Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Thursday, January twelve, two thousand twenty three.
Speaker 1: Yesterday morning, flights across the United States were grounded because
Speaker 1: of a corrupted file in the Federal Aviation Administration's computer systems.
Speaker 1: So the f a A overseas flight operations here in
Speaker 1: the United States, and if it can't operate, ain't no
Speaker 1: flying being done. The corrupted file was in the f
Speaker 1: a a's Notice to Air Missions system a k A
Speaker 1: n O T A M, which I like to think
Speaker 1: is no TAM instead of not AM, but I don't
Speaker 1: honestly know. The purpose of a system is to send
Speaker 1: alerts to pilots to let them know about potential issues
Speaker 1: like hazards that they could encounter along their planned flight route.
Speaker 1: And as you can imagine, that information is really important.
Speaker 1: It can help pilots reroute to avoid problems that otherwise
Speaker 1: could really be serious. And so the entire fleet of
Speaker 1: commercial planes across the United States had to hold off
Speaker 1: until the problem could be fixed. Making matters worse, the
Speaker 1: corrupted file was also found in the backup systems, so
Speaker 1: there was no way to just switch to a secondary
Speaker 1: system because those also had the corrupted files in them. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: the f a A was able to fix the issue
Speaker 1: and get operations moving again before I got too late
Speaker 1: in the day, but thousands of flights were delayed and
Speaker 1: hundreds were canceled. The f a A is going to
Speaker 1: investigate the incident, as is the Department of Transportation, but
Speaker 1: officials say that as of right now, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that this was at all related to any kind of
Speaker 1: cyber attack or anything like that. It was probably a
Speaker 1: much more mundane issue. It does, however, point to how
Speaker 1: a an error like this can bring an entire uh
Speaker 1: sector of the travel industry to a halt. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's a sobering thought to think that that's really
Speaker 1: all that stands between operations and a lack thereof UH. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. There's clearly a need to find out what
Speaker 1: caused this issue in order to prevent such things from
Speaker 1: happening again in the future. Now for a quick update
Speaker 1: on the f t X situation. Now in case you
Speaker 1: don't remember, f t X was the second largest cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: exchange in the world before the whole thing went belly
Speaker 1: up due to some creative bookkeeping. That's a nice way
Speaker 1: to say that. Apparently f t X was secretly sending
Speaker 1: customer funds to cover investments made by a sister company
Speaker 1: called Alimated Research. The organization is going through bankruptcy and
Speaker 1: liquidation right now as it tries to recapture as much
Speaker 1: money as possible to return to creditors and stakeholders. According
Speaker 1: to f t x as lawyers, they've recovered more than
Speaker 1: five billion dollars so far in liquid and digital assets.
Speaker 1: The company still laims to recapture money on four point
Speaker 1: six billion dollars worth of less liquid assets. That means
Speaker 1: there's gonna have to be some steps made in order
Speaker 1: to convert these assets into cash, and there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that the amount secured is going to be the same
Speaker 1: as that four point six billion dollar valuation. Now this
Speaker 1: is impressive news, but it still means that individual investors
Speaker 1: are looking at getting only thirteen cents for every dollar
Speaker 1: they invested, which is a huge loss. Amazon appealed to
Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Board or in l RB to
Speaker 1: overturn a unionization vote at the JFK eight warehouse facility
Speaker 1: on Staten Island, New York. Unsurprisingly, the n l RB
Speaker 1: denied this appeal they cited with the workers. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is so unsurprising that critics are suggesting that what
Speaker 1: Amazon is doing is just going through this process mainly
Speaker 1: to delay negotiations between the company and the newly formed
Speaker 1: worker union. Amazon plans to appeal again to the n
Speaker 1: l RBS National Board in Washington, assuming the n l
Speaker 1: r B will uphold the vote again and there's no
Speaker 1: reason to assume otherwise. The next step would be to
Speaker 1: take the matter to federal court, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: Amazon is determined to make this process as arduous as possible,
Speaker 1: maybe hope that a federal judge would overrule the vote
Speaker 1: to unionize. And it's really hard to predict whether or
Speaker 1: not that would actually work out. Because the US has
Speaker 1: a bumpy history with unions and workers rights, there's been
Speaker 1: a general push back against tech companies over recent years.
