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 a love of all things tech. And this is
Speaker 1: the tech news for Thursday, May two thousand twenty one.
Speaker 1: If I sound a little different, because I'm actually in
Speaker 1: the studio today though I'm using my old equipment that
Speaker 1: I use at home. But yeah, I'm in a different
Speaker 1: recording environment. Just in case it sounds a little odd,
Speaker 1: let's get into the news. Just as in Tuesday's episode,
Speaker 1: we will start today with some stories about global politics
Speaker 1: and global tech companies. And as I mentioned earlier this week,
Speaker 1: big tech companies are really feeling pressure points from lots
Speaker 1: of different sources due to global politics and policies. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes that pressure comes from, you know, a government or
Speaker 1: a group of governments, and sometimes it comes from advocacy groups.
Speaker 1: This particular story is about the latter. Numerous groups have
Speaker 1: urged Google to pull out from a cloud computing project
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. The concern is that Google's efforts would
Speaker 1: help enable a regime that has committed human rights violations. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, Google might make it easier for the
Speaker 1: Saudi government to hurt people. Those groups include Human Rights
Speaker 1: Watch and Amnesty International, and back in ten you might
Speaker 1: remember the terrible story of the Saudi journalist Jamal ka Shoji,
Speaker 1: who was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Instantabul, Turkey.
Speaker 1: Uh The CIA concluded that the Crown Prince Mohammed Ben
Speaker 1: Solomon ordered that assassination. That particular event drew a great
Speaker 1: deal of attention towards Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince,
Speaker 1: and while by no means it was the only horrific
Speaker 1: act attributable to the Saudi government, it is one that
Speaker 1: stood out and the rights organizations argue that Google's cloud
Speaker 1: product could allow the government to spy on its own
Speaker 1: people as well as people visiting Saudi Arabia, It could
Speaker 1: allow the government to limit freedom of expression, and it
Speaker 1: could have a negative impact on due process. Humans Rights
Speaker 1: Watch published a response from Google that said the company
Speaker 1: had submitted its cloud project to an independent human rights
Speaker 1: organization in order to identify possible points where that tool
Speaker 1: could be abused, and that Google then quote took steps
Speaker 1: to address matters identified as part of that review. In
Speaker 1: the quote alright, I'm gonna chime in here now. Usually
Speaker 1: you could say that tools are neither good nor bad.
Speaker 1: It's all on how we use them. So a hammer
Speaker 1: can be a useful construction tool, or it could be
Speaker 1: used as a weapon. And while Google might identify obvious
Speaker 1: points where they need to adjust their approach to try
Speaker 1: and prevent abuse, the fact is that if someone gets
Speaker 1: hold of a tool and they want to use it destructively,
Speaker 1: they typically will find a way to do that. And
Speaker 1: usually it's a way that other folks just didn't anticipate
Speaker 1: because they're looking at it from a preventive standpoint as
Speaker 1: opposed to figuring out how you would use this to
Speaker 1: actually attack someone. So my point is that I'm not
Speaker 1: sure there is a way for Google to see this
Speaker 1: project through while also maintaining, you know, a spotless image
Speaker 1: with regard to any abuses the saudiast might commit. It
Speaker 1: feels a bit too close to them trying to assume
Speaker 1: plausible deniability to me. But as of this recording, it
Speaker 1: appears like that project is still for a go. It's
Speaker 1: still still heading on. Moving over to Iran, the country's
Speaker 1: government has banned cryptocurrency mining for the next few months,
Speaker 1: in anticipation of increased demands in electricity usage. Iran has
Speaker 1: issues with its electrical grid and has seen it's seen
Speaker 1: it fail in the past due to high demand, so
Speaker 1: they've had blackouts that have hit entire regions when energy
Speaker 1: consumption was much higher than normal. They ban on bitcoin
Speaker 1: mining and other cryptocurrency mining has already begun and it's
Speaker 1: going to last until September twenty two. Now, as I've
Speaker 1: covered several times, cryptocurrencies that use a proof of work
Speaker 1: approach to mining, which includes bitcoin, they suck up a
Speaker 1: lot of electricity. Now that's not necessarily by design. So
Speaker 1: in the old days, a bitcoin was worth practically nothing.
