Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for the
Speaker 1: week ending on Friday the thirteenth in December of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. So let's start off with something kind of
Speaker 1: spooky for Friday the thirteenth. Apparently, for a few weeks now,
Speaker 1: folks in New Jersey have been reporting strange aircraft flying overhead,
Speaker 1: particularly along coastal regions. Most of the reports have referred
Speaker 1: to the aircraft as drones, though various authorities have said
Speaker 1: that at least in some of these cases, that's a misidentification.
Speaker 1: They say that many of these reports are actually about
Speaker 1: your run of the mill manned aircraft, just plane planes,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But numerous citizens have said there have
Speaker 1: been many instances of drones flying overhead, and we're talking
Speaker 1: like big ones, not your little bitty quad copters, but
Speaker 1: much larger drones. And no one has really come forward
Speaker 1: with an official explanation as to what's going on or
Speaker 1: who's behind it. And when there's a lack of information,
Speaker 1: there will always be a surplus of speculation. We humans
Speaker 1: don't like to have big, unanswered questions, right, So if
Speaker 1: we don't have an answer, sometimes we just invent one.
Speaker 1: And that includes one claim that the drones launch from
Speaker 1: an Iranian mothership. That's a story that US Representative Jeff
Speaker 1: Van Drew said to Fox News, though later he clarified
Speaker 1: that he's actually seen no concrete evidence tying any drone
Speaker 1: activity in New Jersey to Iran, so maybe it's not
Speaker 1: an Iranian mothership after all. According to various news outlets,
Speaker 1: most of the reports, like I said, have come along
Speaker 1: the coastal areas of New Jersey, though there have been
Speaker 1: reports of them coming as far inland as parts of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: The FBI is asking people to send in videos and
Speaker 1: photos of these drones in action in an attempt to
Speaker 1: suss out what might be going on, if there is
Speaker 1: something going on, because it's always possible that it's not like,
Speaker 1: it's possible that this is all about misidentification and a few,
Speaker 1: you know, completely innocent cases of people just operating drones
Speaker 1: that aren't at all malicious or malevolent. Officials have said
Speaker 1: repeatedly that there's no evidence that the drones are any
Speaker 1: kind of credible threat, and there's no evidence tying them
Speaker 1: to any foreign powers, so they are not suspected to
Speaker 1: be under foreign control. However, with this ongoing lack of information,
Speaker 1: that hasn't stopped people from saying exactly the opposite, and
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know what's going on. My guess is
Speaker 1: knowing how humans behave. The explanations or lack thereof that
Speaker 1: the officials have given so far are not going to
Speaker 1: satisfy people, and speculation will just continue to grow over
Speaker 1: the coming days. Generally, when these sort of things happen,
Speaker 1: I typically see this culminating in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: Either we eventually do figure out what's happening, whether that's
Speaker 1: some sort of concentrated effort to have drones fly over
Speaker 1: New Jersey for one reason or another, or it eventually
Speaker 1: will just kind of fade away and people will forget
Speaker 1: about it. That's it, Like, I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: else that comes of this. Also, just to remind folks,
Speaker 1: the way the US regulates drone use here is typically
Speaker 1: tied to drone weight, So if a drone weighs less
Speaker 1: than fifty five pounds, then you can operate it with
Speaker 1: fewer restrictions and regulations. Although you are supposed to have
Speaker 1: like an identifier tag, a digital tag that links the
Speaker 1: drone to you, like that you are the authorized operator
Speaker 1: of that drone. When you get above fifty five pounds,
Speaker 1: then a lot more strict regulations come into play. But
Speaker 1: that being said, while larger drones do weigh more than
Speaker 1: smaller ones, there's also been a lot of advancements made
Speaker 1: in lightweight materials like carbon fiber that have allowed for
Speaker 1: larger drones that surprisingly don't weigh that much. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on here, but I do know
Speaker 1: that it's been going on long enough that it's become
Speaker 1: national news for a while. Apparently it was just news
Speaker 1: in New Jersey and hadn't really gone much further than that.
Speaker 1: This is the first I've heard of it, so we'll
Speaker 1: see where it goes from here, if it goes anywhere.
Speaker 1: Matt Novak of Gizmoto has a piece titled Trump's pick
Speaker 1: for FTC chair is ready to undo the good things
Speaker 1: from Lena Kahn, and I think it's well worth a read.
Speaker 1: So a lot of what is said in the article
Speaker 1: isn't exactly a surprise. If you know how US politics work.
