Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for March twenty twenty two. And while I
Speaker 1: see a lot of folks behaving as if the pandemic
Speaker 1: we're totally over, we're not really out of the woods yet.
Speaker 1: Over in China, there's been a concerning COVID nineteen outbreak,
Speaker 1: technically the largest in two years, and in response, various
Speaker 1: regional and city government officials have tightened restrictions in different
Speaker 1: areas of China in an effort to stop the spread
Speaker 1: of the virus, and that has subsequently had a huge
Speaker 1: impact on certain manufacturing facilities in Shinjin uh These include
Speaker 1: fox con, which is the company that supplies many component
Speaker 1: it's for various apple products. But in addition, you have
Speaker 1: other companies like Intel, Volkswagen, and Toyota having major manufacturing
Speaker 1: facilities in the area that have had to scale back
Speaker 1: or even halt production. The Chinese government has created an
Speaker 1: allowance for companies if those companies are able to create
Speaker 1: a sort of bubble for their workers. And by bubble,
Speaker 1: I mean there really has to be a controlled, closed
Speaker 1: environment within which workers aren't just doing their jobs but
Speaker 1: are actually living there as well. In other words, it's
Speaker 1: only a bubble if there's no way out of it.
Speaker 1: Though this does not necessarily mean that employees would be
Speaker 1: you know, confined to the same structure for both working
Speaker 1: and living. You know, they might have like a dormitory
Speaker 1: or something in addition to the factory. Still, that's a
Speaker 1: big yikes. Some companies like fox Con are attempting to
Speaker 1: shift operations to other manufacturing facilities inside China that are
Speaker 1: not seeing the same eyes in COVID cases. And it's
Speaker 1: too early yet to say for sure to what extent
Speaker 1: these events are going to have on things like supply
Speaker 1: chain issues, but some analysts already are worried that we
Speaker 1: could see the effects of this lasting as long as
Speaker 1: six months before we're able to close the gap that
Speaker 1: would be created by you know, these these slowdowns and
Speaker 1: and stoppages. Some might argue that China's zero case policy
Speaker 1: toward COVID is too extreme and should be amended. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of hard to push back on that.
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, obviously you don't want outbreaks.
Speaker 1: On the other, shutting everything down every time there's a
Speaker 1: rise in cases causes massive disruptions like these. However, as
Speaker 1: long as the illness poses a significant risk to people's lives,
Speaker 1: I personally find it very hard to say, you know,
Speaker 1: it's worth the risk. So this is a really tough call.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that I have all the answers.
Speaker 1: I know I don't want people to get sick, but
Speaker 1: I also recognize the challenges that come about when you
Speaker 1: know you have these massive interruptions and supply chains. Speaking
Speaker 1: of fox Con, the company is rumored to have submitted
Speaker 1: a proposal to build a nine billion dollar manufacturing facility
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. This facility would make microchips and electronic
Speaker 1: components for other companies, you know, stuff like displays, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Again, for the fox cons customers are
Speaker 1: not people like you and and me. That's it's big
Speaker 1: companies like Apple Now. Reportedly, the logic behind this move
Speaker 1: largely comes from the tenuous relationship between China and the
Speaker 1: United States. Most of fox CON's customers, like the aforementioned Apple,
Speaker 1: are from outside China. Of course, Saudi Arabia has its
Speaker 1: own tenuous relationship with the US. The country is associated
Speaker 1: with a multitude of human rights violations as well as
Speaker 1: crimes such as the murder of journalist Jamal Kashow Game.