Speaker 1: You might have heard the story about the guy who
Speaker 1: used thousands of bitcoins to order a pizza, for example.
Speaker 1: Back in those days, the return on investment in bitcoin
Speaker 1: mining was really low, so it didn't make sense to
Speaker 1: have a big mining operation. You would spend more money
Speaker 1: running it than you would in the proceeds you got
Speaker 1: from mining. So a relatively small number of computers were
Speaker 1: actively mining on the bitcoin system. But as interest in
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency grew, more people wanted to get in on it,
Speaker 1: and as demand increased. But the supply remains, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty steady. Every ten minutes, some more bitcoins are released,
Speaker 1: but it's not a huge amount. Well, that just meant
Speaker 1: that the value of the currency grew, and as the
Speaker 1: value went up, more people began to jump on board
Speaker 1: to try and mind cryptocurrency because now mining was becoming profitable,
Speaker 1: and this led to the equivalent of a gold rush. Today,
Speaker 1: massive computer networks attempt to be the first to mind
Speaker 1: the next block for the the bitcoins that are released
Speaker 1: when you verify a block of transactions. These computers are
Speaker 1: running on super fast processors. Typically they have state of
Speaker 1: the art graphics processing units or GPUs. That in turn
Speaker 1: has had a big impact on the video game industry
Speaker 1: because it becomes really hard to get the best graphics
Speaker 1: card for your gaming rig because all the ding dang
Speaker 1: bitcoin miners are grabbing them. Add to that the energy
Speaker 1: needs you required to keep operations cool enough so that
Speaker 1: your computers don't overheat, and you end up consuming more
Speaker 1: electricity in bitcoin mining per year than the annual amount
Speaker 1: of electricity used by some countries like Argentina. This has
Speaker 1: been a big point in conversations about fossil fuels and
Speaker 1: climate change, as not all bitcoin mining operations are dependent
Speaker 1: upon renewable energy sources, but it's also a strain on
Speaker 1: utility infrastructure, as is the case with Iran, and according
Speaker 1: to analytics firm Elliptic, around four and a half percent
Speaker 1: of all bitcoin mining worldwide happens in Iran. With China
Speaker 1: cracking down on cryptocurrency for various reasons which we covered
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, and now Iran putting the brakes on operations
Speaker 1: for several months, this could mean that the cryptocurrency market
Speaker 1: will still have a few more bumps in the road
Speaker 1: for you know, the near future. Now, let us pop
Speaker 1: over to the UK where things are changing with regard
Speaker 1: to Uber. For the first time, Uber has recognized the
Speaker 1: legitimacy of a union formed by UK workers who drive
Speaker 1: for the company. The union g m B will be
Speaker 1: able to stand as a representative for UK drivers and
Speaker 1: negotiate deals with regard to stuff like earnings and benefits
Speaker 1: and pensions. This is a huge shift. Traditionally, Uber has
Speaker 1: maintained that Uber drivers are not Uber employees, They're not
Speaker 1: Uber workers. Rather, Uber says these people are freelancers, their
Speaker 1: contract workers who work with Uber but not for Uber,
Speaker 1: and so argues Uber the company really only has obligations
Speaker 1: to provide benefits and such to corporate employees, the people
Speaker 1: who work for Uber's offices. But several lawsuits have gradually
Speaker 1: kind of reshaped this issue, and the UK Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruled that no, you know what, actually, Uber drivers should
Speaker 1: be considered employees and they are thus entitled to those considerations.
