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? This time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, January two. Yes, I just forgot
Speaker 1: the date and I had to look at my computer
Speaker 1: to see what it was. But let's get to the
Speaker 1: tech news. Tomorrow, A T and T and Verizon will
Speaker 1: be switching on the C band five G service around
Speaker 1: the United States, and the airline industry as a whole
Speaker 1: has issued a warning that there will likely be quote
Speaker 1: unquote catastrophic delays as a result. All right, so if
Speaker 1: you're not all caught up on this, here is what
Speaker 1: is going on. A T and T and Verizon purchased
Speaker 1: nearly all of the C bay and five G spectrum
Speaker 1: at auction, and those companies have been prepping a rollout
Speaker 1: of five G service for months. The aviation industry appealed
Speaker 1: to have that rollout delayed, citing concerns that the frequencies
Speaker 1: within that spectrum could potentially interfere with sensitive airplane equipment
Speaker 1: like radio altimeters, which tells a plane how far off
Speaker 1: the ground. It is uh. Some aircraft use automated landing
Speaker 1: procedures in which radio altimeters play a crucial role. Understandably,
Speaker 1: if an automated system is to bring an aircraft in
Speaker 1: for landing, it has to know where the ground is. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there's been this bit of tug of war between the
Speaker 1: telecom industry and the aviation industry in the United States
Speaker 1: over the whole matter. Now, since the service switches on tomorrow, January,
Speaker 1: the aviation industry has said, hey, yo, we might see
Speaker 1: cancelations ripple across the nation and in the world because
Speaker 1: we're not cleared to fly all the aircraft sent our
Speaker 1: fleet into all the hubs under all circumstances. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the big fear here is that in low visibility situations,
Speaker 1: interference from five G could lead to tragedy, and that,
Speaker 1: obviously we want to avoid that. The airlines are asking
Speaker 1: providers like A T and T and Verizon not to
Speaker 1: offer five G service within two miles of major airports.
Speaker 1: In other words, don't operate it, don't transmit in five
Speaker 1: G anywhere within two miles of one of these major hubs.
Speaker 1: I read a really interesting article written by Patrick Belton,
Speaker 1: and I apologize Mr Melton for butchering your name, But
Speaker 1: he wrote a piece called why does five G only
Speaker 1: pose a problem for US airplanes? And this was on
Speaker 1: the site light reading dot com that's l I G
Speaker 1: h t Reading And UH I thought it was a
Speaker 1: great article and it's a fantastic question to ask, why
Speaker 1: are we really only hearing about that here the United States?
Speaker 1: Why aren't we hearing about in Europe? And uh five
Speaker 1: G service has been around in countries like South Korea
Speaker 1: for a while with no reported problems. Now in Europe,
Speaker 1: the frequencies they use are just a tad lower in
Speaker 1: the spectrum than here in the United States, and the
Speaker 1: frequencies that radio altimeters use are around like forty two
Speaker 1: hundred mega hurts or four point two gig hurts if
Speaker 1: you prefer, which provides enough of a gap between the
Speaker 1: altimeter operating frequencies and five G that Europe has essentially
Speaker 1: said we're not concerned. We've been told two hundred mega
Speaker 1: hurts is the buffer that we need to make sure
Speaker 1: everything is safe. This has more than two hundred mega hurts,
Speaker 1: we should be fine. It's actually more than two hundred
Speaker 1: mega hurts here in the United States, too, but we're
Speaker 1: still seeing this big issue. So Belton suggests that the
Speaker 1: real thing at play here is money, specifically the money
Speaker 1: that would be needed to upgrade altimeters in aircraft. See
Speaker 1: the Federal Aviation Administration here in the U S the
Speaker 1: f a A has cleared certain aircraft as being safe
Speaker 1: to operate, and that the f a A has tested
Speaker 1: the altimeters against potential five G interference and found them
Speaker 1: to be robust. They do not there is no interference fear.
Speaker 1: But there's no single altimeter standard in place within the
Speaker 1: aviation industry, so just because some altimeters are safe doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that all of them are, and it could
Speaker 1: mean that some aircraft will have to switch out this
Speaker 1: important gear before they're able to operate safely. But then
Speaker 1: the question is who pays for those upgrades? Well, the
Speaker 1: telecom industry would really like the aviation companies to do it,
Speaker 1: and the aviation industry would really like the telecom industry
Speaker 1: to do it. Essentially, what the aviation industry is saying is, hey,
Speaker 1: these things work great. You're the one who's bringing the
Speaker 1: interference into the whole situation, so you should have to
Speaker 1: pay for it. And the telecom industry is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we outlined the parameters of this ages ago. Everyone agreed
Speaker 1: that two mega hurts was enough of a buffer. That's
Speaker 1: in place. If you're saying it's not enough of a buffer,
Speaker 1: even though we had already agreed upon it, well then
Speaker 1: that's on you and you have to fit the bill.