Speaker 1: Every time there's a change in administrations and someone's tenure
Speaker 1: is up, departments like the FTC are affected. Even if
Speaker 1: the new president is from the exact same party as
Speaker 1: the outgoing president, you can expect things to shake up
Speaker 1: a bit. But obviously it's more dramatic when there's a
Speaker 1: shift in power dynamics between Democrat and Republican leaders. So
Speaker 1: this is an overwhelmingly Republican administration that's coming in next year.
Speaker 1: And in this case, Trump's pick is a guy named
Speaker 1: Andrew Ferguson, who is already on the FTC. He's part
Speaker 1: of the commission already, he was appointed under Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So the way the FTC works is there are five
Speaker 1: members of the Commission, and at most three of those
Speaker 1: members can come from a single political party. And since
Speaker 1: in the United States we effectively just have two political parties,
Speaker 1: I mean there are others, but they represent such a
Speaker 1: small slice that you really just talk about two Republican
Speaker 1: and Democrat, it means, in effect you get three from
Speaker 1: one to two from the other. Novak says that Ferguson
Speaker 1: is poised to roll back some of the moves the
Speaker 1: FTC has made over the last few years. So, for example,
Speaker 1: one of the changes that Lena Kahn's FTC made was
Speaker 1: to ban non compete clauses. Now, if you've never had
Speaker 1: one of these hanging over you, let me kind of
Speaker 1: clue you in. So these clauses are measures that companies
Speaker 1: put into place in employee agreements, and they state that
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to work for a competing company for
Speaker 1: a certain length of time once your employment with your
Speaker 1: current employer ends. So typically the non compete might be
Speaker 1: something like six months. So if I were under a
Speaker 1: non compete like that, I'm not saying I am and
Speaker 1: I'm not not saying that I'm not or whatever. That
Speaker 1: was so many negatives. I don't even know where I
Speaker 1: am now. Anyway, if I had that kind of non
Speaker 1: compete clause, I would mean that should my employment with
Speaker 1: iHeart end tomorrow for whatever reason, whether I quit or
Speaker 1: they lay me off, or whatever it might be, I
Speaker 1: would not be allowed to seek employment with a company
Speaker 1: like Spotify for half a year or so, or else
Speaker 1: risk legal action because I would have violated the non
Speaker 1: compete clause. Cohn and her fellow Democrat commissioners argued that
Speaker 1: these clauses are hurtful to employees, which I agree with
Speaker 1: they are, and they're mostly used by companies as a
Speaker 1: way to intimidate their employees into staying on board rather
Speaker 1: than jumping ship to a better opportunity. Let's say that
Speaker 1: I had risen to a certain level within iHeart, and
Speaker 1: I had deep knowledge of proprietary information in the company
Speaker 1: that really, you know, it's part of the trade secrets
Speaker 1: that let iHeart do what it does. Obviously, there'd be
Speaker 1: a vested interest in making sure I don't take that
Speaker 1: information with me when I leave and then give that
Speaker 1: to the benefit of some other competitor. That would be bad,
Speaker 1: so you can see it from that level. But more
Speaker 1: often than not, these non competes get thrown in on
Speaker 1: positions that just don't have that big of an impact
Speaker 1: to the overall organization, but it has an enormous impact
Speaker 1: to the individual, right like iHeart. If they got rid
Speaker 1: of me, I'm sure they would miss me, but they
Speaker 1: do they'd be fine. I, on the other hand, would
Speaker 1: be struggling to figure out what the heck I'm going
Speaker 1: to do if I can't get another job in this
Speaker 1: field within six months. That would be really tough on me.
Speaker 1: So the FTC made this big change. And the concern
Speaker 1: that Novak raises is that the new FTC under Trump's
Speaker 1: administration is going to start rolling back the protections that
Speaker 1: the previous administration put in place in order to benefit
Speaker 1: employees versus businesses. And the thought is that the FTC
Speaker 1: moving forward is going to be much more friendly with
Speaker 1: the folks who own and operate businesses and much less
Speaker 1: less helpful to those who work for them. Will have
Speaker 1: to see. Meanwhile, big tech companies are lining up in
Speaker 1: what looks like an attempt to get on Trump's good side.