Speaker 1: So now in the UK, the GMB and Uber will
Speaker 1: meet every quarter to discuss driver issues and concerns, and
Speaker 1: Uber and GM will also meet to talk about Uber's
Speaker 1: national living wage guarantee and what that looks like in
Speaker 1: the UK, as well as stuff like pensions. Drivers will
Speaker 1: have to sign up to join the union because membership
Speaker 1: is not automatic. Also, while this is potentially great news
Speaker 1: for UK Uber drivers, the company has not made any
Speaker 1: similar moves in other countries. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: groups advocating for change, but I mean Uber actively campaigned
Speaker 1: against that in California just recently. So so far, the
Speaker 1: UK is the only spot where we're really seeing this
Speaker 1: kind of Uber working with you know, a union and
Speaker 1: and allowing their drivers to be known as employees. It's
Speaker 1: also good to remember the Uber is a company that
Speaker 1: continues to lose money on a quarterly basis, in they
Speaker 1: averaged at about a billion dollars per quarter. Actually, when
Speaker 1: it was all said and done, they lost about six
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars in. Now, that was bad, but
Speaker 1: still better than twenty nineteen when they lost eight point
Speaker 1: five one billion dollars. So yeah, Uper's future is one
Speaker 1: that's really up in the air. The company keeps saying
Speaker 1: that you know, they are on track for profitability. In fact,
Speaker 1: up until the end of last year there was a
Speaker 1: hope that they were going to be able to to
Speaker 1: post a profit in but that did not happen, So
Speaker 1: maybe their year left to see. European rights organization including
Speaker 1: Privacy International, have filed complaints against a company called clear
Speaker 1: View AI. That company specializes in facial recognition technology. The
Speaker 1: complaints say that the company scrapes image data from various
Speaker 1: websites and services and that this practice violates European privacy laws.
Speaker 1: Clear View AI has said that it has a database
Speaker 1: of more than three billion facial images and the company
Speaker 1: frequently scans content from sites and services like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
Speaker 1: and YouTube. Then the company organizes that database and sells
Speaker 1: access to it to various parties like other private companies
Speaker 1: or with law enforcement agencies. So the advocacy groups say
Speaker 1: that this practice goes far beyond what users expect when
Speaker 1: they post on these websites, and that this leads to
Speaker 1: not just an invasion of privacy concern, but the potential
Speaker 1: for harassment and wrongful accusations and more. This isn't the
Speaker 1: first time groups have taken aim at clear View AI.
Speaker 1: There are other inquiries and investigations going on in Australia, Canada,
Speaker 1: and the United States. Also, Hey, if you're curious, you
Speaker 1: can actually go to clear views website and use tools
Speaker 1: to request any data that the company might have on you.
Speaker 1: You can also tell clear view AI if you want
Speaker 1: to have your face omitted from clients searches in the future.
Speaker 1: And if a lot of people did that, it would
Speaker 1: really undermine the value of clear Views product. I'm not
Speaker 1: telling you to do it, I'm just saying it's an option.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, after our last tech News episode went live,
Speaker 1: which is always the way, vm Ware disclosed a security
Speaker 1: vulnerability in its v Center server tool, and simultaneously they
Speaker 1: issued a patch to address that vulnerability. This tool lets
Speaker 1: database administrators manage computer virtualization and let me give you
Speaker 1: a quick word on that in case you are unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with that term. Virtualization allows you to virtually divide up
Speaker 1: the assets of a physical computer as if it were
Speaker 1: more than one physical computer. Now, you might use virtualization
Speaker 1: so that your computer runs as if it were a
Speaker 1: totally different type of computer running on a different operating system.