Speaker 1: Some of that pushes actually bipartisan. Both conservatives and liberals
Speaker 1: have been pushing back, but the motivations are frequently very different.
Speaker 1: But the US also had a long stretch of the
Speaker 1: government being less than supportive when it comes to workers
Speaker 1: versus the giant tech companies they work for. Salaried Microsoft
Speaker 1: workers have a new benefit called discretionary time off. And
Speaker 1: this isn't being snarky, this is, honest to goodness, a
Speaker 1: real benefit. So essentially, salaried employees are now able to
Speaker 1: take unlimited time off. Folks who currently have unused vacation
Speaker 1: days under the old system will receive a payout later
Speaker 1: this year, and even brand new salaried employees will be
Speaker 1: able to take advantage of this flexible time of policy
Speaker 1: once it goes into effect on January. Hourly workers will
Speaker 1: not receive this benefit, but according to Microsoft, the reason
Speaker 1: for that isn't that the company values them less. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's that the various federal and state wage and our
Speaker 1: laws prevent the company from extending this benefit to hourly employees,
Speaker 1: who are guaranteed certain minimums by law. Also, if Microsoft
Speaker 1: salaried employees work outside the US, their vacation policy will
Speaker 1: remain unchanged due to similar such laws and regulations that
Speaker 1: apply to them wherever they happen to be working. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you are a salary to Microsoft employee in the
Speaker 1: United States. Soon you're gonna have unlimited time off, which
Speaker 1: sounds so nice. Of course, some folks are likely going
Speaker 1: to have jobs where they can't just take off time
Speaker 1: willy nilly because of deadlines and such. I know that's
Speaker 1: hard for a lot of my coworkers and myself, like
Speaker 1: it's hard for us to take a day off work
Speaker 1: because for those of us who publish every day, those
Speaker 1: deadlines still exist. But me, I never work a day
Speaker 1: in my life because my job is what I love.
Speaker 1: That's what I keep telling myself. That's what I keep
Speaker 1: telling myself. Okay, I've got another AI story to share
Speaker 1: with y'all. The Bite reported yesterday that c net, a
Speaker 1: tech news and review outlet which has employed several of
Speaker 1: my friends throughout the years, has been using AI on
Speaker 1: the q T to generate certain articles. Now, they're not
Speaker 1: using it to generate breaking news articles or product reviews
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Instead, they're using it for more
Speaker 1: evergreen articles in the c net financial pages that aim
Speaker 1: to explain things like c d S as in certificate
Speaker 1: of deposit not compact disc In other words, these are
Speaker 1: articles meant to inform people about money matters well. The
Speaker 1: bite found that several articles, more than seventy of them,
Speaker 1: had this generic byline of c net money staff, and
Speaker 1: if you clicked on that byline you would see the
Speaker 1: phrase this article was generated using automation technology, which I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna chastise c NET. That's passive voice. Really,
Speaker 1: it should read automation technology generated this article. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: was a bit of a surprise. The note on the
Speaker 1: byline also explains that each automated article went through edits
Speaker 1: and fact checking to make sure it was accurate, so
Speaker 1: it kind of sounds like this was an experiment. Seen
Speaker 1: it had not issued any sort of press release about
Speaker 1: using AI to generate articles, which makes this discovery a
Speaker 1: little bit awkward. Though again Seen it did include this
Speaker 1: information in the byline info on purpose, so anyone could
Speaker 1: have come across this. It wasn't exactly, you know, hidden
Speaker 1: beyond discovery. It wasn't in a disused lavatory with a
Speaker 1: sign on the door saying beware of the leopard. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this sort of thing will spark conversations about relying upon
Speaker 1: AI instead of, say, paying an actual human being to
Speaker 1: write the article. But then again, this article kind of
Speaker 1: falls into uh, let me just call it boring topics.
Speaker 1: These articles can be tedious and unfulfilling to write. Trust me.
Speaker 1: I used to write those kinds of articles occasionally for
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Now, a lot of the articles I
Speaker 1: wrote for How Stuff Works were great. It was very engaging.
Speaker 1: I was excited to get the assignment. But there was
Speaker 1: a point where I had to write about seven articles
Speaker 1: related to towing, as in towing something behind a vehicle.
Speaker 1: And you might think, Wow, that sounds dull as heck,
Speaker 1: and you'd be right. I hated doing it. In those cases,
Speaker 1: Having an AI system that could generate the initial article
Speaker 1: and then have a human editor to fact check and
Speaker 1: make edits might have been a welcome edition. Like if
Speaker 1: they had offered that, like, hey, would you rather we
Speaker 1: take these articles off your assignment and give them to
Speaker 1: a I, I would have said yes please. So this
Speaker 1: kind of falls into one of the three d s
Speaker 1: that AI is supposed to help out with. Those d
Speaker 1: s are dirty, dangerous, and dull. So these are jobs
Speaker 1: that humans can do and have done, but they aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily rewarding jobs, and in some cases they could be
Speaker 1: outright harmful. So is there danger in assigning those kinds
Speaker 1: of articles to AI. Well, maybe not, but then our
Speaker 1: company is going to stop with the dull articles or
Speaker 1: will they just use AI to generate articles for more
Speaker 1: interesting and rewarding work. And if the AI underperforms compared
Speaker 1: to human writers and journalists and editors, what harm would
Speaker 1: that do to the general public? These are some big
Speaker 1: questions anyway, According to Engadget, c net subsequently removed the
Speaker 1: c net Money staff bio page, so you can no
Speaker 1: longer see that phrasing I mentioned earlier, but it had
Speaker 1: not commented on actual use of AI as of the
Speaker 1: recording of this episode. By the time you hear it.
Speaker 1: That might be different. But um, in fact, it may
Speaker 1: have happened by the time I started recording, but while
Speaker 1: I before I started, it had not there not been
Speaker 1: any comment. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. When
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll have some more news items we're back.
Speaker 1: Meta sent out an email to folks who own an
Speaker 1: original Oculus Quest headset that's the first generation of the
Speaker 1: Quest headsets, and they explained that the company is no
Speaker 1: longer going to send feature updates to the original Quest. Also,
Speaker 1: those Quest headsets will lose the ability to interact with
Speaker 1: Meta's social VR applications. You won't be able to create
Speaker 1: or join a party for group VR sessions using an
Speaker 1: original quest uh. They will still be able to access
Speaker 1: other types of apps and such, and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to play games and everything on them, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the functionality that fleshed out the Quest will no
Speaker 1: longer operate. What's more, Meta plans to end security patches
Speaker 1: and bug fixes for the Quest next year. Now, the
Speaker 1: Quest came out four years ago, and this, my friends,
Speaker 1: concerns me a bit, and that's because it points out
Speaker 1: another potential downside er Meta's whole Metaverse vision. So if
Speaker 1: the Metaverse does require some sort of mixed reality peripheral
Speaker 1: in order to access it, not only well people have
Speaker 1: to cough up the money to buy the hardware, they
Speaker 1: also may see that the hardware could drift out of
Speaker 1: being supported after a while, and that means that the
Speaker 1: customer will have to buy new hardware to continue to
Speaker 1: access the Metaverse. In some ways, this isn't that different
Speaker 1: from other computational devices, right. I mean, to play the
Speaker 1: latest games at the highest settings, gamers have to rebuild
Speaker 1: or purchase new rigs on a fairly regular basis, or
Speaker 1: they get left behind. Uh. Same with phones, like after
Speaker 1: a few years, the companies that make smartphones have developed
Speaker 1: the OS to a point where older models can't run
Speaker 1: the latest versions of the O S. This just kind
Speaker 1: of happens. But if you're talking about accessing a persistent
Speaker 1: online world that presumably is the next incarnation of what
Speaker 1: it is to be online, then having to buy new
Speaker 1: equipment because the company stops supporting the stuff you already
Speaker 1: own really stinks. And it stinks because the Internet is
Speaker 1: a critical component to interacting with the modern world, and
Speaker 1: it already represents a huge gap between the halves and
Speaker 1: the half nots. There is a large digital gap, and
Speaker 1: there are populations of people who are disproportionately harmed by
Speaker 1: the fact that they don't have regular access to the Internet.
Speaker 1: Once you start throwing in expensive hardware that goes out
Speaker 1: of date every few years, that will make that gap
Speaker 1: grow wider, and the effects could be devastating. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: guess Quest owners should just go out and purchase a
Speaker 1: Quest to don't buy a Quest pro though every review
Speaker 1: I have read says pretty much they are not worth
Speaker 1: the very high price tag, So buyer beware. Glass Door,
Speaker 1: ampany that allows employees to rate their employers, releases a
Speaker 1: report every year on the one best places to work
Speaker 1: based upon those employee reviews, and for the first time
Speaker 1: in ages, Meta, as in the former Facebook and Apple
Speaker 1: have dropped off of this list. Now, I suppose this
Speaker 1: isn't that surprising, considering that both companies took hard stances
Speaker 1: on pushing people back into the office as early as
Speaker 1: they could. Apple kept putting that date back because there
Speaker 1: were a lot there's a lot of employee resistance, but
Speaker 1: it was still very much firm that no, we want
Speaker 1: you in this office. Gosh darn it, this is like
Speaker 1: the most expensive office we've ever built, and we need
Speaker 1: people inside it, and you're gonna go. And of course
Speaker 1: Meta has had multiple controversies and scandals, plus a CEO
Speaker 1: who outright said there were people at the company who
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be there. That's not great for employee morale.
Speaker 1: Layoffs have had an effect at Facebook slash Meta, But
Speaker 1: according to Glassdoor economists Annual Jao, we shouldn't think of
Speaker 1: this as Apple and Meta becoming terrible places to work,
Speaker 1: that that's not necessarily the case. Instead, he says, this
Speaker 1: year's list was really competitive, So maybe you could look
Speaker 1: at it as saying, it's not so much that folks
Speaker 1: hate working at Apple and Meta, it's just that people
Speaker 1: who are working at other companies love their employers more.
Speaker 1: So that's a silver lining. I guess Ours Technica has
Speaker 1: a powerful article that I urge you to read. It
Speaker 1: is a good one. It is titled Iran to use
Speaker 1: facial recognition to identify women without hitge jobs. Now, as
Speaker 1: the headline points out, the Iranian government enforces strict dress
Speaker 1: requirements and modesty codes, which include the requirement for women
Speaker 1: to wear a h job in public. That's a head
Speaker 1: covering that's worn by some Muslim women, and while the
Speaker 1: practice has its roots in religious observance, many women have
Speaker 1: argued that the government requirement is really the Iranian government
Speaker 1: attempting to suppress and control women within the country and
Speaker 1: to take away their agency. Last September, a young woman
Speaker 1: named Massa Amini was arrested and reportedly beaten for quote
Speaker 1: unquote improperly wearing her h jab. It apparently wasn't tight
Speaker 1: enough to her head to satisfy police. She died in
Speaker 1: police custody a few days later, and that sparked massive
Speaker 1: protests across Iran. Now there's a concern that Iranian police
Speaker 1: are using facial recognition technology to not only spot women
Speaker 1: who are violating this very strict dress code, but to
Speaker 1: identify those women. And according to the article, there are
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses who have said that police sometimes show up days
Speaker 1: later at a person's house in order to arrest them.
Speaker 1: And that does imply that they're relying upon some form
Speaker 1: of methodology to identify people days after an alleged violation.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that's facial recognition, uh that that's up
Speaker 1: for debate, because it could be other methods, But there
Speaker 1: seems to be a pretty strong implication that facial recognition
Speaker 1: is playing an increasingly prominent role in police activity. Now,
Speaker 1: I've spoken in the past about how official use of
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology is bad, it's immoral. Now mostly in
Speaker 1: those cases what I was talking about, I was talking
Speaker 1: about bias that could be in models and that can
Speaker 1: lead to misidentification cases and wrongful imprisonment and upending innocent
Speaker 1: person's life based off faulty technology that should not be
Speaker 1: used in this kind of application. But in an extreme
Speaker 1: case like the one that we're talking about, with Iran.
Speaker 1: I think it's beyond question that facial recognition technology is
Speaker 1: facilitating human rights violations. Last year, I did a loose
Speaker 1: history of social networks, and I mentioned towards the end
Speaker 1: of that series the rise of some politically far right
Speaker 1: platforms like Parlor, and I briefly talked about how Parlor
Speaker 1: has had a rocky existence, to put it lightly, and
Speaker 1: how late last year Yea formerly Kanye West, was in
Speaker 1: talks to purchase the company. Yea had been singing, hanging
Speaker 1: out with Candice Owens, a conservative author and talking cat
Speaker 1: who happens to be married to George Farmer, who is
Speaker 1: the CEO of you Guessed It Parlor, And so there
Speaker 1: are all these stories going around that maybe Owens was
Speaker 1: kind of trying to convince Yea to bail out Parlor
Speaker 1: and purchase it for himself after Yea had been kind
Speaker 1: of pushed off of other social platforms for repeatedly violating
Speaker 1: their policies, and Parlor itself had been on unsteady financial
Speaker 1: ground and kind of needed someone to sweep in and
Speaker 1: and purchase the company. It had been d platform following
Speaker 1: the January six insurrection. Anyway, the whole deal ended up
Speaker 1: falling through after Yea praised Adolph Hitler, though Parlor said
Speaker 1: the termination of the deal actually came from a mutual
Speaker 1: decision and did not cite that particular incident. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to overlook. In the wake of the
Speaker 1: deal falling through, Parlor has apparently been laying off employees
Speaker 1: and waves, and according to the Verge, at this point,
Speaker 1: Parlor is down to just twenty or so employees total.
Speaker 1: Most of the executive team has gone, the staff are gone,
Speaker 1: a lot of the users have gone either to Twitter
Speaker 1: now that Elon Musk is running things, or to Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's Truth social platform, So we might be looking at
Speaker 1: the end of the line for Parlor, although the company,
Speaker 1: now rebranded as Parliament Technologies, claims to have big plans
Speaker 1: for the future. Okay, I've got a couple more stories
Speaker 1: I want to cover before we get to those, let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. We're back, and I was talking
Speaker 1: about Parlor earlier and mentioned Twitter, and speaking of Twitter,
Speaker 1: the New York Times reports that Twitter has a new
Speaker 1: revenue generation scheme potentially in the works, which would be
Speaker 1: auctioning off unused Twitter handles. So apparently Twitter has around
Speaker 1: a billion and a half user names representing inactive accounts.
Speaker 1: So these are accounts where no one has logged in
Speaker 1: for ages or posted anything in a really long time.
Speaker 1: Some of those user names could be really well known.
Speaker 1: They might be famous handles, or they might be handles
Speaker 1: that represent famous folks or brands, and so why not
Speaker 1: auction those off? You know, makes the money. That's a
Speaker 1: terrible idea. And here's why. Some of those names presumably
Speaker 1: include folks or brands that later received verification from Twitter
Speaker 1: to show that they were the real deal, and then
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, those accounts became inactive. If Twitter auctions
Speaker 1: off those handles, and if then Twitter allows people to
Speaker 1: essentially buy a verification checkmark in return from monthly subscription,
Speaker 1: well doesn't that mean a person could effectively pose as
Speaker 1: someone else? You know, they could impersonate another entity and
Speaker 1: this would all be facilitated by Twitter's own practices. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's actually gonna happen. I I think
Speaker 1: even Elon Musk would say that those handles, the ones
Speaker 1: that represent like real people and brands, will get struck
Speaker 1: from the auction. They will just be sunset it and discontinued,
Speaker 1: because otherwise Twitter would be inviting a whole lot of
Speaker 1: grief from various companies and notable people. Now, I'm sure
Speaker 1: in a one and a half billion long list of handles,
Speaker 1: they've got to be some that folks actually would want,
Speaker 1: simply because the handle is what they were hoping for
Speaker 1: in the first place. For example, maybe I would want
Speaker 1: the Twitter handle at Jonathan, but I couldn't get that
Speaker 1: because it was already taken by the time I signed
Speaker 1: up for Twitter, which is why I went for John
Speaker 1: Strickland instead. I honestly don't remember if I even tried
Speaker 1: at Jonathan. I'm sure it was taken, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I tried it. Maybe I did, it was, you know,
Speaker 1: so many years ago. I don't have any memory. But
Speaker 1: if the at Jonathan handle represents an inactive account, then
Speaker 1: I could have a chance to bid on that handle
Speaker 1: for myself. Critics have pointed out one really big issue
Speaker 1: that still exists with this, even if we set aside
Speaker 1: the idea that Twitter with sunset handles for celebrities and brands,
Speaker 1: and that is some of those accounts probably represent people
Speaker 1: who have passed away, and those people have Twitter pages
Speaker 1: that may serve as a kind of memorial to them,
Speaker 1: So would it be right to wipe out those accounts
Speaker 1: just to sell off handles. I mean, isn't that kind
Speaker 1: of erasing this person's online history? And for some people
Speaker 1: like that might be one of the few pieces they
Speaker 1: have left to remember a loved one. So yeah, there
Speaker 1: are other issues on top of the whole impersonation and problem.
Speaker 1: Video game company Ubisoft continues to be in crisis mode.
Speaker 1: Ubisoft is the game company responsible for franchises like Far Cry,
Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed, and various Tom Clancy franchises, among others. And
Speaker 1: you might remember from a couple of years ago that
Speaker 1: Ubisoft fell under scrutiny for having a toxic work environment
Speaker 1: and allegedly scuzz ball leaders who were predatory towards employees.
Speaker 1: It was really bad stuff that later kind of got
Speaker 1: drowned out by Activision Blizzard when Activision Blizzard said, hey,
Speaker 1: hold my beer. Anyway, Ubisoft has had a series of
Speaker 1: financial setbacks, and last June Ubisoft canceled four titles that
Speaker 1: were in development that included a couple of Tom Clancy titles.
Speaker 1: Then Ubisoft saw some of its releases fall far short
Speaker 1: of projected sales, so they did poorly in the market,
Speaker 1: and now the company has announced it has canceled three
Speaker 1: more titles that were in development. They did not specify
Speaker 1: what those titles were, and that on top of that,
Speaker 1: Skull and Bones, the long delayed Pirate Combat game, is
Speaker 1: getting another delay, which I think would make this the
Speaker 1: sixth time that game has been delayed. Who was supposed
Speaker 1: to launch in early March, so in a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but now it's going to come sometime in the twenty
Speaker 1: three to twenty twenty four fiscal year ubisas fiscal years
Speaker 1: begin in April, so it is possible that the delay
Speaker 1: could just be a month or so. The company plans
Speaker 1: to reduce costs by around two hundred million euro which
Speaker 1: is around two d sixteen million US dollars over the
Speaker 1: next two years, and that will likely include stuff like
Speaker 1: layoffs and selling off certain assets. So yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not out of the troubled waters yet, it's still
Speaker 1: got a ways to go. Now for a couple of
Speaker 1: out of this world stories. First up, Russia announced yesterday
Speaker 1: that next month it's going to send up an empty
Speaker 1: spaceship to the International Space Station in order for two
Speaker 1: cosmonauts and an astronaut to return to Earth. They were
Speaker 1: supposed to take a Soayu's MS twenty two crew capsule
Speaker 1: last month because it was already attached the I S S,
Speaker 1: but a very tiny space rock hit the capsule and
Speaker 1: apparently caused a radiator coolant leak. So there's a concern
Speaker 1: that the capsule could overheat upon re entry due to
Speaker 1: that coolant leak, and so they needed to look at
Speaker 1: an alternative plan. So the rock was said to be
Speaker 1: just a millimeter in diameter and that's all it takes.
Speaker 1: It's one of the many reasons why it's a space
Speaker 1: is trying to kill you, because there's not a lot
Speaker 1: up there, but the stuff that is up there is
Speaker 1: dangerous anyway. Russia plans to send up the new Soya's
Speaker 1: capsule designated MS twenty three two International Space Station on
Speaker 1: February that will bring the two cosmonauts and astronaut back home.
Speaker 1: It's being called a replacement so Ya's rather than a
Speaker 1: rescue soyas as everyone who is aboard the International Space
Speaker 1: Station is safe and sound. It's just that their ride
Speaker 1: home for three of these folks got a flat and
Speaker 1: now a buddy's gonna send over a different GELOPI to
Speaker 1: take those folks home or something. Anyway, best wishes for
Speaker 1: the crew and that the replacement mission goes off without
Speaker 1: a hitch. Finally, the James Webb Space Telescope has made
Speaker 1: its first new exo planet discovery. Now that's just one
Speaker 1: of the things that scientists are using the telescope to
Speaker 1: do is to look for exo planets, and this one
Speaker 1: is a beautiful little piece of real estate. That's a
Speaker 1: quick forty one light year jaunt away. It's got the
Speaker 1: charming name of LHS for seven five B. So if
Speaker 1: you get to LHS for seven five C, you have
Speaker 1: gone too far. Just make a left at the shell station.
Speaker 1: The planet is relatively close to its home star, and
Speaker 1: by relatively close, I mean very very close. That star
Speaker 1: is very tiny. It's very dim, as in, it doesn't
Speaker 1: give off much light. I'm not saying star isn't very intelligent,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of other stars I can think of. Anyway,
Speaker 1: The planet is so close to its star that a
Speaker 1: year on LHS four seven five B lasts just two
Speaker 1: Earth days. So every two days on Earth is a
Speaker 1: year on LHS for seven five B. And you thought
Speaker 1: two was over really quickly. All jokes aside, the discovery
Speaker 1: is an exciting one as it points to a great
Speaker 1: future of using the telescope to identify more exoplanets. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: the telescope could be useful in detecting atmosphere. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: it gets a little tricky. Just detecting atmosphere is hard
Speaker 1: because you actually are looking for indirect evidence that an
Speaker 1: atmosphere exists by looking for things like shimmer when you're
Speaker 1: observing the planet now, it may eventually help us identify
Speaker 1: plants that could potentially support life on them. So that's
Speaker 1: really exciting too. All of this being said, even this
Speaker 1: powerful telescope has its limits, and if planets fall out
Speaker 1: outside certain parameters, we might not be able to tell
Speaker 1: very much beyond yeah, we think there's a planet there.
Speaker 1: But still, it's a very exciting time for astronomy. And
Speaker 1: that's it for the tech News for Thursday, January two,
Speaker 1: twenty three. I hope you are all well. If you
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