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 I love all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, March second, twenty twenty one. China
Speaker 1: joins the list of countries experimenting with a national digital currency.
Speaker 1: It is the first major world power to do so,
Speaker 1: and it's doing it in kind of an interesting way.
Speaker 1: According to The New York Times, Chinese citizen Annabel Huang
Speaker 1: won a lottery held through the app we Chat. She
Speaker 1: was one of several thousand people to win this way,
Speaker 1: and her prize was two hundred digital yuan, which is
Speaker 1: worth around thirty U S dollars. She then said she
Speaker 1: went to a convenience store to purchase some snacks with
Speaker 1: her virtual prize money and to spend the currency, she
Speaker 1: pulled up an app on her phone which displayed a
Speaker 1: QR code. The store scanned the code, and then the
Speaker 1: transaction followed. She said the experience was similar to other
Speaker 1: payment apps that already exist, though not quite as seamless
Speaker 1: as those older ones that have been on the market
Speaker 1: for a while. It's good she went ahead and spent it,
Speaker 1: because this experiment is a limited time offer type deal,
Speaker 1: and winners who fail to spend their two hundred yuan
Speaker 1: before the experiment ends will find that the digital money
Speaker 1: has vanished in a puff of ones and zeros. While
Speaker 1: The New York Times notes that several countries have explored
Speaker 1: the use of digital currencies in the wake of cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: becoming popular, you know, particularly bitcoin, it's really good to
Speaker 1: remember that digital currency and bitcoin are not synonymous. They're
Speaker 1: not exactly the same thing. Bitcoin is not backed by
Speaker 1: any sort of central authority. In fact, that's one of
Speaker 1: the major selling points for the currency. And for another,
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is really more like a commodity than a currency.
Speaker 1: It's value fluctuates so much that it makes it difficult
Speaker 1: to use if you plan to actually, you know, purchase
Speaker 1: stuff with it. I've said it before. It's hard to
Speaker 1: convince yourself to hand over a dollar bill if you
Speaker 1: suspect that tomorrow that dollar bill will hold ten times
Speaker 1: the value that it holds today. If you just hold
Speaker 1: onto that dollar bill, your wealth increases. But really, digital
Speaker 1: currencies are exactly what they sound like. They are a
Speaker 1: virtual version of the cash you would otherwise carry around.
Speaker 1: Digital currency could play a big part in transactions from
Speaker 1: the future, but it can also lead to yet more
Speaker 1: data tracking and analysis. The possibility that China would use
Speaker 1: digital currency to keep tabs on big trends as dawn
Speaker 1: ting and the thought of it getting more granular than
Speaker 1: that is downright scary. And that's another way a nationally
Speaker 1: backed digital currency is very different from bitcoin. Another big
Speaker 1: selling point for bitcoin is that if you were to
Speaker 1: use it in a transaction, it would be largely anonymous.
Speaker 1: Oh and the digital Yuan doesn't rely on blockchain either.
Speaker 1: That's another central component of bitcoin. So if you do
Speaker 1: find yourself in a conversation about digital currencies sometimes that
Speaker 1: happens to me, it's helpful to remember that it's not
Speaker 1: synonymous with the old bitcoin example. In related news, there's
Speaker 1: already a scam aiming to trick Chinese citizens who are
Speaker 1: hoping to use the digital Yuan. The scam claims to
Speaker 1: be the quote Central Banks International Wallet end quote, and
Speaker 1: it also claims to give citizens the chance to access
Speaker 1: quote a secret c B d C promotion fund end
Speaker 1: quote worth nearly two hundred million dollars using an app.
Speaker 1: The people behind the scam are collecting personal information, including
Speaker 1: bank account info, from their targets, and they promise a
Speaker 1: two percent return on deposits made through the app, which
Speaker 1: makes it sound to me like this is essentially a
Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme, or they might just be taking all the money,
Speaker 1: which means it's not a Ponzi scheme. It's just playing theft.
Speaker 1: Not that a Ponzi scheme isn't theft. It is as well,
Speaker 1: it's just that it's more cleverly disguised theft. In the end,
Speaker 1: these efforts follow the very well worn footsteps of older scams.
Speaker 1: The scammers target people by focusing on something new and
Speaker 1: not fully understood, and they capitalize on that unfamiliarity, and
Speaker 1: they bait the hook with promises of big returns on investment.
Speaker 1: Then they scamper off with other people's money, same as
Speaker 1: it ever was. Gab, a social network that caters to
Speaker 1: users who fall on the right wing of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: has been hacked. Wired reports that a activist with the
Speaker 1: handle Jack Sparrow that's a J A x P A
Speaker 1: r oh very cute, you filthy pirate anyway, Jack Sparrow
Speaker 1: has breached gabs servers and made off with more than
Speaker 1: seventy gigabytes of information, including personal information about the platform's
Speaker 1: user base. The activists shared this info with a whistle
Speaker 1: blower organization called the Distributed Denial of Secrets. Now, this
Speaker 1: is the first time I've heard about this particular group,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they take their name from d
Speaker 1: DOS attacks is something. According to de DOS Secrets, I
Speaker 1: guess the data includes information that users might have expected
Speaker 1: to be safe and sound, including private messages between users. Initially,
Speaker 1: GAB officials said that they had no actual evidence to
Speaker 1: support that an attack even happened, but over time that
Speaker 1: has changed. Now the CEO of GAB, Andrew Torba, describes
Speaker 1: the attack as having been conducted by quote mentally ill
Speaker 1: end quote hackers. Yikes, it's quite the judgment call. DIDAS
Speaker 1: Secrets says that it does have some passwords that are
Speaker 1: in plain text, but the organization has not tested them,
Speaker 1: so it hasn't looked to see if those passwords actually work,
Speaker 1: and they also say they have not attempted to decrypt
Speaker 1: the hashed passwords that were part of the data dump.
Speaker 1: Emma Best, co founder of dedas Secrets, does say, however,
Speaker 1: that the data collected could be a quote goldmine of
Speaker 1: research for people looking at militia's neo Nazis, the far right,
Speaker 1: Q and non and everything surrounding January six end quote
Speaker 1: that's in reference to the riots at the US Capital.
Speaker 1: This reminds me a bit of the news we got
Speaker 1: leading up to Parlor or Parley if you prefer, are
Speaker 1: getting the boot from Amazon Web Services, when analysts were
Speaker 1: scrubbing through data on Parlor and finding all sorts of
Speaker 1: personal information that I at least assume most users thought
Speaker 1: was secure. Sticking with politics and technology, Senator Amy Klobuchar
Speaker 1: gave a speech at a Verge Live event on Monday.
Speaker 1: Many of her points were about how the government could
Speaker 1: and should get involved in the tech sector, ranging from
Speaker 1: the disproportionate power wielded by a small group of ginormous
Speaker 1: tech companies to the challenges of protecting user information. She
Speaker 1: pointed out how tech companies play a role in creating
Speaker 1: spaces that have enormous impact, and not always in a
Speaker 1: good way. For example, she pointed out that online platforms
Speaker 1: can exacerbate problems like radicalization, and thus making the companies
Speaker 1: accountable for how online activities can escalate into real world
Speaker 1: harm is something she supports now. She did not overtly
Speaker 1: call for government action to break up the big companies
Speaker 1: like Facebook, Google, and is on an Apple, but if
Speaker 1: I were to harbor a guess, I would say she
Speaker 1: probably considers that an option that's still on the table.
Speaker 1: She did expressly call for more transparency in the tech
Speaker 1: world and more work to diversify the workforces in the
Speaker 1: tech sector and to remove discriminatory practices that pop up
Speaker 1: with alarming frequency in Silicon Valley. As for my personal
Speaker 1: take on all this, well, I have to say I
Speaker 1: just don't have enough information to make a truly educated
Speaker 1: opinion about breaking up companies. I do think that Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple,
Speaker 1: I think they have way too much power and that
Speaker 1: even small mistakes on their part can have devastating consequences
Speaker 1: for end users. But I'm not certain that breaking up
Speaker 1: the companies would lead to, you know, a better outcome.
Speaker 1: In other words, I don't know that it would actually
Speaker 1: solve the underlying issues that are actually causing the harm.
Speaker 1: I do completely agree that companies do need to be
Speaker 1: more transparent and less you know, gross. We've seen so
Speaker 1: many stories from Uber to Ubisoft and even companies that
Speaker 1: don't begin with you that end up shining a light
Speaker 1: on some of the uglier elements in the tech sector.
Speaker 1: It would be nice to clean those up and make
Speaker 1: it a healthier industry, not just for consumers, but for
Speaker 1: the people who are working in it. Speaking of health,
Speaker 1: the Verge reports that every Apple store location in the
Speaker 1: United States has now reopened. Apple closed stores nationwide on March,
Speaker 1: so it's been nearly a full year of being closed
Speaker 1: for some stores. The company had been opening locations on
Speaker 1: a case by case basis over time, and the last
Speaker 1: of Apple's US retail stores reopened this week in Texas.