Speaker 1: Both Meta and Amazon have contributed the equivalent of a
Speaker 1: million dollars each to Trump's inaugural fund, as in the
Speaker 1: money going to his inauguration ceremony. Dana Mattioli and Rebecca
Speaker 1: Balhause of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Zuckerberg appears
Speaker 1: to be trying to mend defenses. You know, Trump has
Speaker 1: long held a rather acrimonious stance against Meta, So why
Speaker 1: is that? A Couple of reasons. One is he got
Speaker 1: banned from Meta's Facebook platform after the whole January sixth
Speaker 1: debacle several years back. Another is that he has long
Speaker 1: maintained that various online platforms, including stuff like Google and Facebook,
Speaker 1: have long held an anti conservative bias and actively suppressed
Speaker 1: free speech. And seeing how folks like Zuckerberg and Bezos
Speaker 1: are accustomed to accumulating vast amounts of wealth, they appear
Speaker 1: to be taking steps to keep that trend going strong
Speaker 1: and not inviting Trump to make things harder for them. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Amazon's going to carry the inauguration ceremonies on Amazon Prime Video,
Speaker 1: and I expect we're going to see a lot more
Speaker 1: moves from leaders and big tech companies that are similar
Speaker 1: to this in an effort to avoid Trump's rather mercurial wrath.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, TikTok's clock is running mighty low here
Speaker 1: in the United States. Now. You could recall that earlier
Speaker 1: this year, Congress passed a law that would require TikTok's
Speaker 1: parent company, Bye Dance to divest itself of TikTok or
Speaker 1: else face a nationwide ban on the app. Bye Dance
Speaker 1: being a Chinese company, and the worry here is that
Speaker 1: TikTok could just be a siphon for information that could
Speaker 1: go direct to China. So anyway, TikTok has been fighting
Speaker 1: this law ever since and challenged it in court by
Speaker 1: arguing that it goes against the First Amendment, the right
Speaker 1: of free speech. But a court found otherwise, and an
Speaker 1: appeal panel has agreed, which is not a good sign
Speaker 1: for TikTok. The agreement comes down to a few things. One,
Speaker 1: the judicial system in the United States traditionally is reluctant
Speaker 1: to contradict Congress, particularly in matters that involve national security,
Speaker 1: and that, of course, is how the TikTok ban has
Speaker 1: been framed, so that's one potential reason why the court
Speaker 1: was reluctant to overturn this. Secondly, the court has found
Speaker 1: that TikTok could operate in the United States without issue
Speaker 1: if byte Edance actually divested itself of the company. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the court has essentially said there's no
Speaker 1: freedom of speech issue here because TikTok has a solution
Speaker 1: to this problem. Just separate from the Chinese parent company
Speaker 1: and you can continue as per usual. TikTok has appealed
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, but there are doubts that the
Speaker 1: highest court in the United States will hear the case,
Speaker 1: which means they'll just have to abide by the rulings
Speaker 1: of the lower courts. TikTok has also filed an emergency
Speaker 1: request to delay the law's effects until the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: can weigh in and until the Trump administry can say
Speaker 1: something about it. And the US government opposes this move,
Speaker 1: So we haven't seen how this is going to turn
Speaker 1: out yet. The ban is scheduled to begin on January nineteenth,
Speaker 1: one day before Trump's inauguration, so time is running out. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: during Trump's first term as president, he led the charge
Speaker 1: on banning TikTok. He's the one who brought it up.
Speaker 1: He even passed an executive order demanding TikTok separate from Byteedance,
Speaker 1: but that order was never enforced. During his campaign, however,
Speaker 1: Trump appeared to have reversed his decision because, well, he said,
Speaker 1: it's because lots of people like to use the app,
Speaker 1: which I mean, that's true, But I don't see how
Speaker 1: that actually addresses the supposed risk to national security that
Speaker 1: he was concerned about a few years earlier. All I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that Trump changes his mind a lot, and
Speaker 1: if he had said something like upon further reflection, I
Speaker 1: determined that there's no risk to national security, at least
Speaker 1: I think his decision to reverse his stance would make
Speaker 1: more sense. But honestly, I think the real reason he
Speaker 1: reversed his stance, at least during the campaign, is that
Speaker 1: one of his big campaign donors also happened to be
Speaker 1: someone who is heavily invested in byte dance and TikTok
Speaker 1: so in order to keep those dollars coming into his campaign.
Speaker 1: This is my opinion. Trump said whatever he thought would
Speaker 1: get him that money, and now since he's gotten what
Speaker 1: he wanted that he got elected president, I don't know
Speaker 1: that he's so concerned about it. We'll see. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's going to follow through. All Right, We've
Speaker 1: got a lot more news to cover before we get
Speaker 1: to that, though. Let's take a quick break to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors. Okay, we're back, and we're switching gears away
Speaker 1: from politics, for which I am thankful. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about Google's latest push into the world of mixed reality.
Speaker 1: Kevin Party of Ours Technica has a piece about this.
Speaker 1: It's titled Google steps into extended Reality again with Android XR.