Speaker 1: There have been numerous dignitaries and activists who have repeatedly
Speaker 1: called upon the United States to impose sanctions against Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: To get into all of that would require really an
Speaker 1: entire series of podcasts, and I'm pretty sure by the
Speaker 1: end of that I would be a jaded, cynical husk
Speaker 1: of a host. But anyway, fox Con is reportedly looking
Speaker 1: at other potential sites as well, including the United Arab Emirates,
Speaker 1: so it's not just Saudi Arabia. Russia has blocked Instagram, which,
Speaker 1: according to Adam Massari, the head of Instagram, means that
Speaker 1: eighty million people within Russia will be cut off from
Speaker 1: each other. I personally think that that statement goes a
Speaker 1: little far, because presumably Russians are using other means of
Speaker 1: staying in touch. Plus it ignores the use of tools
Speaker 1: like VPNs virtual private networks in order to get around
Speaker 1: things like regional bands. But you know, it really does
Speaker 1: represent a pretty major move on the part of the
Speaker 1: Russian government meant. Now, the reason for the ban, Russian
Speaker 1: officials have said is that Meta quote made an unprecedented
Speaker 1: decision by allowing the posting of information containing calls for
Speaker 1: violence against Russian citizens on its social networks Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now, in this case, those calls for violence
Speaker 1: refer mainly to posts that urge Ukrainians to defend themselves
Speaker 1: against Russian soldiers. Meta reps have said that they made
Speaker 1: the determination that these messages should be protected under freedom
Speaker 1: of speech because they are framed within the context of
Speaker 1: self defense and fighting back against an invasion, as opposed to,
Speaker 1: you know, calling out attacks on a people for some
Speaker 1: other reason. So the Russian government has been hard at
Speaker 1: work presenting the invasion in as positive a light as
Speaker 1: possible back in Russia, and my guess is that this
Speaker 1: became increasingly difficult as social networks sort of bypassed Ussian
Speaker 1: propaganda channels. Also, um, I just want to say it's
Speaker 1: pretty darn hypocritical to hear Russian officials declare Meta a
Speaker 1: platform that facilitates and encourages extremism, because well, we all
Speaker 1: know that Russian operatives have long been at work leveraging
Speaker 1: social networking platforms in general and Facebook in particular in
Speaker 1: an effort to push radical extremist ideologies in other countries
Speaker 1: and to disrupt their, you know, political processes, particularly here
Speaker 1: in the United States. So yeah, Meta is kind of
Speaker 1: awful in that way, but it always has been in
Speaker 1: Russia has depended upon it in the past, So you know,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess there are no good guys in
Speaker 1: that particular scenario. Now, one thing that Meta is doing
Speaker 1: that arguably isn't terrible is it is offering to educate
Speaker 1: influencers and politicians in Australia in advance of an upcome
Speaker 1: election this May, and the goal is to help folks
Speaker 1: stop the spread of misinformation on social networking platforms, which
Speaker 1: is a nice change of pace really, seeing as how
Speaker 1: misinformation can very quickly spread online, going straight through influential
Speaker 1: people and then going out to the rest of us.
Speaker 1: So these influencers and politicians are are going through kind
Speaker 1: of a boot camp training session on how to spot
Speaker 1: and prevent misinformation. And this is on top of other
Speaker 1: measures designed to scrub the tarnish off of Facebook when
Speaker 1: it comes to issues like potential election interference. The company
Speaker 1: also said it will require full disclosure of the names
Speaker 1: of organizations and folks who pay to run political advertising
Speaker 1: on the platform in Australia, so there won't be any
Speaker 1: allowance for like mystery money ads being run on there.
Speaker 1: They will all have to be you know, have some
Speaker 1: name there to hold accountability for those ads. Candidates in
Speaker 1: the election will be required to activate two factor authentication
Speaker 1: in order to avoid the possibility of someone hacking a
Speaker 1: candidates profile or page. Also removes that whole plausible deniability
Speaker 1: thing where maybe someone posts something that ends up blowing
Speaker 1: up in their face that they can't say, oh, I
Speaker 1: was hacked if they're they've got like two factor authentication active.
Speaker 1: I mean, technically, if you're really determined hacker and you
Speaker 1: get hold of someone's phone, two factor authentication is still
Speaker 1: something you could crack, but it's less likely. Company representatives
Speaker 1: say that Meta isn't taking any political side itself, so
Speaker 1: it's not favoring one side over the other. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: opening up these tools for all to use in an
Speaker 1: effort to assure a fair process. Hopefully we'll see similar
Speaker 1: strategies deployed around the world. Due to pressure from Google.
Speaker 1: The Android app Advanced has shut down. You might not
Speaker 1: know what Vanced is. You might be wondering what the
Speaker 1: heck I'm talking about. I mean I I certainly didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was before today, But Vanced v A
Speaker 1: n C E D was an app that let users
Speaker 1: view YouTube videos without all those ads and without having
Speaker 1: to subscribe to YouTube to do it, so you could
Speaker 1: actually bypass ads using the Vanced app. Google sent Vanced
Speaker 1: a cease and desist letter and the company announced it
Speaker 1: would shut down operations. So the current Vanced app will
Speaker 1: continue to work for the time being, at least for
Speaker 1: those who have already installed it. So it's not like
Speaker 1: Google went into everyone's phones and wiped the app. Clear,
Speaker 1: It's still on phones. However, it's just a matter of
Speaker 1: time before, you know, changes in operating systems and stuff
Speaker 1: eventually render that app inoperable, Like eventually they were going
Speaker 1: to be incompatibilities and the app just won't work anymore.
Speaker 1: But for the time being, it still works. And on
Speaker 1: the one hand, I totally get it. I mean, YouTube,
Speaker 1: when you really boil it down, is an advertising platform,
Speaker 1: just like Google Search is really an advertising platform. Facebook
Speaker 1: is really an advertising platform, and when you offer folks
Speaker 1: away around advertising and one that does not involve paying
Speaker 1: into a subscription instead. That kind of undermines the whole business.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it does sound like Vanced
Speaker 1: offered up a lot of features that YouTube just doesn't include,
Speaker 1: but sounded kind of nifty, like it would be really
Speaker 1: neat to see, you know, if YouTube had instead acquired
Speaker 1: Advanced and then incorporated some of those features, that would
Speaker 1: have been neat. And I wonder if Google would have
Speaker 1: come after Advanced if the app had not allowed users
Speaker 1: to bypass ads. Uh maybe or maybe not. Google has
Speaker 1: been cracking down on apps and services that tap into
Speaker 1: you know, Google databases and libraries like YouTube's library of
Speaker 1: content without you know, getting actual permission to be able
Speaker 1: to do that, And uh yeah, it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: Google still would have come after Vanced even without the
Speaker 1: add thing. But anyway, farewell, Vanced, I never knew. Ye.
Speaker 1: We have more news to cover, but first, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. A restaurant group in Florida has filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has circumvented
Speaker 1: restaurants with an order online option that more often than
Speaker 1: not takes users to food delivery services rather than to
Speaker 1: the restaurants owned and operated site. And here's where we
Speaker 1: get into some of the big issues with food delivery services,
Speaker 1: and one of those is that restaurants often see little
Speaker 1: if any profit when working with these food delivery services
Speaker 1: because the services take a hefty cut of any order,
Speaker 1: up to like thirty of the order in some cases,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of restaurants would obviously much preferred
Speaker 1: if you would just order directly from them and not
Speaker 1: use these delivery services. The problem is most restaurants can't
Speaker 1: afford to employ a fleet of delivery drivers, so this
Speaker 1: limits customers to either dining in at those restaurants or
Speaker 1: going with take out, maybe even curbside pickup options, but
Speaker 1: obviously that's not as convenient or you know, in the
Speaker 1: case of areas that might have a high COVID out break,
Speaker 1: it might not be particularly safe, particularly when we're talking
Speaker 1: about dining in. So if these allegations are true, and
Speaker 1: if Google has been steering visitors to food delivery services
Speaker 1: and away from the restaurants, clearly that could really hurt
Speaker 1: the restaurant in question. Google, however, disputes the claims and
Speaker 1: says that it works with restaurants to incorporate in house
Speaker 1: online ordering systems so that the restaurants system peers alongside
Speaker 1: all the food delivery services. Google also said that clicking
Speaker 1: on the online order option really just takes users to
Speaker 1: a page where they can choose among the various online
Speaker 1: ordering services, which would presumably also include the restaurant's own
Speaker 1: options if it has one. Now, this gets a little
Speaker 1: bit more complicated because a lot of restaurants will rely
Speaker 1: on third party companies to handle online orders. And that's understandable.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard enough just running a restaurant without
Speaker 1: also handling, you know, an online portal to your ordering system.
Speaker 1: So a lot of restaurants will end up partnering with
Speaker 1: a third party company that will handle the online order part.
Speaker 1: But those services might show up as something unfamiliar to
Speaker 1: visitors when they're looking to order a meal. Right instead
Speaker 1: of it's saying, you know, you know, Joe's restaurant, it
Speaker 1: might have the name of the third party service that
Speaker 1: handles the online orders, and you might think, well, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that is, and you skip it. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The Restaurant Group claims that Google's services amount to a
Speaker 1: bait and switch that harms restaurants, and Google meanwhile saying
Speaker 1: it's taking steps to make sure that restaurants are fairly represented.
Speaker 1: Uh my big takeaway pun intended was that if there
Speaker 1: is an option to order directly from a restaurant, it's
Speaker 1: probably best to do that if you want the restaurant
Speaker 1: to you know, stick around, and in many cases it
Speaker 1: will likely be cheaper than ordering through a delivery service
Speaker 1: as well. Uh, this is a tough one. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much going on here because you also you
Speaker 1: have to feel for the gig economy workers who are
Speaker 1: actually doing the driving and delivering. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: their fault that the service they work for is taking
Speaker 1: this big chunk out of the orders that are going
Speaker 1: to restaurants. So yeah, complicated stuff. Meanwhile, Google employees are
Speaker 1: reportedly unhappy with the company. That's according to an employee
Speaker 1: survey that Google conducts every year, and it indicates that
Speaker 1: more employees than last year feel they aren't being compensated
Speaker 1: properly for their jobs. The company also scored poorly when
Speaker 1: it came to employees views on how well the company
Speaker 1: executes its mission. Now, the mission itself and the company's
Speaker 1: core values got very high marks. Employees feel good about those,
Speaker 1: So this kind of sounds to me like a lot
Speaker 1: of Google employees like the talk, but they feel like
Speaker 1: the walk just ain't measuring up. This also comes at
Speaker 1: a time when the company is moving to bring employees
Speaker 1: back into the office for at least three days a week,
Speaker 1: and it's a tough message to Google management, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: retaining employees has become a bit of a challenge ever
Speaker 1: since the pandemic hit. I'm sure we've all heard about
Speaker 1: the Great Retirement, in which there's this trend of folks
Speaker 1: who are choosing to resign and then live off savings
Speaker 1: rather than continue to work, and tech companies have had
Speaker 1: to offer more competitive pack pages in an effort to
Speaker 1: attract and keep talent because there's a smaller talent pool
Speaker 1: and it's easy to for them to jump ship. It's
Speaker 1: actually starting to remind me a bit of the heyday
Speaker 1: of the dot com era, where you would see talent
Speaker 1: going from company to company just following the best compensation
Speaker 1: or benefits packages, and those days, those were usually tied
Speaker 1: to stocks, which ultimately proved to be a huge mistake
Speaker 1: because tons of dot com companies went under after the
Speaker 1: bubble burst and those stocks became worthless. But according to CNBC,
Speaker 1: more than half of Google employees surveyed felt that their
Speaker 1: compensation wasn't competitive. At Google, slightly more than half of
Speaker 1: all employees still called the compensation quote fair and equitable
Speaker 1: end quote. So I'm guessing some employees are miffed that
Speaker 1: various executives and leaders at Google recently received pay raises
Speaker 1: and bonuses, and the company itself is making serious bank
Speaker 1: its revenue is through the roof right, and and yet
Speaker 1: the head of compensation, Frank Wagner, said last December that
Speaker 1: Google would not be issuing a blanket raise to help
Speaker 1: employees address issues with inflation. Not a great look, particularly
Speaker 1: as we appear to be at a turning point in
Speaker 1: America where stuff like employee organization and unions and group
Speaker 1: negotiations are really starting to gain traction switching gears. The
Speaker 1: Israeli government confirmed reports recently that it was the target
Speaker 1: of a massive distributed denial of service or di DOS attack.
Speaker 1: In case you're not familiar with that term, it refers
Speaker 1: to a kind of attack where hackers direct a bunch
Speaker 1: of computers. I mean, we're potentially talking thousands or even
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of computers to send messages to a
Speaker 1: target or selection of targets in an attempt to overwhelm
Speaker 1: those targets and cause them to underperform or even crash.
Speaker 1: So the analogy I like to use is imagine that
Speaker 1: you are absolutely required to answer your doorbell. If your
Speaker 1: doorbell rings, you have no choice. You have to answer it.
Speaker 1: But you also have to do your taxes, So you
Speaker 1: sit down, you start doing your taxes. The doorbell rings,
Speaker 1: so you stop your work. You head on over to
Speaker 1: the door and you open it, but there's no one there,
Speaker 1: so you close the door, you turn around, you start
Speaker 1: walking back so you can get back to doing your taxes,
Speaker 1: and the doorbell rings again, so you turn back around
Speaker 1: and you have to go to the door and open
Speaker 1: it and there's still no one there. Now repeat that
Speaker 1: millions of times, and you see how you would never
Speaker 1: get any work done well. Adidas attack is kind of
Speaker 1: doing the same thing, only with electronic messages rather than
Speaker 1: a ding dong ditch approach. While there is no confirmation
Speaker 1: as of yet about who is behind the attack, the
Speaker 1: general suspicion falls on Iranian cyber Crime Group. This is
Speaker 1: according to the Jerusalem Post. The attack affected numerous Israeli
Speaker 1: government websites as well as some media outlets in Israel,
Speaker 1: and the Israeli government has called for a state of
Speaker 1: emergency and launched an investigation to determine if the attack
Speaker 1: went beyond just a denial of service attack and is
Speaker 1: looking to see if perhaps the hackers access to any
Speaker 1: you know data or stoleny data as well. Tesla's senior
Speaker 1: directory of public Policy, Rowan Patel, sent a letter to
Speaker 1: US Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal earlier this month.
Speaker 1: This was in response to inquiries that these senators had
Speaker 1: previously made regarding quote significant concerns end quote about Tesla's
Speaker 1: autopilot and full service Drive or f s D features. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've been listening to tech stuff for a while,
Speaker 1: you have undoubtedly heard me complain about the naming conventions
Speaker 1: that Tesla uses, because I feel they give a false
Speaker 1: expectation about what they're those features can do, and to me,
Speaker 1: it does really feel like a bait and switch. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if you call it full self driving, that
Speaker 1: kind of suggests that the car can fully drive itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I'm being unreasonable about that,
Speaker 1: But according to Patel, that's not really the intent. Because
Speaker 1: Patel actually refers to both autopilot and FSD as level
Speaker 1: two on the scale of autonomy. So the autonomy scale
Speaker 1: goes from zero to five. Zero is a vehicle that
Speaker 1: has no autonomous features whatsoever. Five would be a vehicle
Speaker 1: that is fully autonomous and capable of operating in any
Speaker 1: environment or in any situation where a human driver could
Speaker 1: also operate. So level two, as you might imagine, is
Speaker 1: fairly low down on that scale, and again it raises
Speaker 1: the question, if it's just leveled two, why call it
Speaker 1: full self driving anyway. Patel's letters stated that these modes
Speaker 1: provide definitive safety benefits and cited metrics that appear to
Speaker 1: show that Tesla drivers who are using these types of
Speaker 1: features are far less likely to get into accidents than
Speaker 1: other drivers who are driving other types of vehicles. Critics
Speaker 1: then complained that Tesla was using different data sets to
Speaker 1: show this, that the data for other drivers included all
Speaker 1: sorts of situations, from driving on neighborhood streets to cruising
Speaker 1: on highways, while Tesla was focusing really on highway operation
Speaker 1: because that's where you can enable Autopilot and FSD. In addition,
Speaker 1: the Senators have reportedly not been terribly impressed with the letter,
Speaker 1: saying that Tesla is really just deflecting, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like they are they are buying into Tesla's line.
Speaker 1: We've got a few more stories, but first, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. Have you ever looked at your bill
Speaker 1: from your Internet service provider and thought that's weird. Sure
Speaker 1: are a lot of extra fees built into this thing. Well,
Speaker 1: Carl Bode recently wrote an article for tech Dirt titled
Speaker 1: big I s p s avoided twenty twenty law banning
Speaker 1: predatory modem rental fees by simply calling them something else.
Speaker 1: So that headline pretty much kind of spells out the story.
Speaker 1: So Bode rights about I s P companies. They got
Speaker 1: in trouble because they were charging an equipment rental fee
Speaker 1: to customers who you know, actually owned the equipment they
Speaker 1: were using. They weren't actually renting anything from the I
Speaker 1: s p s. So it's pretty standard practice here in
Speaker 1: the United States for I s p s to lump
Speaker 1: in a modem slash router with your service, and for
Speaker 1: that the customer pays a rental fee. On a monthly basis,
Speaker 1: but customers can actually use their own modem and router
Speaker 1: and register that with their I s P. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can do that, you don't have to use the
Speaker 1: one provided by the the I s P itself. But
Speaker 1: then they found many of them that they were still
Speaker 1: being charged a rental fee, and being charged to rent
Speaker 1: something that you're not renting is you know, not legal.
Speaker 1: And Congress finally kind of pushed back on I s
Speaker 1: p s about it by passing a law that expressly
Speaker 1: forbid that kind of practice. But then, as Boat explains,
Speaker 1: the I s p s found kind of a way
Speaker 1: to recontextualize those fees and pump them back into bills.
Speaker 1: They just called them other stuff. And Bod's point is
Speaker 1: that this approach lets I s p s advertise a
Speaker 1: lower rate because the base rate that they're charging that
Speaker 1: can be really low and it can be very steady,
Speaker 1: so they can say, like, we we charge the lowest
Speaker 1: rates you you have a base rate that is really competitive. However,
Speaker 1: then they get all these hidden fees that they throw
Speaker 1: in that boost the expense, and that's when your bill
Speaker 1: starts going up and up and up, and often these
Speaker 1: mysterious vs don't seem to, you know, correlate with anything
Speaker 1: other than lining the pockets of I s P shareholders
Speaker 1: and executives. Anyway, bodes piece is well worth a read.
Speaker 1: He gets pretty salty about it in the article, but
Speaker 1: it can't exactly blame him if you want to read
Speaker 1: it again. That is on tech Dirt, and the article
Speaker 1: is called big I s P s avoided law banning
Speaker 1: predatory modem rental fees by simply calling them something else.
Speaker 1: Check it out now. It's not often that my tech
Speaker 1: news segment includes a bit about Snoop Dogg. Uh. Not
Speaker 1: too long ago, Snoop Dogg acquired the famous death Row
Speaker 1: Records music label, which published music from legends like Dr
Speaker 1: Dre and Tupac Shakur and of course the d O
Speaker 1: double G himself. But now fans are becoming frustrated because
Speaker 1: a lot of music from many of death Rows artists
Speaker 1: has been disappearing from various streaming services like Spotify and
Speaker 1: Apple Music. And this, paired with Snoop's announcement that death
Speaker 1: Row will be an n f T label, has a
Speaker 1: lot of folks ticked off in f T s. If
Speaker 1: you recall that stands for non fungible tokens. Essentially, they
Speaker 1: represent ownership of a piece of digital media or digital
Speaker 1: art Snoop Dogg has said that death Row is going
Speaker 1: to be a quote the first major in the metaverse
Speaker 1: end quote. I I assume he means major music label here.
Speaker 1: But there's been a pretty serious backlash against n f
Speaker 1: t s from all but a core group of faithful followers,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, people are not super happy when they
Speaker 1: lose access to stuff that they used to be able
Speaker 1: to get to, and this has led to quite a
Speaker 1: few folks to go on to Twitter and lament that
Speaker 1: they will have to go back to the Stone Age
Speaker 1: and you know, listen to their old CD collection. Now
Speaker 1: I'm being a little bit facetious here, but you know,
Speaker 1: streaming music is also way more convenient than relying on
Speaker 1: physical media because you can listen to it anywhere as
Speaker 1: long as you have an Internet connection. You don't have
Speaker 1: to carry around, you know, a physical player of some sort.
Speaker 1: You just need you know, a connected device like a phone.
Speaker 1: So I do admit like losing access to streaming stuff
Speaker 1: is a bit of a kick in the teeth. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the Verge reports that CD sales actually increased in UM
Speaker 1: compared to that actually marks the first time we've seen
Speaker 1: CD sales go up since two thousand four. Since two
Speaker 1: thousand four, every single year sales declined until now. That's
Speaker 1: not to say that CDs are back baby, but rather
Speaker 1: the steady decline in sales had a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bump last year. Now. Perhaps part of that reason
Speaker 1: is because people want to make sure they can listen
Speaker 1: to music and they don't have to worry if their
Speaker 1: favorite artist happens to disappear from a streaming service. Maybe
Speaker 1: part of it is that a lot of us were
Speaker 1: isolating at home, so it wasn't as important to us
Speaker 1: that we have music available via streaming, you know, and
Speaker 1: so we weren't going anywhere we could just listen to
Speaker 1: c d s instead. It's not like it was that inconvenient.