Speaker 1: That's one version of virtualization where you're not really dividing
Speaker 1: it up so much as you're having your computer kind
Speaker 1: of mimic a different type of machine because of this
Speaker 1: virtual environment. Or you could use it to partition a
Speaker 1: computer so that different partitions have no contact with one
Speaker 1: another their siloed. This is important for the purposes of
Speaker 1: data security and that kind of thing. Well, anyway, vm
Speaker 1: Whare says the vulnerability could mean that hackers would have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to inject malware into servers running this kind
Speaker 1: of software. If there is a port on the server
Speaker 1: that connects out to the Internet, and a lot of servers,
Speaker 1: do you know, a lot of them connect out to
Speaker 1: the Internet in some way or another, So how bad
Speaker 1: is this vulnerability? Well, according to security analysts, if you
Speaker 1: were to rank vulnerabilities on a scale of one being
Speaker 1: not very serious and tend being catastrophic. This one is
Speaker 1: a nine point eight. It is a critical vulnerability. Anyone
Speaker 1: who works on servers and uses this software that is
Speaker 1: the v Center Server tool should immediately get the patch
Speaker 1: and install it on those servers, or restrict access to
Speaker 1: those servers, you know, disconnect them from the Internet until
Speaker 1: they can be patched. It is that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: Instagram has been testing a feature in several countries for
Speaker 1: the past two years that it is now rolling out worldwide,
Speaker 1: and it's an option that users can select that lets
Speaker 1: them hide the number of likes and views that they
Speaker 1: get on any given post. For some on social media,
Speaker 1: likes and views that's kind of like currency. For influencers.
Speaker 1: It's a way to show relevance and potentially land sponsorship deals.
Speaker 1: But judging your own value on how many likes or
Speaker 1: views you did or didn't get on a post isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily healthy. I mean, I know, I have fixated on
Speaker 1: that a few times, and it's always been a bad idea.
Speaker 1: I mostly do it over on Twitter, where I'll make
Speaker 1: what I think was a great tweet and then I get,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of grouchy when there aren't that many
Speaker 1: likes for it or shares or anything. Now, that's just
Speaker 1: dumb of me to do that to myself. Now on Instagram,
Speaker 1: people can choose to hide those numbers and just use
Speaker 1: the app to share photos without you know, thinking about
Speaker 1: whether the thing they posted was the best picture at
Speaker 1: the best time or whatever. And I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of users that's actually really helpful. Now, obviously, for influencers,
Speaker 1: it's probably not something they're going to use very often,
Speaker 1: even though I think a few folks of the influencers
Speaker 1: category might benefit from taking a break of quantifying their
Speaker 1: own worth based on how people interact with their content.
Speaker 1: But hey, I'm just a grumpy old dude who shakes
Speaker 1: his fist at passing clouds. Right, I'm an old content
Speaker 1: creator who thinks sometimes it's good to kind of distance
Speaker 1: yourself from that, because otherwise it can lead you down
Speaker 1: a pretty dark mental pathway. If you would like to
Speaker 1: activate this feature, then you can log into Instagram. You
Speaker 1: can go to settings, You go to the posts section,
Speaker 1: and and you should see an option to hide like
Speaker 1: and view counts. Boom sordid. People will still be able
Speaker 1: to like and view your stuff, obviously, but you won't
Speaker 1: have that number in plain sight, you know, mocking you
Speaker 1: or nagging you to do better, which for me, I
Speaker 1: mean that sounds ideal. It's not for everyone, but for
Speaker 1: people like me, I think it's a great feature. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a little bit more news to go, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. We're back and hay,
Speaker 1: do you use Twitter like a lot? And do you
Speaker 1: rely on Twitter to do stuff like make connections, sell
Speaker 1: your brand or try to get Neil Gaiman to notice you. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're like me, the answer to those things is yeah,
Speaker 1: and you probably feel a little sad about it, like
Speaker 1: I do. Anyway, Twitter has a new service coming aimed
Speaker 1: just at people like you and me. It's their premium service,
Speaker 1: so yes, that does mean you will have to pay
Speaker 1: to get access to these new features. Features like a
Speaker 1: bookmarking feature and an undo tweets feature, which sounds like
Speaker 1: it's the closest thing we're ever going to get to,
Speaker 1: an edit button, and you know, there might be other
Speaker 1: features as well, but like, we don't know. Because all
Speaker 1: this news comes from an app researcher named Jane man
Speaker 1: Chun Wong. She came across this information and shared it.
