WEBVTT - Tech News: Virtual Real Estate Values Plummet in the Metaverse 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.000 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.840 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.119 And how the tech are you. It's time for the 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.239 tech news for Thursday, August four, twenty twenty two. And 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.880 first I thought I should follow up with the story 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.720 that I talked about a little bit on Tuesday, namely 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.960 that Apple has recently filed an emergency motion with a 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:37.280 court in East Texas arguing that it's human rights have 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.920 been violated in Columbia. And if you didn't hear that story, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.440 you're pricing what the heck. So let's give a quick 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.000 overview of what is going on. So, Apple's products that 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.159 use five G make use of patented technology, and Ericsson 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.279 is the company that owns those patents. Apple doesn't want 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.320 to pay the licensing fees for the as patents from Ericson, 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.120 so it stopped. Ericson has reached out to several countries 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.560 asking the court systems of those countries to ban the 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.280 sale of any five G Apple products because those products 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.280 are infringing upon Ericson's patents. And it worked in Columbia. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.520 So Apple filed an emergency motion about that, and then 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.600 a Texas judge said, look, just because you don't like 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.679 what's happening doesn't make this an emergency. You've got a 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.360 court date coming up, We're you're supposed to hash this 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.800 out with ericson. Just wait until the court date and 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.080 don't pull these shenanigans again. It's not an emergency if 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.760 you just want to have an earlier court hearing. Then 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.520 Apple filed another emergency motion, this time alleging that it's 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.039 human rights have been violated under the Universal Declaration of 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:51.360 Human Rights. Anyway, the bit I didn't talk about on 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.000 Tuesday was has been I hadn't even heard about yet, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.000 is that this really is a bigger picture thing. It's 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.760 not just this one thing that that is absurd just 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:03.960 on the face of it. We have to look at 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.640 how absurd everything is. And according to Apple, Ericsson is 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.239 demanding a higher licensing fee for these five G technologies 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:17.959 than they should, that the price tag is exorbitant, it's predatory, 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.800 and that Apple doesn't want to deal with that, and 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.160 that was why Apple was going to take this whole 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.560 matter to court to hash it out, to determine if 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.800 those licensing fees were too high see Apple argues that 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.200 the five G patents that Ericson holds should be grouped 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:40.200 under fair, reasonably and non discriminatory or FRAND terms f 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.040 r A and d FRAND as a concept that's usually 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.840 brought up in anti competitive disputes. The argument is that 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.760 some patents are so important for general tech applications that 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.360 the holder of the patent should be compelled to license 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.480 them fairly to other parties, and refusing to do so 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.960 is akin to holding a monopoly over that technology. So 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.480 Apple is saying Ericsson is asking for way too much money, 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.560 which is why they originally asked to settle that dispute 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.440 in court. But then so so they go and do that, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.520 right they get They get a court date which is 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.280 for several months from now, It's like at the end 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.440 of this year. But in the meantime, while that court 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.600 date is off in the distance, Ericson then stepped up 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.440 the pressure by getting Apple's stuff banned from sale in Columbia. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.040 Ericson kind of did a blanket approach, and Columbia said, okay, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.560 so it actually happened in Columbia. I don't think it 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.360 happened anywhere else. So In other words, what Apple is 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.600 saying is that Ericsson has overstepped, rather than waiting for 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.760 the court case to actually find out if in fact 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:52.880 the licensing fees are egregiously high or if they are fair. Further, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:57.200 Apple is implying that Ericson knew that the court was 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.600 going to find that the fees are too high and 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.160 then decided to throw this Hill Mary pass to get 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.760 countries to ban the sale of Apple five G products. Uh, 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.160 and that this was a sign that Ericson was trying 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.240 to out muscle Apple, like to say, hey, if you 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.240 don't pay our licensing fees, you're not selling anything at all, 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.479 and that's gonna hurt your bottom line way more than 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.840 paying us what we're asking for. So Apple filed the 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.520 emergency motion in an attempt to get that original court 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.760 date moved up so that this could be resolved faster. 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.359 And the courts resent that because the courts say, this 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.560 is an emergency. That's not what emergency emotions are for. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:41.480 That's not an emergency. Yes, you know there's this ongoing 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:46.760 dispute between these parties, but that doesn't meet the standard 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.640 necessary for it to be an emergency. So the courts 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.719 have so far declined to acquiesce to Apple's requests, and 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.880 I feel like that extra context was needed because my 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.520 report on Tuesday, I feel like that was really harsh 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.240 against Apple specifically. Honestly, I don't feel like there are 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.960 really any good guys in this one. I feel like 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:14.800 Ericsson's movements were not great. I feel like Apple's movements 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.640 were also not great. So I'm not willing to say 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.880 one party is definitively the bully and the other ones 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.120 definitively the victim, but rather to say like, no one 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.640 here has behaved particularly well, except perhaps for the judge 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.120 who keeps telling folks to stop putting up nonsense in 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.520 their courtroom. Now it looks like we're in another big 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:40.080 real estate bubble burst situation, which probably is something you 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.760 didn't expect me to talk about on a Tech Stuff episode. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.400 But in this case we should actually call it a 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:50.040 fake estate situation instead of real estate situation. Also, I 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.840 should add I totally stole fake estate from a sub 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.960 creddit at some point that's not mine. I wish it were. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.040 I wish I had thought of fake estate instead of 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:05.120 estate now. Anyway, the the virtual real estate I'm talking 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.200 about is stuff that's related to the metaverse. So last year, 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:14.080 specifically around November, when Facebook changed its name to Meta Metaverse, 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:18.120 hype was really on the rise. It was skyrocketing, and 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.520 we saw a lot of ridiculous land rush like behavior, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.640 some of it ranging around stuff like n f T s, 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:30.200 which really had peaked earlier, but still we're a big 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:35.440 topic of conversation, and also to things like cryptocurrency. And 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.440 then we saw people purchasing virtual plots of land on 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.960 something that doesn't actually exist yet. By that's something, I 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.359 really mean a fully realized metaverse. The virtual blocks of 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.920 land can exist on actual platforms, meaning there may be 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:55.520 servers out there that host the virtual landscape that people 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.400 are purchasing. I'm not suggesting that the the virtual plots 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.200 don't exist at all, that it's just an idea and 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.560 not you know, on a server somewhere, but you can't 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.960 really use them for anything other than kind of acting 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.760 like a placeholder, at least not as far as the 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.360 metaverse is concerned, because there is no metaverse yet. According 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.240 to the Information the Journal of the Information, prices for 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:24.480 virtual lots have dropped by eighty percent over just six months. Now. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.760 There are several different ways we can look at this. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.360 One would be to engage in schaden freuda. If you 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.280 happen to be someone who does not care about virtual 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.200 land grabs, you didn't participate, you have no stake in that, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.440 and you saw people going bonkers over it, maybe you're 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.600 feeling kind of pleased with yourself and a little happy 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.600 at their you know, misfortune as they see the investment 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.000 they make dropped by. Another reaction is to feel a 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.800 little sympathy for people who are swept up in the 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.320 excitement of the metaverse through no fault of their own. Really, 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.720 I mean, there was so much hype. I mean, they 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.120 didn't lacked the use of critical thinking, so I guess 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.880 you could argue that was some what their fault. But 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.480 when you are in a hype cycle, it can be 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.560 hard to see reality. And some folks just got carried away, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.800 and my heart does go out to those And then, 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.240 of course there's a range of other reactions you could have. 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.680 I personally find myself going back and forth between being 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:25.560 snarky schadenfreuderman and being kind of feeling a lot of 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.960 compassion for the people who were hit by this. And 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.319 we've seen a lot of related markets take a few 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.120 hits this year, right, n f T s were kind 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.360 of the canary in the coal mine, because even before 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.440 we got to the whole meta stuff, people were already 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.000 starting to lash back against n f T s. I 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.600 feel like n f T S came too hard, too quickly, 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.360 at too many different people, and the reaction was rejection, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.520 especially in places like the video game community. That was 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.320 that was kind of a litmus test for how certain 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:04.160 population would reject the n f T value proposition. I 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.160 think there was a really enthusiastic investor community around n 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:08.480 f t s, but a lot of the rest of 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.440 the world just said, Yo, this is kind of stupid. 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.240 And now, to be clear, I am not saying n 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.480 f T s are inherently stupid. I think there can 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:23.600 be legit uses for n f T s. However, I 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:28.000 will say I think n f T speculation is stupid. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.400 I think that treating it like a commodity is stupid. 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.760 I don't think ultimately that's the right way to use 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.160 n f t s, but that was the way that 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.840 that got the spotlight, and we saw such ridiculous examples 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.760 of it, and to this day it's still happening. It's 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.640 just happening on a smaller community. Right, we also saw 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:52.120 cryptocurrency values tank and then virtual real estate prices tank. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.800 And we've seen this play out in grand scale with Meta. Right. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.319 If you look at Meta and you look at how 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:04.240 Meta has to communicate it's approach to developing a metaverse, 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:10.679 that's kind of, again an early example of the difficulties 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.480 that are across the entire landscape. You know, Zuckerberg actually 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.120 tried to get ahead of that fairly early on. He 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.720 cautioned investors that the creation of a fleshed out metaverse 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.280 was going to take many years and a ton of investment, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.480 billions upon billions of dollars of investment. But I think 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.160 shareholders get antsy when they just start to see how 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.640 big the costs and losses are out of the reality 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.959 labs division at Meta. Now does that mean does all 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.000 this mean that virtual real estate is dead in the water, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.960 that we're not going to hear about ever? Again? No, 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.040 I don't think so. I think what we're seeing is, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.800 you know, what someone might call a market correction, or 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.240 that we've seen the hype peak and now we're on 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.280 the downside slope of the hype cycle. But eventually, I 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.160 think we're gonna see things level out and then climb 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.280 at a more sustainable rate. It seems pretty clear that 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.640 we are going to get something that we might call 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.839 a metaverse. We might get several some things that we 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.559 call metaversees, and that real estate is going to matter 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:21.640 when those somethings emerge, right, because if people are actually 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.760 going to these metaverses to interact with one another, having 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:30.440 a a position, a stance within that virtual space will 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.199 be really important because otherwise you will miss out on 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.040 any kind of interaction you could have there. So if 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.000 you're a business, then yeah, I guess it does make 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.439 sense to think about this. I just don't think it 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.480 made sense to pour enormous amounts of money in an 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:50.760 unproven and and not ready market so quickly. Uh So, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:52.640 I figured it will take a little bit longer before 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.199 things start to look stable enough to support a robust 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.120 virtual real estate market, but we will get there, I'll so. 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.960 As for me, I'm just gonna live in a real 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:07.360 world hut somewhere, just the real world, not the virtual world, 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.840 and I will remain blissfully ignorant of all the virtual 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.960 mansions and sky palaces and underwater villain layers and whatever 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.760 else folks might make in the metaverse. Y'all have fun. Uh, 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.400 it's not for me, alright. One thing that is for 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.040 me are several more news stories. But before we get 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:36.160 to those, let's take a quick break. All fifty states 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.480 attorneys general here in the US, so the attorneys general 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.160 for each of our fifty states. It's a confusing thing 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.400 to even have to say. They have all united to 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:51.720 fight a common enemy robo calls, specifically, in this case, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.160 robo calls coming from foreign numbers. So a few years 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.080 ago we saw a real movement to curtail robo calls 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.559 and spam calls within the United States. The government would 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.600 require carriers to incorporate tools designed to detect and prevent 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.800 these kinds of calls, to create databases to help UH 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.400 cut back on robot calls and spam calls. And those 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:17.400 requirements first applied to the major carriers because they held 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:21.480 the bulk of the responsibility. They also had the most 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.880 capability to respond quickly, and then the smaller carriers were 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.440 given a bit more time to comply. They were still 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.160 expected to comply, they just didn't have to do so 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:36.000 at the same speed as the major telecommunications companies, and 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.160 now this new push is to task what are called 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:44.120 gateway carriers. These are telecommunications companies that field calls from 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.000 outside the country, so foreign calls that are coming into 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.640 the United States, and they are tasked with the the 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:56.280 responsibility of determining whether or not the calls are legal. 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.360 If the calls are not legal, then they should be blocked. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.440 Josh Stein, the Attorney General for North Carolina and one 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.760 of the leaders of this effort, said that the team 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.880 plans to hold phone companies responsible for allowing a legal 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.640 traffic to pass over US phone signals. And you might 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.960 wonder how all this is going to be managed, And 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.080 I don't know, but I am in favor of having 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.960 fewer fishing and spam calls hit my phone, So I 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:25.680 hope whatever plan is put into place works. SpaceX says 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.520 that it's next generation of Startling satellites, which the company 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.480 uses to provide Internet service to satellite customers, will be 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.680 quote invisible to the naked eye when at their standard 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.920 operational altitude end quote. This move is in response to 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.160 the global astronomy community, which has grown concerned that huge 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.960 networks of small satellites will block views of the Cosmos 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.080 and interfere with terrestrial observations of the universe. And I 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.200 think this is Startling getting ahead of any regulations that 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.280 would otherwise force the company to change how it does business. 