Speaker 1: And then or, of course, is the appeal of owning
Speaker 1: a physical thing and not just access to something. I
Speaker 1: definitely feel like that's a big part of the attraction
Speaker 1: to Vinyl UM. I know there are a lot of
Speaker 1: audio files out there who just swear that Vinyl provides
Speaker 1: the superior experience. I'm not entirely sold on that, but
Speaker 1: I do collect Vinyl I casually collected. I have to
Speaker 1: stress it's very casual because I just don't have the
Speaker 1: room for a big collection. And also I can stop
Speaker 1: at any time, just shut up. But um yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that's a big part of it, is that
Speaker 1: owning something physical and not just owning access or having
Speaker 1: the opportunity to access something. Whether all this increase you know,
Speaker 1: of sales marks a general reverse of the trend or
Speaker 1: not remains to be seen. I think it's probably just
Speaker 1: a little bump and we'll see CD sales continue to
Speaker 1: decline after this year. But then if more music labels
Speaker 1: follow Death Rows example and go the n f T route,
Speaker 1: we can actually see CD sales take off instead. I
Speaker 1: I know that, you know, I'd be more inclined to
Speaker 1: go the c D route rather than this whole n
Speaker 1: f T approach. Finally, over in Europe, the EU Parliament
Speaker 1: has drafted a legislation that, if adopted, will require some
Speaker 1: pretty big changes for major companies like Apple. Namely, the
Speaker 1: legislation focuses on batteries, and as the EU pushes towards
Speaker 1: a carbon neutral or perhaps even carbon negative future, it's
Speaker 1: clear that to get there will require a heavy reliance
Speaker 1: on batteries. However, the EU has also acknowledged that batteries
Speaker 1: come with their own problems, and so this legislation aims
Speaker 1: to do tons of stuff, from requiring companies to provide
Speaker 1: evidence of carbon footprint involved in producing batteries, to practicing
Speaker 1: due diligence to make sure that the sourcing, processing and
Speaker 1: trading of materials used in producing batteries is done in
Speaker 1: an ethical and responsible way. This is a really big
Speaker 1: deal because a lot of those materials come from countries
Speaker 1: that have of at the very least a spotty record
Speaker 1: on stuff like human rights. But as for that bit
Speaker 1: about how it would really affect companies like Apple, well,
Speaker 1: part of the legislation says that companies will have to
Speaker 1: make batteries and their products easily removable and replaceable. Apple,
Speaker 1: like a lot of tech companies, doesn't tend to do that. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, when you look at handsets, tablets, and even laptops,
Speaker 1: a lot of manufacturers do not make the batteries easily removable.
Speaker 1: I love it when a laptop has a battery that
Speaker 1: you can easily remove and potentially replace. I think that's great. Um.
Speaker 1: I have a laptop that I use all the time
Speaker 1: that doesn't do that. I actually looked up how to
Speaker 1: replace the battery and it requires complete disassembly of the laptop,
Speaker 1: So it's not like something that most people, including myself,
Speaker 1: are going to try. So I don't mean to single
Speaker 1: out Apple here, because it is common throughout the industry.
Speaker 1: It's just that Apple has a particular the reputation for
Speaker 1: making their stuff difficult to you know, maintain and repair yourself.
Speaker 1: But from what I can tell, this legislation would mean
Speaker 1: companies would have to change their designs to make batteries
Speaker 1: easier to remove, at the very least by independent operators
Speaker 1: like repair shops. And again, this is all in an
Speaker 1: effort to create rules around the production, use, and end
Speaker 1: of life treatment of batteries. So it's pretty important stuff
Speaker 1: and I'll be very curious to see how things evolve
Speaker 1: if this legislation in fact is adopted. I wonder if
Speaker 1: we're gonna see companies like Apple market different models of
Speaker 1: their products in the EU that have these easily removable
Speaker 1: batteries versus everywhere else, or if they will adopt a
Speaker 1: more global approach. Um. I don't know it it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a big deal though, so I just wanted
Speaker 1: to end on that. If you have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please
Speaker 1: reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff H s W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Y. Tech Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.