1: from malls around the country. Some malls and shopping centers
Speaker 1: near me were already practically empty well before the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: just that the economics of shopping had changed so much
Speaker 1: that it didn't make sense to maintain the space there.
Speaker 1: So then the question rises, what do you do with
Speaker 1: this real estate? How do you pivot to putting it
Speaker 1: to good use so that it isn't just a blight
Speaker 1: on communities and epic games. Taking over this mall to
Speaker 1: turn it into a headquarters is one way that we're
Speaker 1: seeing that kind of stuff happen. It's interesting to me
Speaker 1: because we've also talked about how things like autonomous cars
Speaker 1: if they ever do become a practical reality, and there
Speaker 1: are fleets of autonomous cars operating kind of like uber
Speaker 1: or lift or a taxi cab service. What do you
Speaker 1: do once those have reached a level of saturation that
Speaker 1: people no longer really worry about a personal vehicle, so
Speaker 1: there's no longer a need for stuff like parking lots.
Speaker 1: What do you do with that space? How do you
Speaker 1: reclaim it? It's kind of interesting that we're seeing this
Speaker 1: play out in the space of malls right now, because
Speaker 1: it's it's perhaps going to teach us some lessons of
Speaker 1: good things to do versus mistakes to avoid that we
Speaker 1: might apply in the future. And now that we're in
Speaker 1: a world where a lot of people are working from
Speaker 1: home and a lot of companies are determined to keep
Speaker 1: that going even after we have gotten to the other
Speaker 1: side of the pandemic, these are questions that we have
Speaker 1: to continually revisit because we don't want all that space
Speaker 1: to just go to waste. That would be a real shame.
Speaker 1: But how do you make the best use of it
Speaker 1: in a way that's responsible and actually adds value. These
Speaker 1: are the sort of questions we're gonna be asking and
Speaker 1: answering over the next couple of years, I would imagine,
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll see other types of reimagining of spaces,
Speaker 1: allah epic games taking over a mall. I guess that's
Speaker 1: my way of saying that my hope is to one
Speaker 1: day take over a large, previously occupied space and turn
Speaker 1: it into a big paintball UH facility so that people
Speaker 1: can do their own versions of counter Strike in person,
Speaker 1: and because I'm a kid at heart, all right. That
Speaker 1: wraps up our first episode of tech News Headlines for
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff. We'll be doing this again on Thursday. And
Speaker 1: remember the episodes that air on Mondays and Wednesdays will
Speaker 1: be our traditional tech Stuff episodes, and Fridays, of course
Speaker 1: will be our classic tech Stuff episodes. And so on
Speaker 1: that note, I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
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