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.240 As to how Starlink has achieved this all, I don't 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.880 have any details. If I had to guess, I would 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.640 say that this next generation of Startling satellites are going 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.080 to be a little bit smaller and may be placed 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.440 in a slightly higher orbit than earlier satellites, and that's 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.400 how they are quote unquote invisible to the naked eye. 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.680 According to UK supply chain management company Fleet Assist, electric 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.000 vehicles on average are twenty two percent less expensive to 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.960 service compared to similar internal combustion engine vehicles. The firm 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.200 says that some factors that likely contribute to this lower 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.280 cost of maintenance are things like electric vehicles have fewer 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.120 moving components, so there's less stuff that wears down through 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.240 normal use. On average, it takes thirty three percent less 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.000 time to repair or maintain e vs than I sees 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.920 for comparable jobs, so that means labor costs are also 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.840 down and e V parts are frequently less expensive than 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.720 I see parts. Again because the design tends to be 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:03.040 simpler with fewer moving parts. However, Fleet Assist warrens that 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.120 we might not see this go on forever, right, We 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.840 might not see that EVY expenses are lower than I 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.240 see expenses at the garage, because there's a thought that 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.920 garages are going to increase their prices in order to 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:21.280 maintain profitability. Like the garage is not going to say, well, 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:23.480 cost less for us to do the work, so I 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:25.320 guess we'll just make less money. They might say it 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.400 costs less for us to do the works, less charge more, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.160 so we can make more money. So while EVIS would 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.400 continue to be easier to work on compared to I 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.359 c ES, the advantage from a cost to consumer perspective 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.120 might dwindle over time. Streaming digitally has asked an interesting question, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:46.040 what happened to HBO max original movies that just plane disappeared? 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.600 The piece mentions several Warner Brothers films that were on 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.240 HBO Max but aren't there anymore. And HBO is part 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:57.000 of Warner Media, which now in turn is owned by 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.520 Discover and just in the interest of full disclosure, once 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.760 upon a time, Discover was my corporate overlord. This was 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.920 several years ago, however, and all of this has led 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.440 to speculation that Discover is planning on making some big 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.960 changes to its streaming strategy, which we should hear more 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.440 about today. The company is going to hold its earnings 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.480 call for Q two two. Analysts expect that we should 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.560 hear at least something about a new unified streaming service. 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:27.159 Maybe Discovery Plus will lump in HBO Max underneath it 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.960 and it'll appear as a tab. There's also an expectation 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.800 that we're going to see a massive change in production 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.919 that anything that would overlap between HBO and Discover that 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.240 is like you know, reality television and stuff that's going 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.760 to be smoothed out so that Discover becomes kind of 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.879 the reality TV side and HBO becomes the more fictional side. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.159 So it could be that some reality series that are 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.400 under HBO go bye bye. Also, it sounds like we're 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.840 going to move away from producing expensive content just for 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.600 streaming platforms. One big example of that is the film 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.280 bat Girl. It was supposed to be released to HBO Max, 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.640 It was in post production. It has now been shelved 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.919 probably forever at least indefinitely, and the reason for that 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.800 is David Zaslov, the CEO of Discover, doesn't feel like 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.879 the reward of streaming this content is worth the expense 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.679 of producing it. This is expensive stuff, and if you're 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.400 gonna make expensive stuff, you should darn well be releasing 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.400 it to theaters and getting money there. So I think 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.639 this is a case where Zaslov said, Yeah, it's not 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.879 worth pouring more money into bat Girl to fix it 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.679 because it had been testing poorly reportedly. Uh, let's just 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.159 not worry about it. Let's cut it as a loss. 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.720 There's also a general feel that Zaslov is going to 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.520 be holding some layoffs later on down the road and 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:59.359 and kind of whittled down the organization. Uh. I know that. 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.480 I've seen a lot speculation on that. I'm kind of 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.240 curious to see what happens. There's a lot of HBO 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.679 content I actually really like, and I'm kind of worried 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.120 about whether or not such stuff will continue to be produced. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.000 A lot of it ends up being produced for the 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.280 cable channel as well as the streaming service, so we'll 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.199 have to see. Zaslovs a cable guy. That's where he 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.960 comes from, and that's where he's done the bulk of 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.560 his leadership so maybe I don't know. I don't know 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.240 how to predict. I do worry about some of the 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.600 smaller UH departments and companies that Warner Media owns, and 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:40.600 whether or not those are long for this world. I 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.119 suspect we might see some of those gets sold off 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.280 in the months to come. Well, I've got a couple 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.680 more stories that I want to talk about, but before 0:19:50.720 --> 0:20:01.760 we get to those, let's take another quick break. Chinese 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.800 mega company Tencent wants to increase its steak in game 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:11.760 developer UBI Soft or you be soft, whichever pronunciation you prefer. 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.520 I'll probably go back and forth between the two, because 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.840 I'm a mercurial imp. Now. I did a couple of 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:22.000 episodes about ubi soft last year. I kind of detailed 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.080 the history of the company as well as how it 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:28.080 recently had to go through our reckoning due to allegations 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.800 of a corporate culture where harassment and worse had been 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.160 tolerated for years, really really ugly stuff. The company has 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.560 kept a fairly low profile since then, with a lot 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.560 of layoffs and and firings of people who were associated 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:49.000 with that scandal. Anyway, they are now looking at ten 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.680 Cent coming in and buying up more of the company. Now. 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.439 Tencent already owns about five percent of ubi Soft and 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.480 reportedly wants to increase its steak in ownership so that 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:03.120 it becomes the largest single shareholder in the company. Ten 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.840 Cent also has a stake in a lot of different companies, 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.560 and particularly in video games, and reportedly one reason for 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.320 this move to increase its hold on Ubisoft is that 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.280 ten Cent wants to focus more of its resources on 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.280 global markets, and one potential reason for that is that 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.639 within China there's been a bit of a crackdown on 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.280 the video game industry, with the Chinese government taking the 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.240 stance that games can potentially be harmful and thus should 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:36.959 be regulated. So that might explain why ten Cent is 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.920 wanting to take this this extra steak. No telling yet 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:45.080 if this is going to happen. The family that Ownscent 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.280 of Ubisoft would have to agree to sell it, so 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.400 we'll have to see if that happens, but maybe Tincent 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.399 will make an offer that they can't refuse. We'll have 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.880 to see. Finally, one of the scary realities of the 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.280 oncoming quantum computing era is that the encryption methods we 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:07.320 rely upon today will at some point become useless now, 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:09.960 for this to happen, you first have to design to 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:15.120 write algorithm for a sufficiently powerful quantum system. But if 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.679 you were able to do that using quantum computing, you 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.920 could break standard encryption so quickly that it would be trivial. 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.440 So another way to think about this is that at 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.760 some point these systems will be powerful enough and have 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.719 the correct algorithm necessary to create the equivalent of a 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:38.119 skeleton key that can unlock every luck in existence, and 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.320 there will be no more secrets or something. So knowing this, 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.480 computer scientists for years now have been working on developing 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:52.320 new encryption systems that, in theory, would foil quantum systems. 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:55.240 So this is like the next generation of encryption. To 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.440 keep systems safe even in an era of quantum computing, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.040 this means it requires a totally different approach than the 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.960 way a lot of encryption works right now. And one 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:09.520 of those approaches, called psych s i k E, which 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:14.320 by the way, is short for super singular isogeny key encapsulation, 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.400 was looking pretty promising. The U s Department of Commerce 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:23.640 has a National Institute of Standards and Technology. That's the 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.960 that's the entity in the United States that UH that 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:32.359 credits standards in tech. They held a competition, and the 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:35.480 competition had the goal of creating the next generation encryption 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:39.920 schemes capable of holding off quantum superiority and PSYCH and 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.800 made it through several stages of the competition. It was 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:46.400 doing really well, and then some researchers, using a perfectly 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:51.040 ordinary standard computer with a single processing core, found a 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:56.320 weakness in psych's algorithm design. Now I am not going 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.640 to pretend that I understand what happened and as sure 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:01.560 as heck, and not going to try and describe it 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:04.359 because I would just muck it all up. But I 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:08.440 will say that using a mathematical approach, the researchers were 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:12.520 able to predict and then retrieve encryption keys from the algorithm. 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:15.960 So this would be like getting hold of any key 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.160 coming out of this system and being able to make 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.320 an instant copy of it. Uh, at least for that 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:25.320 particular encryption method, So it is not secure. The PSYCH 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:29.480 creators said they were surprised by the researchers approach. This 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:32.840 was something they hadn't anticipated, so they were kind of 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:35.760 surprised to learn about the weakness of their design. They 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:38.680