Speaker 1: Twitter itself has not yet commented on this planned service,
Speaker 1: but apparently, at least right now, it has the name
Speaker 1: Twitter Blue and the subscription is a low two dollars
Speaker 1: n cents per month. This, by the way, is a
Speaker 1: separate offering from the already announced subscription based service that
Speaker 1: Twitter is going to offer up that will allow you know,
Speaker 1: Twitter users to set up a paid for tier of
Speaker 1: access for their followers. So this would be like, if
Speaker 1: I set this up, then followers who really liked me
Speaker 1: could subscribe to this exclusive feed and get you know,
Speaker 1: special data, special content that I'm only posting to that
Speaker 1: version of my Twitter, and they're doing it for a
Speaker 1: recurring fee, and Twitter takes a share of that subscription price.
Speaker 1: That's something you're not likely to see me use, because
Speaker 1: let's face it, I'm not important enough and I would
Speaker 1: spend way too much time just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what I could say in those like two dly characters
Speaker 1: that would be worth paying for. But these efforts show
Speaker 1: how Twitter is looking to diversify its revenue sources. The
Speaker 1: company has had issues attracting new users that that number
Speaker 1: has kind of plateaued, which means it's tough to grow
Speaker 1: revenue and generally speaking, in modern day business, that's a
Speaker 1: bad thing. It's not good enough to make money. You
Speaker 1: need to make more money than you made last year. Hi.
Speaker 1: Facebook has announced that the social media platform will begin
Speaker 1: to use its algorithm to counteract misinformation, which, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's a nice change of pace, since that
Speaker 1: algorithm so far has really helped elevate and propagate misinformation.
Speaker 1: The company says that now it will both label posts
Speaker 1: appearing to contain misinformation and d prioritize those posts from
Speaker 1: appearing in the feeds of other people, but it will
Speaker 1: also lower the visibility of the users who are sharing
Speaker 1: those posts. So if I start sharing posts that have
Speaker 1: been found to contain outright lies and misinformation, what should
Speaker 1: happen is that from that point forward, if I've done
Speaker 1: it enough, all of my posts, not just the ones
Speaker 1: containing misinformation, will start to show up in fewer feeds.
Speaker 1: So would be kind of like if I found myself
Speaker 1: in a glass cage of sadness that's sound proved, and
Speaker 1: meanwhile that cage is in the middle of a big
Speaker 1: old party, and that's going on all around me. I
Speaker 1: could yell at the top of my lungs what's going on?
Speaker 1: Or you know I could I could try and spread
Speaker 1: misinformation from inside my glass cage, or or even I
Speaker 1: could just say I'm thinking of getting pizza tonight, and
Speaker 1: folks around me wasn't here because Facebook's disincentivizing the spread
Speaker 1: of misinformation. There d prioritizing those messages so they don't
Speaker 1: pop up for most people. And I actually feel like
Speaker 1: this tactic, assuming the system works, is a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: It helps cut down on the echo chamber effect, and
Speaker 1: it means that the people who try and spread misinformation
Speaker 1: purposefully are going to find their influence diminishing as a result. Now,
Speaker 1: the way this will work in practice is that Facebook
Speaker 1: will keep tabs on people who have repeatedly shared posts
Speaker 1: that Facebook fact checkers have flagged as containing misinformation, So
Speaker 1: if you do that enough times, you'll find yourself essentially demoted.