Speaker 1: And that Belton says, is really what is this is
Speaker 1: all about. It's that it's more about political maneuvers and
Speaker 1: an effort to cover the bill than it is about
Speaker 1: the technology itself. Now that might well be the case,
Speaker 1: and like I said, Belton's article is well worth a
Speaker 1: read and I recommend you check it out. Personally, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping the f a A can continue the tests to
Speaker 1: make certain that things are safe and clear and and
Speaker 1: that way open up the way for regular operations for
Speaker 1: all airlines. I think the most important thing is to
Speaker 1: make sure that no one is at risk of a
Speaker 1: terrible accident due to interference. It sounds to me like
Speaker 1: such an outcome would be unlikely, But when it comes
Speaker 1: to these kind of stakes, I feel like you have
Speaker 1: to be certain right. When people's lives are at stake,
Speaker 1: you can't just say it should work right. That's not
Speaker 1: good enough. Last Friday, Bloomberg reported that the US Federal
Speaker 1: Trade Commission, or FTC, is investigating Meta slash Facebook. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the FTC is looking at Meta's virtual reality or VR division,
Speaker 1: and whether or not the company has engaged in tactics
Speaker 1: to suppress competition. Now, considering the fact that Meta Slash
Speaker 1: Facebook has a long history of taking actions that I
Speaker 1: think you could reasonably argue amount to suppressing competition, this
Speaker 1: doesn't come as a big surprise. Many Oculus fans were
Speaker 1: upset when Facebook, after acquiring Oculus, then tied the VR
Speaker 1: services to Facebook accounts, meaning if you wanted to play
Speaker 1: VR games using an Oculus you needed a Facebook account
Speaker 1: in order to do it. Moreover, Oculus being one of
Speaker 1: the most popular VR platforms out there, commanded a pretty
Speaker 1: large slice of the market share, and thus it kind
Speaker 1: of locked developers into creating stuff that had to work
Speaker 1: with Facebook. See, if you're a developer, you don't want
Speaker 1: to spend all your time and money and resources to
Speaker 1: build out stuff for platforms that very few people use.
Speaker 1: That's just bad business. Like It's like it's like locating
Speaker 1: your store in the middle of a forest where there's
Speaker 1: no towns nearby, You're not gonna get any foot traffic, right,
Speaker 1: so you go to where the people are, and if
Speaker 1: the people happen to be on a system that happens
Speaker 1: to tie in with Facebook, that's how you have to
Speaker 1: play ball. The FTC is looking to see if Meta
Speaker 1: has purposefully made moves to squash an attempts to compete
Speaker 1: in the VR space, and considering the buzz is still
Speaker 1: going very strong for the concept of a metaverse, this
Speaker 1: kind of problem does get serious. I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: Meta the company is really trying to establish itself as
Speaker 1: the definitive metaverse company ups in an attempt to be
Speaker 1: the company that defines the standards that all of their
Speaker 1: companies will have to conform to in order to be
Speaker 1: part of any kind of metaverse in the future. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you're just gonna get a bunch of little kind of
Speaker 1: pocket universes that aren't uh, you know, they don't work
Speaker 1: with one another, right, That would be really frustrating. So
Speaker 1: whether the FTC will throw a wrench into the gears
Speaker 1: of Meta's plans, that remains to be seen. A lot
Speaker 1: of folks online are showing very little confidence in that.
Speaker 1: They argue that lawmakers in the US have largely stripped
Speaker 1: the FTC of its enforcement capabilities over the years, but
Speaker 1: we'll have to see The Activision blizzard story of one,
Speaker 1: in which multiple employees came forward accusing the company of
Speaker 1: fermenting a toxic and hostile work environment, continues. In twenty two,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal reports that the company has quote
Speaker 1: fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and
Speaker 1: disciplined about forty others since a lie as part of
Speaker 1: efforts to address allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct
Speaker 1: end quote Further, the w s J reports that, according
Speaker 1: to people who are familiar with the situation, the plan
Speaker 1: was to release a report about all of this before
Speaker 1: Christmas of one, but Activision CEO Bobby Codeck mixed that idea,
Speaker 1: saying it would make the problems seem worse than what
Speaker 1: it really is. Uh huh. Look, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true, because the problem actually sounds pretty darn bad
Speaker 1: no matter how you slice it, and if w s
Speaker 1: J's sources are telling the truth, CODEC decided to hold
Speaker 1: back on the revelation that the company had taken action
Speaker 1: against like seventy plus employees. Makes it sound even worse right,
Speaker 1: it's not a good look if the company is hiding this. Again,
Speaker 1: that's assuming that the sources are giving accurate information, but
Speaker 1: I've got no reason to believe otherwise. I should also
Speaker 1: add Activision management have said that the company is instituting
Speaker 1: new policies to address these corporate culture issues, including you know,
Speaker 1: any pay disparity that there is there, and adopting a
Speaker 1: zero tolerance rule for you know, when it comes to harassment,
Speaker 1: specifically sexual harassment. My hope is that the company can
Speaker 1: really turn around and create a positive, creative and profitable environment.
Speaker 1: But stay tuned because there's another story related to this
Speaker 1: that's a big if factor in this. Now. I'm a
Speaker 1: casual gamer and I love games, but I don't want
Speaker 1: games at the expense of someone's dignity or mental health
Speaker 1: or pay or anything like that. So here's hoping that
Speaker 1: Activision is in fact on the right path and that
Speaker 1: employees in the future will feel comfortable and proud of
Speaker 1: being part of that company. Also, while we're on the subject,
Speaker 1: let's find a different revenue path that endless micro transactions.
Speaker 1: That last bit is way less important, But as I
Speaker 1: was writing that last story, a bigger one about Activision
Speaker 1: hit my news feed, So this actually impacts what I
Speaker 1: just said, and that story is that Microsoft has announced
Speaker 1: it intends to acquire Activision Blizzard for sixty eight point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars in a cash transaction. Sixty eight point
Speaker 1: seven billion with a B dollars. Wow. Microsoft just last
Speaker 1: year finalized this acquisition of the video game company Bethesda,
Speaker 1: which is known for titles like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dishonored,
Speaker 1: and Doomed, at least the most recent incarnations of Doom.
Speaker 1: If Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard, it will become owner of
Speaker 1: one of the oldest game companies around, because Activision began
Speaker 1: as a group of folks from Atari who left the
Speaker 1: company and then started their own game company. Obviously, all
Speaker 1: of this comes in the middle of that scandal we
Speaker 1: were just talking about, and all the chaos going on
Speaker 1: at Activision Blizzard right now. I'm not sure if Microsoft
Speaker 1: is the solution to Activision Blizzards problems, although obviously the
Speaker 1: company will have to make massive changes in order to
Speaker 1: kind of distance itself from that very ugly situation that's
Speaker 1: currently an Activision Blizzard. And I also don't know if
Speaker 1: this acquisition will actually go through Microsoft has a bit
Speaker 1: of a dodgy history with regulators. However, that being said,
Speaker 1: even with this acquisition, Microsoft would not be the largest
Speaker 1: video game company in the world. In fact, it would
Speaker 1: be number three, behind Sony Intencent. Those would be ahead
Speaker 1: of Microsoft. So there's a decent argument to be made
Speaker 1: that Microsoft isn't going to harm competition in the space,
Speaker 1: at least not globally, because it's not the market dominant
Speaker 1: party involved even with the acquisition. Oh Also, Microsoft CEO
Speaker 1: Satya Nadela says that this will play a part in
Speaker 1: the development of metaverse platforms because it's all about the metaverse. Baby. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it appears as though Bobby Kodik will continue as CEO
Speaker 1: of Activision Blizzard throughout the acquisition process US, but we'll
Speaker 1: likely to part the company once that process is complete,
Speaker 1: which is estimated to be sometime in three and then
Speaker 1: at that point the company will report directly to Phil Spencer,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Okay, it's Jonathan After I
Speaker 1: already recorded the whole episode, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: jump in and say that the bit about codec leaving
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard, that was my own interpretation on the news
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a lot of other news that has that
Speaker 1: being an open question about whether or not he would
Speaker 1: stay on with Activision Blizzard or if he would leave
Speaker 1: the company. So because of that, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: address it and say he may still be part of
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard upon the acquisition, or he may leave. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't have any insight information one way or the other,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to make that clear before we moved on. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hand it back over to past Jonathan. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got some more stories coming up, but before we
Speaker 1: do that, let's take a quick break. We're back. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk recently said that social media accounts that track his
Speaker 1: travel are becoming a security issue, according to Business Insider,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, that's a problem. And it's not a
Speaker 1: problem just for Elon Musk, gets a problem for anyone
Speaker 1: who's using social media accounts. And look, I make no
Speaker 1: secret about the fact that I am not a fan
Speaker 1: of Elon Musk, but I also feel strongly that as
Speaker 1: we have become more dependent upon various social networking apps
Speaker 1: and services, we've surrendered more information about ourselves, including our
Speaker 1: location and our plans and other important info and often
Speaker 1: we do this because the perceived benefit we get once
Speaker 1: we share that information appears to be legit. Heck, I
Speaker 1: remember when four square was a big deal. Do you
Speaker 1: do you remember four Square? Folks were using that app
Speaker 1: to check into locations all the time, all over the
Speaker 1: place and just broadcasting, hey, this is where I'm at.
Speaker 1: But obviously, as we hand over more private information, which
Speaker 1: then arguably at some level becomes public or at the
Speaker 1: very least much less private, then we also end up
Speaker 1: taking back step on stuff like security, Like the more
Speaker 1: information we share, the less secure we are. And you
Speaker 1: don't have to be a billionaire with a tendency to
Speaker 1: tick off folks for that to manifest as a security issue.
Speaker 1: I worry about folks who could be the target of stalkers,
Speaker 1: for example, because their online activity, as that the people
Speaker 1: who are targeted their online activity can end up putting
Speaker 1: them in danger, even if they're not actively trying to
Speaker 1: share their whereabouts online. Anyway, This is really just me
Speaker 1: reminding you that location based services can come with a risk,
Speaker 1: and it's good to look into which ones you use
Speaker 1: or which services you have that also incorporate location tracking.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's turned on by default and at least is
Speaker 1: a good idea to know which of those apps are
Speaker 1: doing it, even if you don't plan to turn it off,
Speaker 1: just so that you know what's going on. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I've recently started scaling way back on the stuff
Speaker 1: that I use. Meanwhile, it's not like there's any surprise
Speaker 1: as to where I'm at. I'm always at home. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's beside the point. I I have started
Speaker 1: to really cut back on that because I've been growing
Speaker 1: more and more concerned about the risks involved. And these
Speaker 1: aren't new risks, by the way. It's not like things
Speaker 1: suddenly got dangerous. These are things that have been pretty
Speaker 1: much an issue ever since location tracking really started to
Speaker 1: become a thing. So I'm not saying like, hey, things
Speaker 1: just got dangerous. It's more like, no, they've always been dangerous.
Speaker 1: I just finally started paying more tension of becoming more
Speaker 1: concerned about it for myself, not telling anyone else what
Speaker 1: to do except just be aware, you know. After Jamie Zawinsky,
Speaker 1: who co founded the foundation Mozilla, tweeted his disappointment that
Speaker 1: the organization would begin accepting cryptocurrency donations, the Mozilla Foundation
Speaker 1: announced it was pushing the pause button on the whole initiative.
Speaker 1: The timeline for this has been pretty short. The Mozilla
Speaker 1: Foundation first announced the plan to accept cryptocurrencies for donations
Speaker 1: to the foundation on New Year's Eve. Zawinsky, who again
Speaker 1: co found in Mozilla, posted in a blog his strong
Speaker 1: disapproval for this move, which is putting it lightly, and
Speaker 1: he told Tech Republic writer Brandon viglia Rollo that quote,
Speaker 1: anyone involved in cryptocurrencies in any way is either a
Speaker 1: grifter or a mark end quote which, hey, I found
Speaker 1: someone who's even more critical of cryptocurrency than I am,
Speaker 1: and Zawinsky is like at least seventeen times smarter than I,
Speaker 1: And anyway, Zwinski's objections are similar to the ones that
Speaker 1: I have. One is that proof of work cryptocurrencies, of
Speaker 1: which Bitcoin and the current version of Ethereum are both
Speaker 1: proof of work cryptocurrencies, those are the kind that require
Speaker 1: massive amounts of compute power. If you have any hope
Speaker 1: of being an effective cryptocurrency minor, if you're not relying
Speaker 1: on electricity hungry systems, you are not going to compete
Speaker 1: and you will not mind any cryptocurrency. More powerful systems
Speaker 1: will beat you to the punch. So there is an
Speaker 1: incentive to build increasingly power hungry systems, particularly of the
Speaker 1: value of the cryptocurrency in question is in the stratosphere.
Speaker 1: But we're also in a world where this kind of
Speaker 1: power consumption is to put it, lightly look down upon,
Speaker 1: particularly when viewed in the lens of climate change concerns. Again,
Speaker 1: according to tech Republic, quote, a single transaction on the
Speaker 1: Bitcoin blockchain eats up the same amount of energy as
Speaker 1: the average US household on a seventy seven point eight
Speaker 1: day period end quote, so more than two months of use.
Speaker 1: That is a big old wowsers. Now Ethereum goes a
Speaker 1: little lighter. Ethereum. People are using specialized equipment to mind Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: but with Ethereum that's where you typically see the people
Speaker 1: who are using rigs that are reliant on things like
Speaker 1: really fast GPUs. Anyway, with Ethereum, the transaction requires the
Speaker 1: same amount of power as the average US house uses
Speaker 1: over eight days. So not as extreme as Bitcoin, but
Speaker 1: still pretty you know. Massive. Biglia Rollo asks the question
Speaker 1: if perhaps we are now seeing a turning point for cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: if maybe that means we're going to see more organizations,
Speaker 1: perhaps governments, reject cryptocurrency in the future. If that's the case, well,
Speaker 1: that would likely blast the values of those cryptocurrencies. They
Speaker 1: would plummet if more and more other entities began to reject,
Speaker 1: and that in turn would impact the whole mining operations.
Speaker 1: Right Like, if the value of cryptocurrency goes drastically down,
Speaker 1: it would cost more to mind than you would get
Speaker 1: out of mining, So that would change everything. However, I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely sure that we're at the cusp there. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's actually happening. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: money already wrapped up in crypto, and the evangelists for
Speaker 1: crypto have shown no sign of backing off. Then again,
Speaker 1: they have their own investment in crypto, right it depends
Speaker 1: heavily upon driving up enthusiasm about cryptocurrency. If confidence and
Speaker 1: enthusiasm drops out, they lose their their investment. So I
Speaker 1: think it's still a little too early to say this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of the end of cryptocurrency. I don't
Speaker 1: actually think that's happening. I think there might be, you know,
Speaker 1: more bumps in the road, But that's just my gut feeling.
Speaker 1: I'm not basing that on any like solid evidence or anything.
Speaker 1: Speaking of cryptocurrency. We've got another story about the related
Speaker 1: topic of n f T s or non fungible tokens. Now,
Speaker 1: n f T s are not cryptocurrency. Uh, they're digital
Speaker 1: tokens on a blockchain that represent ownership over something. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a digital certificate of ownership essentially. Anyway, recently,
Speaker 1: an n f T investment group calling itself Spice d
Speaker 1: a O made headlines when it placed the winning bid
Speaker 1: in a Christie's auction for a copy of a book
Speaker 1: about Alejandro Jodorowski and his attempt to make a film
Speaker 1: adaptation of the science fiction novel Dune. So you'all might
Speaker 1: not know this, but you know back in the nineteen eighties, uh,
Speaker 1: David Lynch, the experimental filmmaker and cheery weather reporter, made
Speaker 1: a done adaptation that received a mixed reaction, including from
Speaker 1: Lynch himself, and more recently had Denise Villeneus of releasing
Speaker 1: part of an adaptation, part one of the first do novel. However,
Speaker 1: before any of that, Jedderoski had made a pitch for
Speaker 1: doing this, and that pitch has become the stuff of legends,
Speaker 1: with folks like artist Salvador Dali being involved. At one time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: while that movie never materialized, a book about the whole
Speaker 1: thing did. But it's a very rare book. There are
Speaker 1: only a few copies known to exist, and that brings
Speaker 1: us to the auction now. The expected auction price was
Speaker 1: to be anywhere between twenty five thousand and thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand euro, but Spice d a Oh spent a whopping
Speaker 1: two point six million euro, like a massive amount, that's
Speaker 1: around three million dollars just to buy this book. And
Speaker 1: apparently the group thought that that purchase also gave them
Speaker 1: the copyright to the book, which would mean they could
Speaker 1: do whatever they wanted with the book, including distributing it
Speaker 1: for free, are making derivative works, or just chopping up
Speaker 1: the whole thing and selling all the individual parts of
Speaker 1: the book off as n f T s and then
Speaker 1: just destroying the original physical copy. But they didn't purchase
Speaker 1: the copyright. They purchased a book, so this would be
Speaker 1: no different from you going to a bookstore buying a
Speaker 1: copy of the latest Stephen King novel and then going home. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you purchased a copy of the book, so
Speaker 1: you don't actually own the copyright to the book, right,
Speaker 1: You just have a copy of the book, because owning
Speaker 1: the copyright would be absurd that they wouldn't work. You know,
Speaker 1: you would only be able to have one copy of
Speaker 1: every single book because otherwise who owns the copyright with
Speaker 1: everyone going to the store. And actually, if I'm to
Speaker 1: make this more like an n f T it would
Speaker 1: really be more like you bought a digital certificate showing
Speaker 1: you owned a copy of that Stephen King book. You
Speaker 1: still wouldn't have the copyright. But apparently Spiced d Ao
Speaker 1: figured that the copyright was part and parcel of this auction.
Speaker 1: Now that situation has been held up to ridicule, however,
Speaker 1: I think it really points out to how poorly n
Speaker 1: f t s have been explained. Sometimes. I think that
Speaker 1: poor explanation has been on purpose because it can work
Speaker 1: to a scam artists favor. If the market doesn't really
Speaker 1: understand what's going on, they're more likely to agree to
Speaker 1: something that's not legit. So while I understand the temptation
Speaker 1: to make fun of Spice d Ao for this misunderstanding,
Speaker 1: I think it's far more fruitful to look at this
Speaker 1: as an indication that better education about n f t
Speaker 1: s is really needed so that folks don't fall into
Speaker 1: these traps. And again, I've made it no secret that
Speaker 1: I do not like n f T s. I I
Speaker 1: have a really bad feeling about them. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just a speculative market that has not doesn't really
Speaker 1: have anything underneath it. Maybe in a universe where digital
Speaker 1: goods have more applicability across different platforms, I could see
Speaker 1: n f t s really mattering. I mean, that's like
Speaker 1: the whole Web three slash metaverse argument. But we're not
Speaker 1: there yet, and there's no guarantee that the stuff that's
Speaker 1: going on today is even going to be around by
Speaker 1: the time we do get there, So I'm not Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very negative about n f t s in general.
Speaker 1: You know, my heart goes out to all the elite
Speaker 1: athletes out there in the world who have dedicated pretty
Speaker 1: much all of their lives to becoming the best in
Speaker 1: their respective fields so that perhaps one day they might
Speaker 1: compete in the Olympics. That is a huge dedication. It requires,
Speaker 1: you know, discipline on a level that is foreign an
Speaker 1: alien to me. The Beijing Olympics have already been scrutinized
Speaker 1: for lots of legitimate reasons. One that China has a
Speaker 1: brutal history that ranges from denial of human rights to
Speaker 1: outright genocide to uh Several nations, including the United States,
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand with Sluania, have all
Speaker 1: announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games. Now, they're still
Speaker 1: allowing their athletes to travel to China and compete in
Speaker 1: the games. They're not, you know, pulling out the games entirely,
Speaker 1: but they're not sending any diplomatic officials to attend the
Speaker 1: games at all or to participate in any way. Three
Speaker 1: That because of the pandemic, the games are closed to
Speaker 1: all but quote unquote selected spectators, which really changes things
Speaker 1: dramatically for everyone involved. This is not that different from
Speaker 1: the Tokyo Games in many ways, and that Tokyo didn't
Speaker 1: allow anyone from outside Japan to come in as a spectator.
Speaker 1: China is doing the same thing. In fact, originally China
Speaker 1: had said they weren't going to allow spectators at all,
Speaker 1: but now they kind of walked that back a little
Speaker 1: bit and said that some selected spectators will be allowed
Speaker 1: to attend. Honestly, I think that's the responsible thing to do. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't I feel badly for the athletes
Speaker 1: who deserve to be able to appear in front of
Speaker 1: in a pre should have crowd, but not at the
Speaker 1: expense of people's safety. That's the issue I have there,
Speaker 1: So I'm in agreement with that part, but it's still
Speaker 1: a big part of why these games are being scrutinized.
Speaker 1: Ah So presumably the spectators who are selected will not
Speaker 1: be anyone from outside of China. But fourth China is
Speaker 1: going to require all visitors to download an app called
Speaker 1: My twenty twenty two and it's for the purposes of
Speaker 1: COVID monitoring. So that's understandable, right, Like the idea that
Speaker 1: you need to have a way to verify that you
Speaker 1: have in fact received the vaccinations and the boosters and
Speaker 1: negative tests and all that. That makes sense, and it
Speaker 1: includes everybody like visitors, athletes, and media. But the reason
Speaker 1: that fourth item makes the list is that security experts
Speaker 1: have expressed concerns about this app. They say it has
Speaker 1: poor security and it lacks encryption for many of its files,
Speaker 1: and when you consider that those files are related to
Speaker 1: people's medical histories and personal information, that's a big red flag.
Speaker 1: So it could put individuals at risk from a data
Speaker 1: security standpoint. The experts also say they found a list
Speaker 1: of quote unquote censorship keywords built into the app. This
Speaker 1: raises a concern that the app might be used by
Speaker 1: the Chinese government to censor those who are attending the
Speaker 1: Olympics and prevent them from using their devices to communicate
Speaker 1: stuff that the government would rather folks not talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, like Gina Side for example. The experts suggest
Speaker 1: anyone going to the Beijing Olympics should use a burner
Speaker 1: phone and create an email address just for the purposes
Speaker 1: of that visit, to limit the impact that the app
Speaker 1: might have on them. But even with these precautions, you
Speaker 1: have to remember that everyone is going to have to
Speaker 1: submit some important information, including stuff like medical history and
Speaker 1: passport data. So another not so positive thing about the
Speaker 1: Beijing Olympics. I should go ahead and say to UH,
Speaker 1: I historically have got a pretty negative opinion about the
Speaker 1: meta around the Olympics, not the Olympic Games themselves, but
Speaker 1: rather like the International Olympic Committee. I've got some major
Speaker 1: issues with that organization and how it operates UH and
Speaker 1: appears to have lots of conflicts there. Um, So I
Speaker 1: don't mean to single out Beijing Olympics unfairly in this regard.
Speaker 1: There are issues I've seen with pretty much every Olympics
Speaker 1: and how they were conducted and how cities responded, including
Speaker 1: my own city of Atlanta back in But that's a
Speaker 1: discussion that I will spare you because I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a podcast that you can make that would make
Speaker 1: that that rant uh interesting to anyone other than myself.
Speaker 1: So we'll move on, and with that, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: another quick break and we'll come back with a few
Speaker 1: more stories. You know, as the great Tom Jones would say,
Speaker 1: it's not unusual in the world of tech to cover
Speaker 1: patent disputes. I'm pretty sure that's what that song was about.
Speaker 1: Companies are really big on generating and then guarding patents,
Speaker 1: So applying for a patent means that you have to
Speaker 1: make your invention public, right like, there two broad paths
Speaker 1: you can take when you invent something. One is you
Speaker 1: try and keep it secret, and you try and make
Speaker 1: it a proprietary the trade secret, and you don't share
Speaker 1: it with anyone, and you try to take advantage of
Speaker 1: the market with this trade secret in your possession. However,
Speaker 1: that might mean that someone else finds out how you're
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing, and they make a copy of
Speaker 1: it and they do the same thing, and you have
Speaker 1: no protection there because you kept it a trade secret.
Speaker 1: The other pathway is that you can apply for a patent.
Speaker 1: When you apply for a patent, you have to explain
Speaker 1: how you're doing what you're doing, at least in general terms.
Speaker 1: Um the actual specific implementation can be a little more nuanced,
Speaker 1: but you have to broadly explain how your invention works.
Speaker 1: And that means that anyone can get hold of that patent.
Speaker 1: Because patents are publicly filed, anyone can get hold of
Speaker 1: it and review it and see how you're doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing. However, the patent grants you the right to
Speaker 1: exploit that invention any way you want, and you have
Speaker 1: exclusive rights to exploit that invention any way you want,
Speaker 1: and that can include licensing that invention out to other parties.
Speaker 1: So that's why a lot of companies are big on
Speaker 1: generating and guarding patents. It's a way to get a
Speaker 1: market advantage. You can even make an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: revenue just licensing out patents and not actually doing anything yourself. Well, recently,
Speaker 1: the Swedish company Ericsson sued Apple for patent infringement. More specifically,
Speaker 1: the issue is that Apple secured a license for certain
Speaker 1: technologies that Ericsson holds the patents for, and the license expired. Now,
Speaker 1: Apple and Ericson have been deadlocked in negotiations relating to
Speaker 1: renewing that license, and once it expired, Erickson turned up
Speaker 1: the pressure by filing this lawsuit against Apple. There are
Speaker 1: twelve total patents involved here. Apple, for its part, has
Speaker 1: sued Ericson for its negotiating strategy. Now I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: Apple means that Ericson it is that, you know, they
Speaker 1: their whole plan was to run down the clock so
Speaker 1: that the licenses would expire and then Rickson could sue Apple.
Speaker 1: And thus the negotiations were dragging on because Ericson wanted
Speaker 1: to have this leverage. So I think that's probably the
Speaker 1: heart of Apple's lawsuit against Rickson. By the way, all
Speaker 1: of this pretty much played out the same way back
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen, which is when Apple and Rickson
Speaker 1: had to renew their licenses the last time, and ultimately
Speaker 1: that reached the resolution of up a new patent licensing agreement.
Speaker 1: So I expect we're going to see something similar happen
Speaker 1: this year. The Financial Times reports that last December, for
Speaker 1: the first time ever, electric vehicles outsold diesel vehicles in Europe.
Speaker 1: Diesel vehicles are more popular in Europe than over here
Speaker 1: in the United States. Like here in the US, you
Speaker 1: don't run into that many diesel powered vehicles. There are some,
Speaker 1: but most consumer vehicles are using gasoline powered engines, not
Speaker 1: diesel powered engines. Many European nations began to favor diesel
Speaker 1: after the various oil crises in the nineteen seventies. Diesel
Speaker 1: vehicles are more fuel efficient than gasoline powered cars. However,
Speaker 1: diesel vehicles still emit pollutents that they're different pollutants than
Speaker 1: the ones you get with gasoline powered vehicles, but they
Speaker 1: still pollute. And diesel vehicles really took a beating in
Speaker 1: the reputation department in the wake of Volkswagen's so called
Speaker 1: diesel Gate. That was when Volkswagen was found incorporating devices
Speaker 1: that were meant to full testing equipment when you were
Speaker 1: running emissions testing, so that the diesel vehicle appeared to
Speaker 1: be operating at a level of efficiency that it wasn't
Speaker 1: operating at when you actually had the car out on
Speaker 1: the road. Essentially, it was a switch, and the switch said,
Speaker 1: all right, if there's a test being performed, throttle back
Speaker 1: on all the operations so that the emissions test is
Speaker 1: we can pass it. And when you're you detect that
Speaker 1: we're actually out on the road, remove those throttles so
Speaker 1: that you don't have a hit to performance. That's essentially
Speaker 1: what was going on. Also, governments in Europe have been
Speaker 1: offering incentives and rebates for folks to move over to
Speaker 1: electric vehicles and simultaneously have been putting forth more strict
Speaker 1: rules about emissions, which has put a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: on car companies to switch to manufacturing electric vehicles because
Speaker 1: it has just become a technological hurdle that's possibly impossible
Speaker 1: to overcome to make a diesel engine that meets the criteria.
Speaker 1: So this is not just a simple story of people
Speaker 1: in Europe who want electric vehicles more now. This is
Speaker 1: a larger story about a concerted effort to make a
Speaker 1: fundamental change to the fleet of vehicles in operation in Europe,
Speaker 1: mostly in light of the issue of climate change. And finally,
Speaker 1: NASA's Curiosity Rover has discovered that the carbon bound to
Speaker 1: minerals on the surface of Mars has a high concentration
Speaker 1: of light isotopes of carbon, specifically carbon twelve. And the
Speaker 1: reason that this is interesting is that organic critters here
Speaker 1: on Earth are lousy with carbon twelve. So naturally this
Speaker 1: has led to a discussion about where did that carbon
Speaker 1: twelve that's found on Mars? Where is it coming from?
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of hypotheses. One of those
Speaker 1: is that the carbon twelve in fact is ancient evidence
Speaker 1: that life once existed on Mars. However, it's not the
Speaker 1: only hypothesis, right, so it's not a foregone conclusion that
Speaker 1: this is, you know, cut and dried evidence that life
Speaker 1: was once on Mars. There are other hypotheses that suggest
Speaker 1: the carbon might have come from other inorganic sources. And
Speaker 1: since so far we've yet to uncover any direct evidence
Speaker 1: of life on Mars, we haven't found any definitive fossils
Speaker 1: or anything like that, the question remains an open one. Now.
Speaker 1: It could well be that one day we'll discover the
Speaker 1: carbon twelve came from outer space. You know, maybe Mars
Speaker 1: passed through a cloud of gas and dust many many
Speaker 1: millions of years ago, and we find out that that's
Speaker 1: where the carbon twelve came from. Or maybe we'll establish
Speaker 1: that once upon a time, at least in microbial form,
Speaker 1: life flourished on the Red planet. Now. I think it's
Speaker 1: exciting in either case, because learning the source represents us
Speaker 1: pushing back our ignorance. I think it's always a good
Speaker 1: thing when we do that, like whether the answer is
Speaker 1: truly invigorating or not, but I will admit I would
Speaker 1: be way more jazzed to hear about life on Mars
Speaker 1: or to hear David Bowie's song Life on Mars. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I miss David Bowie. Alright. That wraps up the news
Speaker 1: for Tuesday, jan twenty two. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me. The best way to do that
Speaker 1: is on Twitter. The handle for the show is text
Speaker 1: Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tex Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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