Speaker 1: I had not heard the term extended reality before. I've
Speaker 1: heard mixed reality, I've heard augmented, I've heard virtual, extended
Speaker 1: as a new one for me, or if it's not new,
Speaker 1: I hadn't I didn't remember it. But some of y'all
Speaker 1: might recall that years ago Google really got things moving
Speaker 1: in the AR space, at least as far as the
Speaker 1: general tech consumer is concerned, when they launched Google Glass. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, Google Glass was not the first example
Speaker 1: of augmented reality, not by far. It was just an
Speaker 1: early example of a technology that was somewhat consumer facing. Now,
Speaker 1: I say somewhat because Google Glass was really limited upon release.
Speaker 1: It was very expensive. I think it was like fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for one of those sets, and it never
Speaker 1: really evolved beyond that very limited run for the average consumer.
Speaker 1: It did become an enterprise tool for some companies, but
Speaker 1: that and it kind of found a place there at
Speaker 1: least I think until twenty twenty three, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: really had a larger impact. Now, Google is promoting a
Speaker 1: mixed reality platform that's built upon the Android operating system
Speaker 1: that's best known for the operating system for mobile devices.
Speaker 1: Party writes that Samsung will be coming out with a
Speaker 1: mixed reality headset built on Android XR at some point
Speaker 1: next year. Currently, it's known as project Mouhan, though I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's going to have a very different name by
Speaker 1: the time it's an actual product. Google's video that promotes
Speaker 1: the Android XR project is a little light on details,
Speaker 1: but it indicates that users should expect to be able
Speaker 1: to tap into features found in other existing Google products,
Speaker 1: such as like Google Lens or you know, auto translation
Speaker 1: tools and maps and that kind of thing. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know if there really is a market for XR headsets.
Speaker 1: You know. I know that Meta has been offering ar
Speaker 1: light glasses for quite some time now. You can get
Speaker 1: you know, those those Meta ray bands or whatever, and
Speaker 1: those are popular with some folks. I don't know, you
Speaker 1: know how large that customer base is. And of course,
Speaker 1: Apple came out with the Vision Pro early this year,
Speaker 1: but the lack of support for that platform suggests to
Speaker 1: me that Apple at the very least is backing off
Speaker 1: on pushing AR headsets for a while. Maybe they won't
Speaker 1: totally end development, but I imagine it's no longer a priority
Speaker 1: because while everyone who tried the Apple Vision Pro said
Speaker 1: they were pretty impressed by it, it just didn't have
Speaker 1: the splash needed to establish a foundation for Apple to
Speaker 1: really build upon and the lack of ongoing interest from
Speaker 1: the general public. I think then translated to Apple's own
Speaker 1: lack of interest in supporting it. So yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if Google's going to crack the nut on consumer
Speaker 1: mixed reality. Maybe we'll see, But I mean Google has
Speaker 1: been instrumental in releasing tons and tons and tons of
Speaker 1: different products that received middling to low success rates, and
Speaker 1: then those elements would get engulfed into other Google efforts
Speaker 1: and whatever it was that was launched would just disappear.
Speaker 1: So I guess what I'm saying is that when these
Speaker 1: mixed reality headsets hit the market, be cautious before adopting it,
Speaker 1: because Google has a very long history of abandoning stuff
Speaker 1: not long after launch, so that's not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: be the case here. I'm just saying, if it's going
Speaker 1: to be really expensive and you don't necessarily have the
Speaker 1: money to spare, maybe hold back for generation two or three,
Speaker 1: just to make sure that it's going to stick around.
Speaker 1: Emmanuel Meberg of four h four Media has an article
Speaker 1: titled YouTube enhances comment section with AI generated nonsense, and y'all,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I mean, YouTube's comment section is already
Speaker 1: a breeding ground for nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: there are actually some great community members out there in
Speaker 1: various communities who post positive and supportive and helpful comments.
Speaker 1: There are others who might be a little more abrasive,
Speaker 1: but they clearly mean well in their criticism. Then there's
Speaker 1: the ones who don't mean well in their criticisms, and
Speaker 1: then the outright jokesters and trolls. The jokesters just want
Speaker 1: an opportunity to crack a punchline and work on their material,
Speaker 1: and the trolls just want to upset whomever they can.
Speaker 1: And then you've got like stalkers who are fostering unhealthy
Speaker 1: parasocial relationships online. And then you've got bots that are
Speaker 1: just trying to trick people into going to malicious or
Speaker 1: shady websites. Do we really need to add more AI
Speaker 1: to this mix? Who? Apparently, YouTube's answer is yes. Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, the AI is actually intended to give
Speaker 1: content creators the ability to interact with, or at least
Speaker 1: to appear to interact with their communities without as much effort.