Speaker 1: Do I think this is going to solve the problems
Speaker 1: of misinformation spreading across on Facebook? Probably not. A lot
Speaker 1: more has to happen for that to be a thing,
Speaker 1: which might require a massive change in how advertisers work
Speaker 1: with Facebook in order for that to come about, But
Speaker 1: I think it might be a step in the right direction. Possibly,
Speaker 1: we'll have to see how it actually plays out when
Speaker 1: it's being put in use. Okay, let's go back to England,
Speaker 1: shall we, because our penultimate story is one that's all
Speaker 1: about fusion. Stars are giant nuclear fusion reactors in which
Speaker 1: elements fused together and in the process release enormous amounts
Speaker 1: of energy. Or, as the somewhat apocryphal song goes, the
Speaker 1: sun is a massive incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace
Speaker 1: where hydrogen is built into helium and a temperature of
Speaker 1: billions of degrees. That's somewhat misleading, but still catchy. So
Speaker 1: with with the son, you're talking about four hydrogen atoms
Speaker 1: that fused together to form a helium adam Well, scientists
Speaker 1: and engineers have been trying to make a sustainable, trollable,
Speaker 1: usable fusion reactor here on Earth for years, and if
Speaker 1: they succeed, this could lead to an energy revolution. So
Speaker 1: remember when I was talking about concerns about how much
Speaker 1: electricity cryptocurrency requires, Well, if we have working fusion reactors,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't be as big of a concern as long
Speaker 1: as the actual infrastructure of power lines and transformers, you know,
Speaker 1: all the physical stuff that conveys electricity. As long as
Speaker 1: that could hold up to the demand, we'd be pretty good.
Speaker 1: Nuclear fusion, unlike nuclear fission, does not generate dangerous radioactive waste,
Speaker 1: but nuclear fusion does have some big challenges. For example,
Speaker 1: to get fusion reactions, you're typically working with systems that
Speaker 1: have to generate enormous amounts of heat and pressure. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about conditions that could be even more intense
Speaker 1: than what you would find at the core of the sun.
Speaker 1: That requires a lot of energy to do, which means
Speaker 1: that many prototype fusion reactors have encountered the problem that
Speaker 1: it can take more energy to generate the fusion reaction
Speaker 1: then you get out of the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Another challenge, one that some scientists in the UK think
Speaker 1: they've really overcome, has to do with exhaust gases that
Speaker 1: incredibly hot helium gas that gets generated as a result
Speaker 1: of fusion. Now, these gases are in more than a
Speaker 1: hundred million degrees of celsius hot. I mean they are
Speaker 1: insanely hot, hotter than the surface of the sun. Hot.
Speaker 1: That means they're also going to cause a lot of
Speaker 1: damage to elements of reactors as they exhaust out, like
Speaker 1: they come into contact with the sides of the reactor,
Speaker 1: they can start melting tiles, even tiles that are made
Speaker 1: out of very melt resistant materials like tungsten. So getting
Speaker 1: fusion reactions efficient is one area of research and we've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of progress there. And now finding a
Speaker 1: way to cool those exhaust gases faster so that they
Speaker 1: cause less where and tear is another big one. The
Speaker 1: exhaust system the scientists developed has a cool name, which
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's fitting because it's cooling gas
Speaker 1: and it is the super ex diverter. It diverts generated
Speaker 1: helium from fusion reactions down a long pathway to cool
Speaker 1: and the cooling happens pretty fast. I mean like that
Speaker 1: energy losses is quick, and because the helium is traveling
Speaker 1: down sort of a straightaway, it's not banging into the
Speaker 1: tiled sides of the reactor structure. And this is a
Speaker 1: great step, but we're still looking at a long term
Speaker 1: implementation plan for fusion reactors. The estimate is that we're
Speaker 1: not going to see a commercially viable fusion reactor for
Speaker 1: at least another twenty years. So while they are promising
Speaker 1: and if they work out, they will transform the world,
Speaker 1: we still have a lot of work to do to
Speaker 1: address our energy needs in the meantime. Finally, let's talk
Speaker 1: about our perception of time. Now, we have all experienced
Speaker 1: the fact that we perceive time passing at different rates
Speaker 1: depending on what's going on. That our perception isn't a constant.