Speaker 1: That means you can at least arrange in store pickups
Speaker 1: for Apple items again, and in some cases you can
Speaker 1: even do in store shopping. But before you do, let
Speaker 1: me just point out a couple of things first. When
Speaker 1: Apple did close stores last March, the seven day average
Speaker 1: of new COVID cases was two seventy three cases in
Speaker 1: the United States. That's across the country. This week, according
Speaker 1: to the c d C, that number is sixty six
Speaker 1: thousand three new cases over the last seven days. That is,
Speaker 1: you might say things are way worse right now than
Speaker 1: they were when Apple stores first shut down Now. Apple
Speaker 1: does have lots of safety measures in place. Customers must
Speaker 1: wear a mask, and there is a strict occupancy limit
Speaker 1: for stores. All that being said, I would strongly suggest
Speaker 1: that if you don't have to go to a store,
Speaker 1: take that option. I understand that some people do need
Speaker 1: to go in, and of course the employees have to
Speaker 1: go in, but to keep people as safe as possible,
Speaker 1: I stress that it is best for only those who
Speaker 1: absolutely have to go in to do so, and everyone
Speaker 1: else should stay safe for themselves, their loved ones, and
Speaker 1: really everybody else too. We often talk about SpaceX on
Speaker 1: tech stuff, but rarely do I spend as much time
Speaker 1: talking about Blue Origin, the private space company that Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos founded, And maybe they wish I wouldn't because I
Speaker 1: have some bad news. The company has been hard at
Speaker 1: work designing a reusable rocket, you know, similar to the
Speaker 1: Falcon heavy rockets from SpaceX. Reusable rockets really cut down
Speaker 1: on the incredibly high costs of launching stuff and people
Speaker 1: out into space. Blue Origins rockets are to be called
Speaker 1: New Glen. The company announced the plans for the rockets
Speaker 1: in sixteen, with the goal of getting them ready for
Speaker 1: testing by twenty twenty, Bob Smith, who became CEO of
Speaker 1: Blue Origin in assessed that the rockets would not be
Speaker 1: ready by He projected that at best they would be
Speaker 1: ready for launch by twenty twenty two. Bezos heartily disagreed,
Speaker 1: saying the company should stay the course for a launch date,
Speaker 1: but that obviously didn't happen, and now the company projects
Speaker 1: that at the earliest we could expect to see a
Speaker 1: test launched by end of twenty two. Ours Technica has
Speaker 1: a fantastic piece on this, including interviews with people who
Speaker 1: were involved in the development of New Glenn. The piece
Speaker 1: by Eric Burger is titled Blue Origins Massive New Glenn
Speaker 1: Rocket is delayed for years? What went wrong? Rather than
Speaker 1: summarize Burger's work, I urge all of y'all to go
Speaker 1: and check out the article. It's really well done. And hey,
Speaker 1: do you know of TikTok but you're too old to
Speaker 1: figure it out? Well, me too, And don't worry because
Speaker 1: we old folks now have our own TikTok from Google.
Speaker 1: Thanks Google, Please stop tragging everything I do. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I've got an Android phone. I know you can't help it.
Speaker 1: This is my way of segueing into a story that
Speaker 1: YouTube is rolling out a new feature called YouTube Shorts.
Speaker 1: It lets users create very very short videos and share them.
Speaker 1: And this just makes me laugh because when YouTube first launched,
Speaker 1: most of us could only upload videos that were a
Speaker 1: few minutes long. Anything longer than ten or later on
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes was too long unless you were a trusted partner,
Speaker 1: and there were very few of those. Now, over time,
Speaker 1: YouTube began to lift that restriction, and consequently, YouTube's algorithm
Speaker 1: tends to favor longer videos because they do keep people
Speaker 1: on the platform for longer. And as we all know,
Speaker 1: time is money for these companies, meaning the more time
Speaker 1: you spend on those platforms, the more money they make.
Speaker 1: But now we see the flip side of that. The
Speaker 1: short videos are going to pop up in the mobile
Speaker 1: apps section of the YouTube app. And I just checked
Speaker 1: my app and I don't have it yet. And gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm a YouTube Premium subscriber and an Android phone user YouTube.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting any younger, and I need to start
Speaker 1: uploading videos of me doing trendy dances really really badly.
Speaker 1: And anyway, a co into ours Technica, the new app
Speaker 1: doesn't really compare that well against TikTok, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to editing options. I'll be sure to report back
Speaker 1: once I can try it out for myself. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I'll work on practicing my isolation dance moves. And finally,
Speaker 1: the City of Minneapolis has backpedaled on a plan that
Speaker 1: would have used social media influencers paid by the city
Speaker 1: to share city approved messaging during the trial of Derek Chauvin.
Speaker 1: Chauvin is one of the police officers charged in the
Speaker 1: death of George Floyd. According to the city, the purpose
Speaker 1: of the plan was to use influencers to send messages
Speaker 1: targeting specific communities, such as the black community, in an
Speaker 1: effort to quote address slash, dispel incorrect information end quote.
Speaker 1: They were to be paid two thousand dollars for the job.
Speaker 1: The announcement caused concern, and I think that's understandable after all.
Speaker 1: For one thing, the term influencer carries a bit of
Speaker 1: baggage with it, right, I mean, you're influencing how people
Speaker 1: think and be have, And when you've got a high
Speaker 1: profile case that contributed to a major social movement, that
Speaker 1: being Black Lives Matter, it's a pretty delicate situation. City
Speaker 1: reps said that The intent was to get messages out
Speaker 1: to the public in quick, accessible and reliable ways, but
Speaker 1: due to the concern over the proposal, it's not going
Speaker 1: to happen now. And that's all the news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: March one, or at least all the news that I
Speaker 1: could write up in time for this episode to go live.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for topics I should cover
Speaker 1: on tech Stuff, whether it's a company, a trend, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be in tech, let me know. Reach out
Speaker 1: on Twitter to handle is text stuff hs W, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
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