Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: dominant executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for the
Speaker 1: week ending on August nine, twenty twenty four, and this
Speaker 1: week Google got some bad news. A US judge has
Speaker 1: ruled that Google has violated antitrust laws by spending let's
Speaker 1: see says here, truckloads of cash in an effort to
Speaker 1: establish its search engine dominance in the global market. Google
Speaker 1: has invested billions of dollars forging partnerships with various other
Speaker 1: companies like Apple, to make the Google Search Engine the
Speaker 1: default search tool on numerous devices and apps and sites.
Speaker 1: This in turn, gave Google a near monopoly on search advertising.
Speaker 1: According to the US government, this means that Google could
Speaker 1: pretty much set whatever rules it liked without fear of competition.
Speaker 1: The ruling means that now the US government can pursue
Speaker 1: another case in an effort to rectify this situation. So
Speaker 1: this case just said, yes, Google is guilty of having
Speaker 1: done this thing. The next one will be this is
Speaker 1: what we're going to do about it? But how do
Speaker 1: you solve a problem like Google. That's a darn good question.
Speaker 1: I guess you could google it. But one possibility is
Speaker 1: that the government could look to break Google or its
Speaker 1: parent company Alphabet into smaller entities. Now that's something that
Speaker 1: hasn't really been done in the United States in many years.
Speaker 1: But even if it does turn out to be the focus,
Speaker 1: it will likely be a long time before anything like
Speaker 1: that happens on a substantial level. The legal process is
Speaker 1: likely to stretch on for more years, and there's every
Speaker 1: reason to suspect that this case will eventually make its
Speaker 1: way up the appeals process, possibly all the way to
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court at some point. So this story
Speaker 1: is far from over now. For one thing, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a ripple of massive consequences following this initial
Speaker 1: Google ruling. One massive deal that is likely at risk
Speaker 1: is Google's agreement with the aforementioned Apple. Apple has Google
Speaker 1: as its default search engine on iOS devices, and in return,
Speaker 1: Google bays Apple a cool twenty billion dollars every year.
Speaker 1: That's more than a third of what Google makes as
Speaker 1: a result of having it set as the default search
Speaker 1: for all of these devices. So Apple could see a
Speaker 1: drop of up to six percent on its annual profits.
Speaker 1: Because that twenty billion wouldn't be coming in anymore. That's
Speaker 1: not likely to make Apple investors very happy. According to Reuter's,
Speaker 1: analysts expect Apple to FastTrack adopting AI powered search tools,
Speaker 1: and was likely already doing this before the decision was
Speaker 1: even handed down. One thing that isn't likely to happen
Speaker 1: is Apple switching to Microsoft Bing. According to Eddie Q,
Speaker 1: Apple's senior VP of Services, quote, I don't believe there's
Speaker 1: a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us.
Speaker 1: They offered to give us Bing for free, they could
Speaker 1: give us the whole company end quote. So I think
Speaker 1: that suggests Apple's likely going to stick around with Google
Speaker 1: even without the twenty billion dollar deal, at least until
Speaker 1: the company's ready to switch to some AI powered search solution.
Speaker 1: Over at Ours Technica, there's an article titled Google and
Speaker 1: Meta ignored their own rules in secret teen targeting ad deals.
Speaker 1: The piece, in turn cites the Financial Times. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think the article originally appeared in the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: and it reports on documents showing that Meta and Google
Speaker 1: partnered on a project in which Google he helped Meta
Speaker 1: design a marketing campaign aimed at teens on YouTube. The
Speaker 1: campaign promoted Meta's Instagram app and features. The documents apparently
Speaker 1: lay out something that violates Google's own rules. Namely, the
Speaker 1: campaign was at least indirectly targeting users who were under
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen. Now Google has pledged to not
Speaker 1: target such users with specific advertising. If you are under
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen, you are not supposed to receive
Speaker 1: personalized targeted ads from Google platforms, So this is a
Speaker 1: problem now. According to Ours Technica, the campaign began late
Speaker 1: last year. Meta was in a tight spot because research
Speaker 1: was showing that the company was having problems attracting young
Speaker 1: folks to its various platforms. Google was looking to make
Speaker 1: a lot more ad cash. So these were two great
Speaker 1: tastes that go great together. I guess The Financial Times
Speaker 1: investigated this. The two companies ran a pilot campaign in
Speaker 1: Canada and then later began to roll out a similar
Speaker 1: campaign in the United States, and when The Financial Times
Speaker 1: contacted Google about the story, Google said it would investigate
Speaker 1: the matter and then subsequently shut the project down, while
Speaker 1: simultaneously not actually admitting fault. So the workaround for Google
Speaker 1: was that this campaign was technically targeting unknown accounts as
Speaker 1: an accounts where the age of the user wasn't actually recorded.
Speaker 1: So that's how Google could say we aren't targeting people
Speaker 1: under the age of eighteen, at least we're not doing
Speaker 1: it knowingly because we have no idea how old these
Speaker 1: users are. But it seems like the users were actually
Speaker 1: skewing young. That yes, technically there was a field for
Speaker 1: a user's age and that field was blank, but in
Speaker 1: reality you could easily conclude how old the users were,
Speaker 1: or reasonably at least conclude how old the users were,
Speaker 1: and that they were skewing young as an under the
Speaker 1: age of eighteen, so you could say, like maybe this
Speaker 1: was Google argument like ah, yeah, you know, it's plausible deniability, right,
Speaker 1: we don't know how old they are, so as a loophole.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the story, I would recommend checking
Speaker 1: out the article in Ours Technica or The Financial Times.
Speaker 1: Google's also facing some trouble in Russia, where Internet monitoring
Speaker 1: companies detected a mass outage of YouTube this week. So
Speaker 1: according to one such company called Sboi dot RF, many
Speaker 1: Russian citizens reported being unable to access YouTube unless they
Speaker 1: first made use of a VPN or virtual private network.
Speaker 1: Google representatives have said that the interruptions in service have
Speaker 1: not come from the company, whereas a lot of Russian
Speaker 1: media says that it's it's YouTube's fault. The Russian government
Speaker 1: has become increasingly hostile toward YouTube for what it claims
Speaker 1: is a determined stance against Russian legislation. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: ago when an information policy representative in Russia warned that
Speaker 1: YouTube could face a reduction in transmissions of up to
Speaker 1: seventy percent because of the company's refusal to allow certain
Speaker 1: Russian state backed channels from posting to the site. So
Speaker 1: I don't have proof that this is a case where
Speaker 1: the Russian government has purposefully throttled YouTube traffic in Russia,
Speaker 1: but it at least seems like that's a plausible reason
Speaker 1: for the outages. Not confirmed, just plausible. The Global Alliance
Speaker 1: for Responsible Media or GARM. GARM has shut down after
Speaker 1: being served an antitrust lawsuit from x formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 1: So this group was spun off of the World Federation
Speaker 1: of Advertisers and its purpose was to protect the interests
Speaker 1: of member advertising companies and the primary focus was to
Speaker 1: make certain that ads on platforms weren't going to be
Speaker 1: served next to objectionable material, you know, like advertisers don't
Speaker 1: like it if their ad is showing up next to
Speaker 1: someone who's making hate comments, you know, or something along
Speaker 1: those lines. X alleges that GARM told its members to
Speaker 1: not advertise on X due to the platform's policies, and
Speaker 1: it saw these policies as being increasingly hostile toward the platform.
Speaker 1: GARM staffers received an email that essentially said the organization
Speaker 1: was folding because it didn't have enough money to both
Speaker 1: carry out its goals and defend itself from this lawsuit.
Speaker 1: I think most folks assume the lawsuit doesn't actually have
Speaker 1: that much merit to it, because boycotting isn't against the law.
Speaker 1: That's not breaking the law. It's not against the law
Speaker 1: to build associations either. These things are generally protected by
Speaker 1: constitutional amendments, you know, the right to free speech and
Speaker 1: the right to free assembly. But then it could be
Speaker 1: that Musk is using the law not because he's seeking justice,
Speaker 1: but rather to persecute those he finds to be vexum
Speaker 1: because lawsuits are expensive at any rate. Musk has continued
Speaker 1: to make statements that I think most ad companies would
Speaker 1: at least find con so I'm not expecting ad dollars
Speaker 1: to flood the corporate coffers now that GARM has disbanded.
Speaker 1: And GARM wasn't the only company targeted by a Musk
Speaker 1: lawsuit in recent days. He also brought a case against
Speaker 1: open ai and it's CEO, Sam Altman. So this lawsuit
Speaker 1: argues that open ai has put profit above public good,
Speaker 1: which you know, I actually don't disagree. I think open
Speaker 1: ai has put profit above public good, but I don't
Speaker 1: know where the legal issue is In all of that.
Speaker 1: Musk seeks to nullify open AI's partnership with Microsoft. That's
Speaker 1: a partnership that has seen the giant Microsoft invest thirteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars into open Ai. This could also be seen
Speaker 1: as an effort to just outright destroy open ai, which,
Speaker 1: according to some analysts, is on track to lose around
Speaker 1: five billion dollars this year as revenues haven't come close
Speaker 1: to covering the costs of operation. Plus we have to
Speaker 1: remember Musk does have his own competing AI company that's
Speaker 1: in the process of ramping up x dot ai, So
Speaker 1: there's that too. This lawsuit, by the way, mirrors one
Speaker 1: that Musk brought against open ai earlier. This year. But
Speaker 1: in that case, Musk dropped the lawsuit one day before
Speaker 1: a judge was to hear a motion to dismiss that
Speaker 1: was brought against the lawsuit by open Ai. I suspect
Speaker 1: we're going to get another motion to dismiss in this
Speaker 1: case because I don't think the details have really changed
Speaker 1: since the last time this came around. And that includes
Speaker 1: a record of messages that Elon Musk himself sent back
Speaker 1: when he was still part of Open Ai that showed
Speaker 1: his own desire to focus on profitability. Of course, in
Speaker 1: Musk's version of this plan, the profitability would have served
Speaker 1: the interests of his company, Tesla. Maybe that's the real
Speaker 1: sticking point here. Okay, we've got more tech news to
Speaker 1: cover before we get to all that. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break, and you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: stories about antitrust issues and technology this week. So over
Speaker 1: in the UK, the concern there is about Amazon and
Speaker 1: the company's four billion dollar partnership with AI startup firm Anthropic.
Speaker 1: The Competition in Markets Authority or CMA is probing if
Speaker 1: this partnership will potentially further entrench Amazon in the realm
Speaker 1: of cloud computing. So essentially, the fear is that Amazon
Speaker 1: dominates the cloud compute space, and that people who are
Speaker 1: developing AI models may feel they have no option other
Speaker 1: than to rely on Amazon for computational power needs. So
Speaker 1: the CMA is looking into the possibility that this partnership
Speaker 1: between Amazon and Anthropic would really qualify more as a merger.
Speaker 1: Maybe not a merger in the formal sense of two
Speaker 1: companies actually merging into a single entity, but a business
Speaker 1: process that ultimately results in an outcome that is similar
Speaker 1: to that of a merger. Now, that particular investigation is
Speaker 1: still ongoing, so this is not a foregone conclusion. The
Speaker 1: CMA says it expects to probe this matter until October fourth,
Speaker 1: at which point the CMA will then announce whether there's
Speaker 1: enough concern to block this deal, or maybe they'll say no, no,
Speaker 1: there's nothing here that rises to the level to make
Speaker 1: it a merger situation. Or maybe it is a merger situation,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have enough red flags to make us
Speaker 1: block it in the first place. So it's still entirely
Speaker 1: possible that the CMA will allow this deal to continue
Speaker 1: without impeding it in any way. However, the CMA can
Speaker 1: be pretty darn strict with tech companies, and I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think that's always a bad thing, but I have
Speaker 1: no clue which way they're going to decide this matter.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to read up on it, I highly
Speaker 1: recommend Ashley Bellinger's article in Ours Technica this titled Amazon
Speaker 1: defends four billion dollar anthropic aideal from UK monopoly concerns.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that open ai co founder John Shulman has
Speaker 1: left that company and has now joined the aforementioned anthropic.
Speaker 1: He posted x that quote, this choice stems from my
Speaker 1: desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment and to
Speaker 1: start a new chapter of my career where I can
Speaker 1: return to hands on technical work end quote. Shulman is
Speaker 1: one of several influential key people at open ai who
Speaker 1: either has recently stepped away from that company or they've
Speaker 1: had their role changed significantly in the recent past. Now,
Speaker 1: could this be an indicator that open ai is actually
Speaker 1: in some trouble? Is it possible the company expanded too
Speaker 1: quickly and cannot sustain itself, or is this just coincidence
Speaker 1: and just a sign that once you reach a certain
Speaker 1: level within an organization, you could pretty much take any
Speaker 1: giggy like beats me. It could be any of those
Speaker 1: or something else. Entirely. I know that with all the
Speaker 1: other open ai news, it becomes tempting to say, oh,
Speaker 1: open ai is starting the long process of circling the drain.
Speaker 1: I think it's way too early to say something like that,
Speaker 1: but I also admittedly am not an expert on those matters.
Speaker 1: The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, has ruled
Speaker 1: that the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX must pay twelve point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars in relief to former customers. Now, that
Speaker 1: might actually sound like old news to you, because earlier
Speaker 1: this year, ftx's CEO, slash Fires sale guru John J.
Speaker 1: Ray the Third, had already assured various stakeholders that he
Speaker 1: was able to claw back all the money that had
Speaker 1: been lost in the FTX blowout. I guess, but this
Speaker 1: new development should really make former FTX customers feel a
Speaker 1: little better, because it represents a US agency guaranteeing that
Speaker 1: those who were directly affected by ftx's spectacular implosion will
Speaker 1: be compensated before any of the money goes to pay
Speaker 1: off anything else. Since there is an ongoing lawsuit against
Speaker 1: FTX that's from the US government. This is a good
Speaker 1: thing for those folks, because the lawsuit could potentially mean
Speaker 1: that it'll have to dip into ftx's assets to pay
Speaker 1: off fines and whatnot. But the decision from the CFTC
Speaker 1: says that they can't touch any of the money that's
Speaker 1: meant to go back to paying the FTX customers. That
Speaker 1: that money is for those customers and they're going to
Speaker 1: receive their compensation. There's still some hurdles to clear, of course.
Speaker 1: There are some folks who feel they should actually be
Speaker 1: paid based on the current value of crypto as opposed
Speaker 1: to where that value was in November twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: when everything went pear shaped. So yeah, not over yet,
Speaker 1: but still good news for folks who thought they might
Speaker 1: have lost everything when FTX went belly up. Now let's
Speaker 1: wrap this up with some space news, and it's really
Speaker 1: bad news for Boeing anyway. That company is already fighting
Speaker 1: a public perception war on multiple fronts at this point.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've obviously got the seven thirty seven issues,
Speaker 1: but you've also got the star Liner. We're going to
Speaker 1: get to that in just a moment, but for right now,
Speaker 1: I actually want to mention a report from NASA that
Speaker 1: calls into question Boeing's quality control capabilities, particularly with regard
Speaker 1: to the Exploration upper stage section of NASA's SLS launch vehicle.
Speaker 1: So this is a piece of a much bigger project
Speaker 1: that includes NASA's planned mission to return astronauts to the Moon.
Speaker 1: But according to NASA's report, the agency found quote an
Speaker 1: array of issues that could hinder SLS Block oneb's readiness
Speaker 1: for Artemis four, including Boeing's inadequate quality management system, escalating
Speaker 1: costs and schedules, and inadequate visibility into the Block one
Speaker 1: bee's projected costs end quote. So, in other words, NASA
Speaker 1: says Boeing is not doing a good job, they're going
Speaker 1: way over budget, and they're not very transparent about either
Speaker 1: of those things. Further, NASA llegends that Boeing's workforce has
Speaker 1: quote insufficient aerospace production experience end quote. Again, according to
Speaker 1: this report, it is this lack of experience that NASA
Speaker 1: credits as being the cause of issues in quality control.
Speaker 1: This is not good news. Now. To learn more about this,
Speaker 1: I recommend Eric Berger's piece. A new report finds Boeing's
Speaker 1: rockets are built with an unqualified workforce. You can find
Speaker 1: that in ours technica. And of course we're not done
Speaker 1: with Boeing woes just yet. So you may recall that
Speaker 1: astronauts Sunny Williams and Butch Willmore piloted a Boeing Starliner
Speaker 1: capsule to the International Space Station in early June of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and we're able to dock despite some
Speaker 1: technical issues. One of those technical issues was a helium leak, which,
Speaker 1: while concerning, wasn't a catastrophic event. Helium is not toxic,
Speaker 1: it's not flammable. You can asphyxiate if that's all you
Speaker 1: have to breathe, but otherwise it was seen as a
Speaker 1: concern but not a mission critical issue. But another bigger
Speaker 1: issue was that five of the twenty eight thrusters on
Speaker 1: the space capsule became unresponsive on approach to the ISS,
Speaker 1: and NASA and the astronauts had to do some troubleshooting
Speaker 1: to get enough of those working again to proceed with docking,
Speaker 1: which they were able to do. But since then NASA
Speaker 1: has been working on ways to address the problems with
Speaker 1: the star Liner so that these two astronauts can return
Speaker 1: to Earth. So they were meant to stay aboard the
Speaker 1: ISS for a little more than a week, but now
Speaker 1: it's been more than two months and they're still there.
Speaker 1: NASA has indicated that they might stay up there for
Speaker 1: the rest of twenty twenty four, and the agency hasn't
Speaker 1: ruled out the possibility that when they do come back,
Speaker 1: it will not be aboard the star Liner but instead
Speaker 1: a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Now those decisions have yet to
Speaker 1: be made, nothing is official yet. Before the star Liner issue,
Speaker 1: plans called for another Dragon Crew capsule to launch on
Speaker 1: August eighteenth to go to the ISS, but that is
Speaker 1: now been pushed back to September twenty fourth at the earliest.
Speaker 1: So what would a change of plans look like If
Speaker 1: NASA says, you know what, we don't feel comfortable putting
Speaker 1: them aboard the star Liner, Well, if NASA does feel
Speaker 1: the star Liner poses too great a risk, the likely
Speaker 1: solution is to have the star Liner separate from the
Speaker 1: ISS and return to Earth with no crew aboard the capsule.
Speaker 1: A Dragon Crew capsule with just two astronauts aboard. It
Speaker 1: would then join the ISS and relieve both the star
Speaker 1: Liner crew and two other ISS crew members, but that
Speaker 1: might not even happen. Until next year. So why would
Speaker 1: there be such a long delay. Well, A big part
Speaker 1: of that is that we actually aren't still really sure
Speaker 1: about what went wrong with those thrusters. Engineers on Earth
Speaker 1: tested an identical thruster and they found some problems. But
Speaker 1: then subsequent tests on the star Liner that's in orbit
Speaker 1: showed that its thrusters that had previously been unresponsive were
Speaker 1: now working again, and potentially that means that the issue
Speaker 1: that we're seen on Earth are different from the ones
Speaker 1: that affected the star Liner in orbit. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot we don't know, and figuring it out remains a
Speaker 1: top priority. I mentioned a couple of articles worth reading
Speaker 1: this week, but one more is Rebecca Jennings article on
Speaker 1: vox dot com titled those Olympics AI ads feel bad
Speaker 1: for a reason, and I highly recommend you check it out.
Speaker 1: It really does a good job of talking about missing
Speaker 1: the mark when it comes to trying to promote AI,
Speaker 1: because it seems like it's promoting AI to do things
Speaker 1: like take on emotional loads on our behalf so that
Speaker 1: we can be I don't know, soulless consumers. Doesn't seem
Speaker 1: that great to me. Highly recommend checking that out and
Speaker 1: that's it for this week. I hope you are all
Speaker 1: well and I'll talk to you again. Really So tech
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