Speaker 1: We're not like a reliable clock that is just ticking
Speaker 1: down each second to incredible precision. So when you're in
Speaker 1: the middle of doing something that you don't really want
Speaker 1: to do, time just drags on. When you're enjoying yourself,
Speaker 1: time zooms by I mean, we've got that phrase right.
Speaker 1: Time flies when you're having fun. But now researchers have
Speaker 1: seen through some experiments that in certain virtual reality experiences,
Speaker 1: a user's perception of time slows down, and the researchers
Speaker 1: believe that this is a fundamental aspect to the experience
Speaker 1: of VR that's not related to whether or not you're
Speaker 1: enjoying yourself while you're in this virtual experience, but rather
Speaker 1: it's the anchor point of the virtual reality experience itself.
Speaker 1: So in other words, while you are in VR, you'll
Speaker 1: perceive that a lot less time has passed for you.
Speaker 1: Then what the clock would tell you when you take
Speaker 1: the heads that off that lion clock. So here's how
Speaker 1: they conducted the experiment. Test subjects were to complete a maze,
Speaker 1: you know, a virtual maze as a like a computer
Speaker 1: game version of a maze. There was a VR version
Speaker 1: of this maze, and there was another one that used
Speaker 1: just a classic computer display. And the users were supposed
Speaker 1: to try and complete the maze, and then they were
Speaker 1: supposed to tell administrators when they felt that five minutes
Speaker 1: had gone by. So, you know, they're working on the
Speaker 1: maze and when they think, oh, I felt like about
Speaker 1: five minutes, they'd speak up uh, And there was a
Speaker 1: reminder for them to actually do this that would flash
Speaker 1: on screen every eight seconds. However, the subjects were not
Speaker 1: told the frequency at which this this reminder would flash,
Speaker 1: so if they had, they could have used that as
Speaker 1: a way to measure the passing of time. So they
Speaker 1: just knew that this message kept popping up. They didn't
Speaker 1: know that it was, you know, an eight second delay
Speaker 1: between messages. Anyway, at the end of it, the scientists
Speaker 1: said that those who were using the VR version on
Speaker 1: average suggested that five minutes had passed at around the
Speaker 1: six and a half minute mark, or the way they
Speaker 1: put it, was that quote an average of twenty eight
Speaker 1: point five percent more real time passed for participants who
Speaker 1: played the VR game than for those in the control group,
Speaker 1: with no difference in perceived duration end quote. Now, there
Speaker 1: have been other studies kind of related to this issue.
Speaker 1: Some of them have conflicting results that that sort of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't align with this this experiments results.
Speaker 1: So this is by no means the definitive answer as
Speaker 1: to whether or not we perceived time to pass more
Speaker 1: slowly in VR than in real life. Also, researchers have
Speaker 1: noted that if you're talking about extended play sessions like
Speaker 1: half an hour or more, this effect has been seen
Speaker 1: not just in VR, but in all sorts of gameplay
Speaker 1: modes like traditional computer gaming and otherwise. So in other words,
Speaker 1: it does look like we get back to that time
Speaker 1: flies when you're having fun, saying that there really is
Speaker 1: some element of truth to that, in the sense that
Speaker 1: our perception of time is uh, is different while we're
Speaker 1: having a good time and we think, oh, that was
Speaker 1: just five minutes, and then we look up and realize
Speaker 1: we've been playing Civilization for four days straight. Just one
Speaker 1: more turn, all right, that wraps up this episode of
Speaker 1: text Stuff. If you have suggestions for topics I should
Speaker 1: cover in future episodes, reach out to me. The best
Speaker 1: place to do that so we're on Twitter. You won't
Speaker 1: even need to subscribe because I'm not gonna do a
Speaker 1: subscription based thing. You won't even need the premium version
Speaker 1: of Twitter. Just regular old Twitter will do. And the
Speaker 1: handle we use is text stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows