WEBVTT - Tech News: Zuckerberg Gets Sued 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.280 He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'mond executive producer with I Heart Radio. And 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.320 how the tech are you. It's time for the tech 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.040 news for Tuesday, May twenty four, two thousand twenty two. 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:26.560 We have a whole bunch of stories, although most of 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.240 them are pretty short. Let's jump to it. And in 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.680 a news item that prompted me to actually double check 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.440 the date on the article, the Attorney General for Washington, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:41.400 D C. Carl Racine, has sued Mark Zuckerberg because of 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:46.400 the Cambridge Analytica scandal. All right, let's do a quick 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.159 overview of what Cambridge Analytica was really all about. First, 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.160 you start off with a guy, a researcher and professor 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.560 named Alexander Cogan, who created an app for the Facebook 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.319 platform that was called This is Your Digital Life and 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.240 it was a personality quiz. So Cogan was conducting research 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.480 into social relationships in general, and he offered a small 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.280 payment for folks to take the test, and more than 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.680 two fifty thousand people installed the app and took that test, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.240 and that generated a whole lot of information. But Beyond that, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.520 the app was also able to access the data of 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.880 the friends of the people who took the quiz. Now, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.600 if you're not familiar, Facebook lets you create profile settings 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.720 that can limit who can see what is on your profile. 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.640 You could have a public profile, which means anyone can 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.360 see everything that you've posted on there, or you can 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.920 have a profile that's restricted just to the people who 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.960 are on your friends list. Well, Facebook's app interface would 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:52.360 allow app developers to view profiles as if they were 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.040 friends with all those people. So, in other words, let's 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.120 say you activate an app like this on your Facebook profile. 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.240 Now that app can view your friends profiles as if 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.240 the app were you. That was a huge problem because 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.800 your friends never had an opportunity to consent or deny 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:16.280 consent to the app gathering their personal information. They they 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.480 never even saw anything about it. You as a user, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.040 saw an agreement and you could agree to it, but 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.840 your friends never did so. As a result, the app 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:30.080 sucked up data from millions of users. Uh. Initially the 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.400 belief was around eighty million, and then later the investigation 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.720 said it was closer to thirty million people. Still huge 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.760 number considering that around I think two seventy thousand people 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:45.080 took the test, as so the vast majority of people 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.799 who had their information pulled into this database never even 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:54.280 took the quiz anyway. Cogan's research company partnered with the 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:59.080 parent company of an analysis slash campaign strategy company, and 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.400 that was Cambridge Analytica. That that being the strategy company. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.720 Cambridge Analytica ended up getting access to all this data 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.960 that was pulled from this quiz, and Cambridge Analytica claimed 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.960 that the data provided valuable information for political campaigns, that 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.280 using the data from this quiz would mean that political 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:25.480 candidates could target prospective voters with incredible accuracy, that campaigns 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:30.320 could be really effective because they could tailor the campaign 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:36.360 to trigger specific responses from those people. It turned out 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.640 that a lot of those claims were more hype than 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.280 substance anyway. All this happened around two thousand fourteen into 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.600 two thousand sixteen, but the world at large remained ignorant 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:50.280 about it until two thousand eighteen, when various expose a 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.880 pieces brought the matter to global attention. It was clear 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.160 that Facebook, Cogan, and Cambridge Analytica had all been involved 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.160 in some questionable activity, uh to the extent that those 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:07.320 activities were criminal. Remains sort of an open question now, Racine. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.119 The Attorney General of Washington, d C. Previously sued Facebook, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.440 the company which is of course now known as Meta, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.000 and later in that process he wanted to add Zuckerberg 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.039 as a defendant in the case, but the judge ruled 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.680 that it was too late in the proceedings for the 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.800 Attorney General to do that, and that Meta case is 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.880 still ongoing. So meanwhile, the Attorney General has now named 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:34.240 Zuckerberg in a new lawsuit about this, and the Attorney 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.360 General argues that Zuckerberg bears responsibility for sharing user data 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.520 without those users consent, and further that he withheld information 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.800 about the subject rather than divulging the info in a 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.120 timely manner. Essentially, this accounted to a data breach and 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.800 he had a responsibility to report that, but he did 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.920 not do it. The Attorney General says Zuckerberg has violated 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.400 the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. Now, some of y'all might 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.440 remember that Zuckerberg previously had to testify before Congress about 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.880 the matter of Cambridge Analytica, so I'm sure this lawsuit 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.960 will bring up all sorts of bad memories for Old Mark. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.280 Last week, I talked about how the Fifth Circuit Court 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.760 of Appeals lifted an injunction that was against Texas's controversial 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.920 bill that allows social network users to suthe the social 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.440 networks themselves if they get banned. If the users argue 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.640 that they were banned because of their political views and 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.880 that this was infringing on their free speech, that means 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.760 that that law is now in effect in Texas. Meanwhile, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.520 over in Florida, a somewhat similar bill has received the 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:48.600 opposite treatment. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.560 in order to block a Florida law that would have 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.680 otherwise allowed politicians to sue platforms for banning them or 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:00.320 for moderating their content. So if a political candidate we're 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:05.599 posting something that was demonstrably false and the platform then 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.880 labeled it as misinformation, they would be able to sue 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.480 the platform under this law. That law got blocked. So 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:18.400 here we've got to somewhat similar laws and two dissimilar outcomes, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.200 which is fun times right. Anyway, the Court of Appeals 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.320 in the Florida case found that the Florida law was 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:28.000 unconstitutional because social network companies have protection under the First 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.480 Amendment that means the social networks can create and enforced 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.080 content moderation rules, and moreover, the government cannot restrict the 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:40.719 company's content moderation practices because if the government did that, 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.120 that would be the same as the government censoring a company, 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.680 and that is not constitutional. It seems as though the 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.200 Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has not come to the 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.600 same bizarre conclusion as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.240 in which one judge stated that platforms like Twitter and 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.360 Facebook are quote unquote Internet provide leaders and thus should 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:07.560 be treated as common carriers. That is patently absurd, especially 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.440 since I s p s, the actual companies that provide 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.400 Internet access, have had their common carrier status stripped away 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.760 during the Trump administration, and so it goes quality assurance. 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.480 Employees at Raven Software, which is a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:30.000 have now officially formed their union. The employees began their 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.760 attempts to organize last year and recently held their union vote, 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.000 which passed, and that makes their union, the Game Workers Alliance, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.520 the second official union in the video games industry here 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.120 in the United States. It's a significant achievement, in no 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.840 small part because Activision Blizzard reportedly took several steps to 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.600 discourage the unionization attempt. Those steps included splitting up the 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.520 QUA team and placing them in different departments in order 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:02.560 to kind of keep them from organizing, allegedly, or arguing 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.680 that any union vote should really fall on the entire 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.880 staff of Raven Software, not just the q A department. 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.280 The q A department is twenty something people, whereas the 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.559 entire staff is like three hundred and fifty, so people 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.640 have argued that that attempt was really to try and 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.440 dilute the q A department's ability to unionize. Despite all 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.680 those efforts, the employees did form their union, and they 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.640 sent a statement to the verge and said it's their 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.160 hope that they inspire further employee organization efforts within the 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:38.760 video game industry. Meanwhile, it's Sony's u S division of PlayStation. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.600 Former employee m m Ayo has filed a lawsuit against 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.160 her former employer, and this is the second time that 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:49.600 she has done this. Judge dismissed her earlier complaints, saying 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.240 that the scope of her complaint was far too wide 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.240 that she needed to restate her complaint in a way 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.960 that was more narrow and focused. So this new lawsuit 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.760 has done that, and it alleges that women working for 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.120 Sony PlayStation within the state of California have been the 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.520 subject of sexual discrimination and systemic sexism. So we will 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:15.120 have to see how that lawsuit unrolls as time goes on. 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.839 I've done several stories about various tech companies running into 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.319 friction as they tried to create policies that require employees 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.280 to come back into the office. Recently, Apple postponed its 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.120 plans to require corporate employees to come into the office 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.920 three days a week. They currently have are required to 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.320 come in two days a week, and the company cited 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.520 concerns about rising COVID nine team cases as the reason 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.880 for postponing that plan. Meanwhile, over at Google, employees who 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.320 are in the Google Maps division are circulating a petition 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.760 asking the company to extend work from home benefits. Google 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.640 currently plans to require those employees to come back into 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.680 the office five days a week starting in early June. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.240 The employees objections include concerns about how much it costs 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.200 to live near Google offices and how much inflation and 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.160 supply issues have caused gas prices to skyrocket. So, in 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.800 other words, these employees are saying it's too expensive to 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.360 work for Google if they are required to come into 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.240 the office five days week, And yeah, that's not how 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.200 employment is supposed to work. When it's too expensive for 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.559 you to work somewhere, things are broken anyway. According to 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.960 the New York Times, some sixt of Google Maps employees 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.360 have already signed the petition. Whether that makes a difference 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.079 remains to be seen. Okay, we've got a bunch more 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:45.640 stories to get through. Let's take a quick break. We're 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.200 back and it's time to talk about TikTok. Now, for 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.640 a while, there was no real easy way for creators 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.600 on TikTok to monetize their work and their popularity. So 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.040 you have folks who are getting really well known on 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.680 TikTok super fast, but they didn't have an easy way 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.840 to leverage that into making money. Like, yeah, they were 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:11.000 getting a lot of notoriety, but notoriety don't pay the rent. Anyway. 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.680 They started to figure out ways to kind of indirectly 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.240 make money. Creators could try and lure followers to other 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.040 platforms where they could get support, whether it's Patreon or 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.880 something else, or they could try and land sponsor deals, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.040 and they could get paid by sponsors for creating special 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.480 content on TikTok, which TikTok would later help support, and 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:36.160 then later still TikTok added a tip feature that lets 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:40.280 users leave a tip for their favorite creators, And now 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.080 TikTok is introducing a subscription service to some of the 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.199 more popular creators on the platform. Users will be able 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.360 to pay a subscription to access live stream sessions from 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.480 those creators, so it's kind of a way of getting 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.160 some exclusive content. And the whole system right now is 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.800 invitation only, so we're gonna likely see a gradual rollout 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:06.000 before it becomes you know, platform wide, and at the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.280 time of this recording, I don't have any info on 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.320 what kind of subscription tiers we might be looking at, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.160 you know, how expensive they are and whether there are 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.880 multiple levels. But in addition to that initiative, TikTok had 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.600 also earlier announced that it is going to have an 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.400 ad revenue sharing program with creators. So while early on 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.400 the most you could hope for from being popular on 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.480 TikTok was to be famous, now we can add the 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.800 sibling getting rich to that. Nicks at least for some 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.320 creators more power to y'all, I can never do what 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.720 y'all do. I If I were to really adopt TikTok um, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:46.800 I have no doubt it would be a infrequently viewed, 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.520 pathetic display of me trying to be relevant. And um, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.560 I think there's plenty of that on TikTok already, so 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.280 there's no need for me to jump in on that. 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:01.000 Amazon continues to sunset features on older Kendall models. The 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.600 company sent out an email to folks who own older 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.600 Kindle devices like the second generation Kindle, the fourth and 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.440 fifth generation Kindles, and a couple of other models. The 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.360 message indicates that these Kindle devices will soon no longer 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.840 be able to purchase or borrow titles directly from the device, 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.120 so you won't be able to buy a new book 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.480 from the Kindle itself. Instead, those owners will have to 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.120 go to the Amazon web page. You know, use like 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.200 a computer or smartphone to go there. You can purchase 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.120 things on the web page and then use the web 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.280 page to share that content to your devices, so it 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.720 adds some extra steps and becomes less convenient now. The 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.720 likely reason behind this is that older Kindle models are 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.000 running on systems like essentially operating systems that Amazon can't 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.760 update anymore because the the hardware of those older Kindle 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.600 models aren't really able to support later versions of that system, 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.880 so features are getting left behind. Previous the Amazon Kindle 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.080 owners who had purchased units with three G connectivity found 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:09.800 their devices severely restricted because tell, the communications companies have 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.920 been shutting down their old three G networks, so there's 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.280 nothing to connect to. You know, if there's no infrastructure 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.560 to support connectivity, there's no connectivity. Really, these stories illustrate 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.280 how the stuff we buy has a limited lifespan that 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.520 is not necessarily related to how well the hardware works 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.760 over time. Like everything on the device might still be 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.240 in perfect working order, but the back end no longer 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.480 supports that device. Uh, it's because the rest of the 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.120 system is evolving, whereas that device is stuck in that 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.880 form factor. We've seen this in tons of technology. In fact, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.880 like this is old news, right, because there's a long 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.080 running joke in the computer world that you go, you 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:53.880 buy a PC, you bring it home, and by the 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.960 time you get out of the box, it's already obsolete. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.840 That joke has been around forever. But this is the 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:00.960 sort of thing we can expect happen as we rely 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.320 on more products that lean on cloud services, and in fact, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:06.200 it's one of the reasons that folks can get a 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.760 little antsy about buying into a new product because the 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 product might work fine, but if that back end system 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.640 that provides the features shuts down or changes in some way, 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.760 you could be left with a useless pile of electronics 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.880 that technically still works but can't connect to anything. So 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.480 it's a risk, and it's a tradeoff. So the risk, 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.600 of course is that your device may no longer work, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.800 but the other benefit to it is that, you know, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.240 we end up getting devices that end up having far 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.400 more capabilities then they're on board electronics would allow all 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.680 on their own, So it's a given take. As the 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.960 world pivots to lean more heavily on renewable energy sources 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.360 and battery technology, we've seen some pretty big obstacles pop 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.880 up recently. I've mentioned before how the electric vehicle industry 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.160 is under intense pressure because more and more countries are 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.760 setting a deadline for migrating away from internal combustion engine vehicles. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.800 But at the same time, we are producing far too 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.320 few batteries in order to support a total switch to 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.480 e vs, like, if we wanted to produce as many 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.440 electric vehicles as would be necessary to replace all internal 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.360 combustion engine vehicles, we couldn't do it because we don't 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.080 have enough battery production to cover that well. The International 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.640 Energy Agency reports that the price for raw materials that 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.920 are being used in stuff like batteries and renewable energy 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:32.560 technology has really gone up recently, and it's due to 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:36.000 a lot of different factors. You've got you know, COVID issues, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.120 You've got supply chain problems, and you've got Russia's war 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.680 in Ukraine. Russia currently is the source for a massive 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.480 amount of material that's used in various renewable energy technologies, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.400 and the war has cut off access too much of 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.440 that supply. As a result, the price of those materials 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:58.400 has increased dramatically. Lithium alone jumped up seven eight percent 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.680 in cost from Anuary to March. Many people have pointed 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.040 out that this is really a huge wake up call. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.040 The underlines a fairly obvious conclusion, and that conclusion is 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.680 don't put all your eggs in one basket. I mean, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.399 we have an old folks saying that really nails this 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.080 home right. So in other words, it is critical to 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.320 diversify where you get your materials from, as depending too 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.400 heavily on a single source spells doom when something interrupts 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.280 that supply. Over the last several years, we've seen the 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.480 cost of renewable energy come down because manufacturing facilities have 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.560 created more efficient processes and started to produce at larger scales. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.040 So the cost of renewable energy has declined over time. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.240 But there is concerned that these rising costs in raw 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.919 materials is going to slow or perhaps even reverse that 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.920 trend in the not too distant future. Perhaps next Sunday 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:57.119 a d Airbnb has become the latest US company to 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.520 pull out of China. Uh And I know it's weird 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.720 to include Airbnb in a tech podcast, but it is 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.399 one of those companies that often gets treated like a 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.080 tech company, seeing as how the interface for Airbnb is 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.560 Internet dependent. Anyway, Airbnb's reason for pulling up stakes is 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.560 a little bit different from companies like LinkedIn and Yahoo. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.200 Those companies primarily left over concerns about how the Chinese 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.800 government was demanding access to user information. In Airbnb's case, 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.399 it appears that the main motivator for leaving China was 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.040 because of a rise in so called super apps, which 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.679 provide multiple services to users. They can range from stuff 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.240 like online shopping services, to ride hailing services to yeah 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.280 booking a place to stay, so more Chinese citizens have 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.960 been relying on these kind of catch all apps rather 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:51.560 than on those that focus on a single service. Airbnb 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.440 will continue to provide Chinese citizens who travel abroad access 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.760 to booking places when they are staying outside of China, 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.240 but you'll no longer be able to pop on Airbnb 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.320 to find a place to crash the next time you 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.679 had to Shanghai. Speaking of China, the country has an 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.800 app called wi Bo, which is sort of like Twitter. 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.840 It's spelled w e i b O, and I apologize 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.440 if I am completely mispronouncing it. I very likely am. 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.479 But that app recently banned an account belonging to James Liang. 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.119 He is a co founder of a company called trip 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.000 dot com, which is a travel services company in China, 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:32.600 and according to Wibo, Liang had violated quote relevant laws 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.080 and regulations end quote. Wibo did not go into more 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.840 detail about exactly what Liang's violations were. The current hypothesis 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.560 is that Wibo band Liang because Leang had posted criticism 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:49.200 of China's zero tolerance policy when it comes to COVID outbreaks. Now, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.240 as you probably know, the practice in China is to 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.119 lock down a region anytime a COVID outbreak is detected 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:01.240 within that region, which shuts down everything for a couple 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.159 of weeks at a time usually, and it grinds all 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.440 activity to a halt. And we've seen stories of companies 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:11.280 like Tesla trying to work around this by encouraging employees 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.400 to essentially move into the manufacturing facilities so that they 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:20.480 literally live where they work. Anyway, Lang argued that the 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.679 practice of shutting down regions is causing enormous economic disruption 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.959 and that it's becoming increasingly difficult to recover from that disruption, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.320 and that seems to have been enough to get him 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.159 banned from Wi Bo. Now, on the one hand, I 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.200 do feel China's response has been way too strict. It's 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.679 it's gone over the top. On the other hand, I 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.040 worry that the workarounds are putting people in danger simply 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.119 to avoid disruptions in business. So companies like Tesla and 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.960 others that are trying to get around these issues, I 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:58.080 worry that it's disregarding people's health just for the sake 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.520 of keeping things going. Goodness knows, you know, I really 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.400 hate seeing people in my own country behave like there 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.520 is no pandemic. There never was a pandemic. Shut up, 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.720 you mask wearing freak. You're the problem. I'm not the problem. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.560 I do not like that attitude. I suspect there's probably 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.040 a pathway that's somewhere in between these various extremes that 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.680 could potentially be the most responsible, keeping the most people 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:25.399 healthy while creating the smallest amount of economic disruption. But 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.479 what the heck do I know? I'm a podcaster. All Right, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.639 we have a few more stories to wrap up before 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:42.439 we get to that. Let's take another quick break. Okay. 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.399 I do have a positive story about China that I 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.439 definitely wanted to share, and that is the country plans 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.480 to launch a space telescope named shun Chian, which means 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.960 to study the heavens in three and shun Chian will 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.159 be a lot like the Hubble space telescope, but with 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:05.280 a significantly larger field of view. According to one source 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.800 I was reading, it will be three fifty times the 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.320 field of view of the Hubble telescope, and this space 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.680 telescope will be used to expand our understanding on big 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:18.920 questions like why is the universe expanding at an accelerated rate? 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.919 Like we understand that it's expanding, but why is that 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.840 expansion accelerating. It's also going to be used to try 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.280 and help get more information on really tricky things like 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.760 dark energy and dark matter. China plans to insert the 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.320 telescope into a similar orbit with the Tiangong Space Station, 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.639 which would allow the station and telescope to doc with 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.280 one another in the event that the telescope requires service, 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.080 which is a good plan. You might remember that the 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.840 Hubble initially had a flaw in it that affected image 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.080 resolution and required NASA to send up some service crews 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:57.280 in Space Shuttle missions to address that problem. Starlink, the 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.880 satellite internet service provider from space Sex, has introduced a 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.119 new subscription model for those who want to travel around 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:10.080 and bring their Starlink antenna with them. Currently, subscribers pay 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:13.240 a hundred ten bucks per month to subscribe to starlink, 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:16.880 and a few Starlink users discovered that when they initially 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.360 signed up for service, they had to uh specify an 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:24.240 address they could actually bring their Starlink antenna with them, 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.359 set it up wherever they stop, and still access service 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.879 while they are traveling. And so folks began to do that, 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.920 they were traveling around and bringing connectivity with them. Well, 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:38.440 SpaceX took a look at that and thought, hey, I'd 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:40.720 like to make money off of that. So now the 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.760 company is going to offer a more expensive plan that 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:48.200 outright supports this type of use. For one five bucks 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.480 a month. Starlink customers can take their set up with them, 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.960 making it a portable connectivity solution as long as they're 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:58.760 traveling within areas that Starlink provides service. The company is 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:01.679 not going to support and activity on the move, so 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:04.199 you are not meant to, you know, set up your 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:06.240 star Link at the back of a van or something 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.119 and try and get uh Internet connectivity while you're driving 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:12.720 down the streets, so you're really meant to set it 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.160 up wherever you stop and then pack it up when 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.840 you're ready to move on. I'm wondering how many folks 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:21.160 out there have adopted a nomadic lifestyle and how that's 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:24.080 worked out for them, and also how much money they 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:27.280 had before they jumped on that, because while the idea 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.600 sounds really interesting to me, whenever I actually start to 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:32.639 think about it, I come to the conclusion that I 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:34.960 just don't make enough money to make that kind of 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.080