Speaker 1: It's meant to let creators reply to comments faster and easier, But,
Speaker 1: as my Berg writes, the results aren't always helpful. In fact,
Speaker 1: in his words, they sometimes can end up being quote misleading, nonsensical,
Speaker 1: or weirdly intimate end quote. Now, this tool is not
Speaker 1: fully automated. It's not like it just automatically goes and
Speaker 1: starts answering every comment left on a creator's channel. Instead,
Speaker 1: it sort of auto suggests a reply, and if the
Speaker 1: reply is one that the content creator likes, they can
Speaker 1: just post it. So that's pretty good, right. It gives
Speaker 1: the creator the ultimate editorial control to whether you know,
Speaker 1: they post it or just write their own response. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the auto messages that are generated by
Speaker 1: a lot of different texting or messaging apps these days.
Speaker 1: I suggest reading My Bird's piece for a full rundown
Speaker 1: on the topic, as it includes some amusing examples of
Speaker 1: how the AI suggested replies that maybe just aren't the
Speaker 1: best fit for the comments that were left behind. Brandon
Speaker 1: Viiglia Rollo of The Register has a headline that definitely
Speaker 1: caught my attention this week. The headline is America cops
Speaker 1: are using AI to draft police reports and the ACLU
Speaker 1: isn't happy. So police officers cops they have to write
Speaker 1: up reports detailing their work they have to document everything
Speaker 1: that they're doing when it relates to their interactions with
Speaker 1: the public and pursuing suspects and all that stuff. They
Speaker 1: have to report everything because all of those details matter,
Speaker 1: particularly once an issue reaches the court system, where prosecutors
Speaker 1: are reliant upon these reports in order to make their case. Now,
Speaker 1: once upon a time, many many many years ago, one
Speaker 1: of my first jobs was to transcribe similar reports. Now
Speaker 1: I had to take handwritten reports, and then I would
Speaker 1: have to type those reports up. This was for a
Speaker 1: security firm. It was not a police station. It was
Speaker 1: a police force. But several members of the security team
Speaker 1: were either active cops or former cops and they were
Speaker 1: moonlighting as security officers. And y'all to say those reports
Speaker 1: were often incomprehensible is being too generous. Not all police
Speaker 1: officers are gifted with the ability to write a clear,
Speaker 1: concise report. Some of those reports they might as well
Speaker 1: have been gibberished. Now, granted, I was working again for
Speaker 1: a security firm, not for a police station, so it
Speaker 1: could have been different because of that. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: can see why police forces might wish to experiment with
Speaker 1: a tool that makes writing reports a lot easier to
Speaker 1: do and easier to understand and reference, you know, easier
Speaker 1: to follow. Like some of those reports, I would type
Speaker 1: literally what had been written, but I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: what the report was actually saying, because it wasn't written
Speaker 1: in a way that followed a clear line of thought,
Speaker 1: at least not from my perspective. But there's an understandable
Speaker 1: concern that an automated approach to generating reports could result
Speaker 1: in documentation that's treated as official but as fundamentally incorrect, misleading,
Speaker 1: or militia, even if it's not intentionally malicious. The technology
Speaker 1: that viglia Rollo alludes to is called Draft one. It's
Speaker 1: from a company called Axon. So this technology takes footage
Speaker 1: captured by body cameras that are warned by police officers,
Speaker 1: and it then generates reports based off that footage. Cops
Speaker 1: then have the ability to edit these reports, and so
Speaker 1: they can go in and correct any mistakes that might
Speaker 1: be in the generated report. They might elaborate on points
Speaker 1: that weren't captured by the camera or the AI tool.
Speaker 1: But the ACLU has pointed out that offloading reports to
Speaker 1: AI reports that again prosecutors rely upon during criminal trials
Speaker 1: that's inevitably going to lead to civil rights violations and
Speaker 1: related issues, and I think that's a pretty safe bet
Speaker 1: that there will be these negative consequences. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: already talked multiple times on this show about how certain technologies,
Speaker 1: such as facial recognition algorithms, frequently have massive blind spots
Speaker 1: that disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations. So in the case
Speaker 1: with facial recognition tools, if you're not a white male,
Speaker 1: the success rate for those tools begins to fall, and
Speaker 1: you know, depending upon what demographic you fall into, you
Speaker 1: could end up being the victim of a false positive
Speaker 1: or a false negative. I mean, it's proven to be
Speaker 1: an unreliable technology because of the inherent bias that underlies
Speaker 1: the tech. Not saying that the tech can't get to
Speaker 1: a point where it could reliably identify people, but as
Speaker 1: it has been trained and designed, it doesn't for certain populations.
Speaker 1: And often these are the same populations that are disproportionately criminalized.
Speaker 1: And to get into that gets into a whole sociology
Speaker 1: thing that goes so far beyond tech. So we're not
Speaker 1: going to do that. I'm just saying tools like this
Speaker 1: can add to those problems. And make them worse. So well,
Speaker 1: the ACLU is urging that police not use this tool.
Speaker 1: That in fact, municipalities end up banning the use of
Speaker 1: AI generated police reports because of the potential harm it
Speaker 1: can have on innocent citizens or just citizens in general,
Speaker 1: Like it can violate your rights, and that's something that
Speaker 1: is not supposed to happen and yet does a lot.
Speaker 1: So let's not make the problem worse. It's what the
Speaker 1: ACLU is saying. As viglia Rolo points out, the company
Speaker 1: behind this I mentioned them once before, Axon already has
Speaker 1: a pretty rough reputation. So a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: Axon proposed the brilliant idea of attaching tasers to remote
Speaker 1: controlled drones for the purposes of law enforcement. So you
Speaker 1: would have like taser armed flying drones that some police
Speaker 1: officer using a remote control could operate and then zap
Speaker 1: people with. Not very long after the company made that announcement,
Speaker 1: their entire or nearly their entire ethics board resigned in protest.
Speaker 1: Like when you've got an ethics board and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: for heaven's sake, this is so clearly not ethical, what
Speaker 1: are we even doing here? And then they just they leave,
Speaker 1: don't even bother to shut the door on the way out.
Speaker 1: That is sending a pretty strong message. Now, in that case,
Speaker 1: Axon did back away from that particular project, so we
Speaker 1: don't have those taser armed drones flying around, for which
Speaker 1: I am thankful. I highly recommend the article and the
Speaker 1: register if you want to learn more about this. Again.
Speaker 1: That's by Brandon viglia Rolo and the article title is
Speaker 1: American cops are using AI to draft police reports and
Speaker 1: the ACLU isn't happy. All right, let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I got a couple more news
Speaker 1: items I want to talk about, and we'll be right back. Okay.
Speaker 1: Next up, we have a story from Avrum Pilch of
Speaker 1: Tom's Hardware. Tom's Hardware is a great resource, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever used it. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend it. I mean I used to use Tom's Hardware
Speaker 1: just to literally get my hands on certain electronic pieces
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. But there's a ton of
Speaker 1: great articles on there too. Anyway. Pilch's article on Tom's
Speaker 1: Hardware is titled Microsoft recall screenshots, credit cards and Social
Speaker 1: Security numbers. Even with the sensitive Information filter enabled, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a little hard for me to parse the way
Speaker 1: I said it. Essentially, what they're talking about here, what
Speaker 1: Pilch is saying is that Microsoft Recall, which is a
Speaker 1: feature in certain new Windows eleven laptops, the Copilot plus PCs.
Speaker 1: Essentially it has some blind spots, some issues that probably
Speaker 1: need to be a if you don't recall Microsoft recall.
Speaker 1: I love how I changed my pronunciation, just depending on
Speaker 1: how I feel anyway. It's a feature that's in recent
Speaker 1: PCs in which the computer takes screenshots of whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're doing on the device, and it just keeps
Speaker 1: a record of these screenshots. Then you can actually search
Speaker 1: those screenshots to find information. And you might say, well,
Speaker 1: what good does that do. Well, let's say you are
Speaker 1: doing something that you very rarely have to do, Like
Speaker 1: it's a task that you have to do once in
Speaker 1: a blue moon, so every time you do it, you
Speaker 1: have to relearn how to do it because you're not
Speaker 1: doing it every day. Well, this could help you quickly
Speaker 1: go back and retrace your steps and say, ah, here,
Speaker 1: that's what I need to do in order to complete
Speaker 1: this task. I just you know, search my screen shots
Speaker 1: and I found out what I need to do, and
Speaker 1: I'm good to go. And Microsoft had introduced this or
Speaker 1: announced this earlier this year, but that initial announcement did
Speaker 1: a lot of people to voice concerns about the feature,
Speaker 1: specifically concerns about security and privacy. People didn't like the
Speaker 1: idea of their activities on the computer becoming like a record,
Speaker 1: a searchable record, for lots of reasons. I think you
Speaker 1: can probably imagine there are a lot of legitimate reasons
Speaker 1: why you wouldn't want to have like a searchable record
Speaker 1: of your activities on your computer. For example, let's say
Speaker 1: that you were researching something like divorce, like maybe you're
Speaker 1: in an unhappy relationship, you wouldn't necessarily want that to
Speaker 1: be a searchable record on your computer. Or maybe you're
Speaker 1: researching something about a health issue and that's not anyone
Speaker 1: else's business, so you don't want that to be searchable.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of legitimate and innocent reasons why
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to have a full record of your
Speaker 1: activities just sitting there on your computer. But let's say
Speaker 1: that you did come around to saying, okay, well this
Speaker 1: is more helpful than harmful. I definitely want to make
Speaker 1: sure that and Microsoft assured people that the recall feature
Speaker 1: exists solely at the device level. In other words, it's
Speaker 1: not sending information over the cloud to Microsoft or to
Speaker 1: other partners. It all lives on the machine. So that way,
Speaker 1: as long as the machine is in your possession, you're good.
Speaker 1: But that's still kind of a concern because if someone
Speaker 1: were to get access to your machine, then they would
Speaker 1: be able to see a full history of your activities
Speaker 1: that might include stuff that gives them information about logins
Speaker 1: and all that other kind of information. So then Microsoft said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work on this. They kind of pushed back
Speaker 1: the debut of recall, and then they incorporated a couple
Speaker 1: of new features. One is that the screenshots are all encrypted,
Speaker 1: which means if you don't have administrative access to the
Speaker 1: computer or whatever, or user access, like you don't have
Speaker 1: the password to get into someone's machine, you can't do
Speaker 1: anything with those files unless you first decrypt them. Presumably
Speaker 1: that would take a very long time to do and
Speaker 1: wouldn't be worth your effort. But as Pilch notes, sometimes
Speaker 1: recall will capture sensitive information that it should not capture
Speaker 1: in a screenshot and will leave it in plain text.
Speaker 1: Although the screenshot itself is encrypted, if you were to
Speaker 1: look at the screenshot, you would see the information that
Speaker 1: shouldn't be protected in clear text. That's a problem. So
Speaker 1: for example, credit card information. By default, screenshots are not
Speaker 1: supposed to be taken of that kind of info. And
Speaker 1: if you're using like a shopping site, Recalls pretty good
Speaker 1: about not doing that. But Pilch found that if you
Speaker 1: were using other cases, like let's say you've got a
Speaker 1: PDF file and you open up the PDF file and
Speaker 1: you're filling out the fields on this PDF file, they've
Speaker 1: made it, you know, editable, so you might have a
Speaker 1: file that has government information on it, like if you
Speaker 1: were filing for a passport or something. He found that
Speaker 1: in those cases, Recall would take screenshots and the sensitive
Speaker 1: information would be clearly viewable in the screenshots, and that's
Speaker 1: an issue. Again. The screenshot itself is encrypted and it
Speaker 1: lives just on the device, but still a concern like
Speaker 1: there's this record there that doesn't necessarily need to be there.
Speaker 1: Microsoft says that it's continually working on its features, so
Speaker 1: maybe this will be something that gets patched out later on,
Speaker 1: but I think it's good to be alert and aware
Speaker 1: about these sorts of things. So every country in the
Speaker 1: world has rules around certain bands of radio frequencies and
Speaker 1: how those bands can be used. So here in the
Speaker 1: United States, the Federal Communications Commission or FCC oversees this,
Speaker 1: and recently they opened up a frequency band, the six
Speaker 1: gigahertz frequency band. In fact that the band itself is
Speaker 1: like one point two gigaherts wide. But they've opened this
Speaker 1: up to very low power devices. So this doesn't apply
Speaker 1: to anyone who perhaps wanted to build a mega transmitter
Speaker 1: in the six gigahertz band or anything like that. There's
Speaker 1: still not a lot to do that. However, it does
Speaker 1: allow for short range wireless devices, so for example, in
Speaker 1: car entertainment systems or short range health monitoring devices, those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, Internet of things kind of applications. The
Speaker 1: data throughput in the six gigahertz range is far greater
Speaker 1: than what you would get with the technology like Bluetooth.
Speaker 1: But that just means that the implementation of the technology
Speaker 1: should guide your choice as to which technology, which wireless
Speaker 1: technology you incorporate into your invention. So if whatever application
Speaker 1: you have in mind just requires small amounts of data
Speaker 1: transfers like it's just little packets of data. Bluetooth would
Speaker 1: be a great solution for that. It's it does that
Speaker 1: job great, But if you need something that has a
Speaker 1: bit more oomph in the data transmission context, well then
Speaker 1: you would probably want to use this band of frequencies.
Speaker 1: One other issue with this is that you could run
Speaker 1: into interfer appearence. That's why the FCC has only allowed
Speaker 1: for very low power applications using this band because if
Speaker 1: it's very low power, the range of transmission is not
Speaker 1: going to be very far, so the chance for interference
Speaker 1: is lower. If you have higher power outputs, then you're
Speaker 1: going to have more opportunities for interference, which means more
Speaker 1: error rates and things of that nature. So if you
Speaker 1: just restrict how much power the device is able to use,
Speaker 1: you really sidestep that problem just because they don't transmit
Speaker 1: far enough for interference to typically be an issue. Okay,
Speaker 1: our last story before we get to recommended reading is
Speaker 1: about the game awards that happened this week. Now I'm
Speaker 1: going to cut right to the chase. The Game of
Speaker 1: the Year went to Astrobot. I have not played Astrobot,
Speaker 1: but everything I've heard suggests that it is worthy of
Speaker 1: the title of Game of the Year, even though I'm
Speaker 1: a little salty that like a dragon Infinite Wealth didn't
Speaker 1: make it to the nominee list for a Game of
Speaker 1: the Year. But then I play maybe three or four
Speaker 1: games in a twelve month period, so I don't have
Speaker 1: the experience to make a good call on these kinds
Speaker 1: of things, Like I am certainly not an expert because
Speaker 1: I don't play enough. But anyway, the Game Awards are
Speaker 1: really known for two things, you know, giving out trophies
Speaker 1: to games and creators and also showing a buttload of
Speaker 1: trailers for upcoming video game titles. So some of the
Speaker 1: stuff shown off during the awards included a teaser for
Speaker 1: a game from Naughty Dog. They make the uncharted games.
Speaker 1: It's titled Intergalactic the Heretic Project. They showed a trailer
Speaker 1: for an elden Ring multiplayer spinoff game called night Rain.
Speaker 1: They showed off a trailer for a new entry in
Speaker 1: the Venerable Witcher series of games, so this would be
Speaker 1: the Witcher four. They gave a first look at the
Speaker 1: upcoming Borderlands four game. They announced a new Turrok game
Speaker 1: of all things that was a shock and lots more
Speaker 1: stuff too, So if you are a gamer, and somehow
Speaker 1: you missed out on all the hype and all the announcements.
Speaker 1: I recommend you take some time today to watch a
Speaker 1: truckload of trailers and catch up and get excited for
Speaker 1: what's coming next year. I'll have to say, like the
Speaker 1: last couple of years have been pretty darn phenomenal on
Speaker 1: the video game front. There have been some really incredible
Speaker 1: titles to come out, and while I've only had a
Speaker 1: chance to play a few of them, I'm just amazed
Speaker 1: at the creativity and the innovation that's going on in
Speaker 1: the video game space, mostly in the independent space, like
Speaker 1: the TRIPAA titles and stuff. Those are always, you know,
Speaker 1: impressive and everything. And I'd be lying if I said
Speaker 1: I wasn't looking forward to Grand Theft Auto six. I am,
Speaker 1: But honestly, I think some of the most exciting developments
Speaker 1: in the video game space have been in the independent area.
Speaker 1: There've been some great games. No independent itself is a
Speaker 1: broad spectrum. Some independent studios are teeny tiny and consist
Speaker 1: of maybe one or two people, and some independent studios
Speaker 1: are actually quite large and have support from much bigger
Speaker 1: companies somewhere along the line. So you know, that's a
Speaker 1: huge range in itself. Okay, I do have some recommended
Speaker 1: reading for y'all, and this stuff is pretty deep and
Speaker 1: some of it's super heavy, So I didn't tackle it
Speaker 1: in today's episode because typically the entries here are fairly short,
Speaker 1: and I feel like these are stories that require a
Speaker 1: lot more reading and consideration and you can't easily summarize them.
Speaker 1: So up first is Ian Sample's piece in The Guardian
Speaker 1: titled unprecedented risk to life on Earth Scientists call for
Speaker 1: halt on mirror life MicroB research, you know, in case
Speaker 1: those drones over New Jersey aren't filling you with enough
Speaker 1: existential dread, but a very important piece just scary. Then
Speaker 1: there's Dan Gooden's peace in Ours Tetnica titled Russia takes
Speaker 1: unusual route to hack Starlink connected devices in Ukraine and
Speaker 1: it details the rather circuitous route that Russia has created
Speaker 1: in an effort to spy on Ukrainian forces in that war.
Speaker 1: And finally there's Ashley Bellinger's piece, also in Ours Technica
Speaker 1: that's titled character dot AI steps up teen safety after
Speaker 1: bots allegedly caused suicide self harm. So yeah, that last
Speaker 1: article in particular is very hard to read It does
Speaker 1: deal with kids and mental health issues and suicide, but
Speaker 1: I think it's important to stay informed about how interactions
Speaker 1: with AI can have very real and sometimes extremely tragic
Speaker 1: consequences in our world, and to learn more about what
Speaker 1: companies are doing or not doing to address those issues.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode. It was a long news episode,
Speaker 1: but you know, we're wrapping up the year. There's a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about, and besides which I won't be
Speaker 1: doing this much longer, so it's good to get it
Speaker 1: all out now. I hope all of you out there
Speaker 1: are doing really well. I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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