WEBVTT - Tech News: Robots Can Be Scary 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.280 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.720 and a love of all things tech. And this is 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:27.080 the tech News episode for Tuesday, March twenty one. Now, 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.200 last week we had an episode that really went into 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:35.520 how various companies and organizations are tracking you. But don't worry, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.479 We're only gonna do that a little bit in today's episode. So, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:46.360 which app do you think is the most invasive? TikTok? Nope, 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:52.479 not that one. YouTube, Nope, Facebook, you're getting warmer. But 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.920 according to the cloud storage company p Cloud, the actual 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.080 answer is Instagram, So we're still in the Facebook family. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.039 That makes sense, right, that tracks The company came to 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.400 this conclusion after reviewing updated app privacy labels. See not 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.440 that long ago. Apple updated its privacy policy and it 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.160 now requires companies to more thoroughly list out the ways 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:23.240 in which those companies collect and use data through these apps. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.360 And this is one of the reasons why it took 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.400 Google a long time to update the company's apps on iOS. 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.440 Because it should come as a surprise to no one 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:37.080 that Google is collecting a lot of user information. Well, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.679 the same appears to be true of Instagram, only more so. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.399 According to p Cloud, Instagram collects nearly eighty percent of 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:51.960 users personal data, including stuff like search history, location, financial 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.720 information like what bank do you use, where do you 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.360 shop that kind of thing, plus who your contacts are, 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:04.360 and Instagram shares that information with various third parties who 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.519 presumably are paying a decent price for that level of access. Now, 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.440 this is how companies like Facebook, which by the way, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.560 was in second place behind Instagram, It's how they can 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.680 market you to various advertisers. The more these companies know 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.840 about each user, the more they can target that user 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.720 with specific ads. They can match that user up with advertisers, 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.320 and being able to go to advertisers with the message 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.000 that hey, our app is going to put your ads 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:36.960 in front of the people who are most likely to 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.520 act on those ads. That's a powerful selling point. We 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.760 are well beyond the old days where you might, as 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.320 part of your marketing strategy, really rely on putting up 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.680 a billboard in a prominent location in town and hope 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.680 you get as many eyeballs as possible. Now we have 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.119 companies identifying which eyeballs are the most valuable to any 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.839 given client, and then sending those ads that way. Now, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.840 what's the moral of this story, Well, it's that we 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.160 should all be aware of how apps are collecting our information, 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.519 how we are providing data to these apps. If we're 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.720 okay with that, no worries, right, I mean, it's this 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.560 is a personal thing. But if we're not okay with that, 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.000 we need to consider if those apps are really something 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.560 we want to use, because there's not really an easy 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.360 way for us to go in and cherry pick which 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.880 points of data can and cannot be used by any 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.480 given app. I mean, just doing that alone would become 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.480 a full time job. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.720 I have Instagram on my phone, So I say this 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.120 as someone who is both aware that the app is 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.960 collecting a lot of data and still is using that app. 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.720 I'm one of those people. But I am also very 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:59.120 very boring. So my hope is that Facebook is not 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.040 getting very much money at all for my information, because 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:07.480 come on, I'm lame. According to the Korea Herald, the 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:12.280 giant tech company l G is now considering just shutting 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:16.520 down its smartphone division entirely. You might remember that. Earlier 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.400 this year, LG announced that it was looking into the 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.400 possibility of selling off its smartphone division to some other 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.120 company and just getting out of the smartphone game. Now 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:32.000 apparently no suitable parties have made an offer to LGS liking, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.799 so the company may just shut down that division entirely 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.320 and then try to cut its losses. And LG has 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:44.240 been experiencing losses through its smartphone division. While LG is 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.600 the third largest smartphone maker behind Apple and Samsung, at 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.160 least according to market share that is from a counterpoint research. 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.000 Depending on which analysts you look at, you get different 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.200 numbers for these things. Anyway, despite being a big are 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.040 in the smartphone space, the division has been operating at 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.359 a loss for several years in a row. In fact, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.640 according to the website gives China, l G has lost 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.240 four point four three billion dollars total and has had 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.839 a loss at the end of every single one of 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.679 the past twenty three consecutive quarters. This is a pretty 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.240 big deal. LG had even made a pretty big splash 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.440 this year earlier at CS with the reveal of the 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.799 rollable smartphone, a smartphone that can actually change screen sizes 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:39.080 dynamically because it uses a flexible oh LED display that 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.400 can unroll as it expands, and it also shows that 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.240 the smartphone business is a really tough one to be in. 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.640 Development costs are really high. It's a huge challenge to 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.359 stand out when you've got so many different smartphone companies 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.039 and models that are all on the market, you know, 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.080 and they're all competing for the same customers, and the 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.520 challenge to price units so that they are competitive in 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:08.240 such a dense field. So not a huge surprise. It 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.840 is sort of the end of an era with LG 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.520 getting out because LG has played such a big part 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.520 in smartphones. Atlas VPN released a report stating that in 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.560 twenty twenty, there was a one thousand, nine two percent 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:28.200 increase in development of malware aimed at the Mac operating system. Now, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.240 percentages are tricky things, right, because it doesn't actually tell 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.760 you the total numbers. If only one instance of Mac 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.599 OS malware had happened in twenty nineteen, that would just 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.279 mean that there were one thousand, ninety two of them 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.000 in twenty twenty, and that number is dwarfed by the 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.719 number of incidents you would expect for Windows based operating systems, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.520 But in this case, the report found evidence of six 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.640 hundred seventy four thousand, two hundred seventy three news samples 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.080 of malware for the MA cos. Still that's nothing. I mean, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.640 half a million is a lot, so it's not nothing, 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.680 But it's not the same as what you see for Windows. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.120 That's orders of magnitude bigger with Windows. So I just 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.880 want to be clear because I don't want people saying 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.480 my anti Mac bias is coming into play. The same 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.880 group that is Atlas VbN found ninety one oh five 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:29.680 million new Windows malware samples. Now that means that Windows 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.800 would rack up as many examples of malware new malware 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.760 in just three days as Mac had for the entire 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.960 year of twenty Still, this is a reminder that Mac 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:47.840 computers are not magically immune to malware. I'm not actually 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.040 sure what the perception is these days, but when I 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.880 got started in podcasting, there was this kind of general 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:59.600 belief among the public that Mac computers were effectively malware proof. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.920 And there was, you know, some truth to that, but 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.360 not because the Mac operating system was just magically better 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.680 than Windows. It had more to do with opportunity. Because 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.320 if you are someone who's developing malware you probably want 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.880 that malware to hit as many targets as possible, and 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.600 the market share of Windows versus Mac os machines was 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.360 really out of whack. It just made more sense to 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.680 develop malware targeting PCs because there were way more PC 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.400 users out there. But we've seen a rise in instances 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.520 of Mac based malware over the past few years and 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.360 it's a solid reminder that there is no bulletproof operating 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.000 system out there, and no matter what type of machine 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.880 we used to access files and the Internet, we need 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:49.600 to be wary of malware. And now we transition to 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.280 a segment I like to call robots are scary and 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.120 they can be over In the UK, the Defense Secretary 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.200 Ben Wallace said that Britain's mill terry will be able 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.280 to achieve a greater effect with fewer actual soldiers in 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.280 the future thanks to technology, and part of that involves 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.160 drones now. The established strength of the UK Army in 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.120 the mid two thousands was set at eighty two thousand troops. 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.400 UH This includes all people who have received basic training 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.400 and then a secondary specialized training to focus on a 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.440 particular role or area of expertise. Today, the army has 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.800 seventy six thousand, five hundred personnel, including seventy six thousand, 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:35.199 three hundred fifty soldiers. Wallace's plans would reduce this number 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.679 to seventy two five hundred by five. At the same time, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.679 the defense budget in the UK is to increase by 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.280 twenty four billion pounds over the next four years, So 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.640 the question is where is that money going if the 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.719 army is actually scaling back on the number of soldiers 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.439 that will be part of the army. Well, big part 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.239 of it is automated systems and drones, including replacing existing 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:04.360 Reaper drones with Protector drones. That is a little bit 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.800 confusing to some folks, I'm sure, because both the Reaper 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.760 and the Protector are themselves variants of the Predator B 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:18.600 class drone. Other big expenses include establishing a national cyber force, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.440 building out a digital backbone for the purposes of rapid 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:27.040 data sharing, and the development of a future combat air system. 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.560 Technology is going to play a much bigger role, and 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.480 in theory it will reduce the need to have as 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.920 many human soldiers as are currently in service in the UK, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:42.520 so at least some of that responsibility will fall to 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.200 technology and the operators who are in charge of it, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:54.239 including the drones, which, by the way, are pretty terrifying things. Meanwhile, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.920 on this side of the pond, Ben Callos, a New 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.120 York City Council member, has raised concerns about the New 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:04.160 York Police Force using robots to respond to a hostage 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.400 situation that took place in the Bronx. The robot in 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.440 question was a Diggi Dog from Boston Dynamics, and according 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.360 to Ours Technica, Callos reacted with horror seeing this robot 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.320 in use, which then prompted him to propose a ban 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.120 on police forces from owning or operating robots that are 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.760 armed with weaponry. But I do want to be clear 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:29.480 that the Digi Doog robot wasn't armed. It was only 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.760 equipped with surveillance cameras which gave police a view into 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.920 an area that was considered too dangerous for a human 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.280 officer to enter. But it wasn't like Diggi Dog was 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.400 packing heat or anything. Even so, without weapons, the Digi 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.240 Dog still has its critics. The American Civil Liberties Union 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.280 has asked why the Digi Dog didn't show up on 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:55.360 a police list of surveillance devices that they use. That's 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.240 a problem because New York recently passed a law that 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.439 states law enforcement agencies have to divulge that kind of information. 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.600 Groups like the A c L You are concerned that 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.440 there aren't proper privacy protections in place that would prevent 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.280 police from abusing the surveillance power on citizens. I did 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:18.040 not realize how many words start with P in that sentence. Uh, 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.960 there were until I actually said it out loud. But 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.560 there have been a lot of people, myself included, who 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.600 have been warning against the use of armed robots because 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.120 going down that pathway could lead to another type of 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.960 arms race, and that's one that will undoubtedly lead to 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:39.199 tragic consequences, whether by intent or accident. Callis himself isn't 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.920 totally anti robot. He said that utility robots like the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.720 digit dog are not really what he's concerned about. Despite 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.520 that initial, you know, reaction of horror, I guess, nor 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.160 would he want to see bomb disposal robots get banned either, 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.120 But he is concerned about there being a slippery slope. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.240 The ARS Technica piece at atually quotes the director of 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.679 the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic, and 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.120 he points out that what is a non lethal robot 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.960 today could be tweaked and modified and become a lethal 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.600 robot in the future, and we've already seen what happens 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.400 when we militarized police forces. To learn more about this, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.280 I highly recommend reading the full article on Ours Technica. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.040 It is titled New York lawmaker wants to ban police 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.560 use of armed robots. It's by Sydney Fussele, who writes 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.720 for Wired dot com. So, like I said, I found 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.680 the article over at ours Technica. It is extremely well 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.000 written and well researched, So go check that out. And 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.920 now let's move to some varying degrees of weird stories. 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.320 Our first one is that the final bid for Twitter 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:54.920 CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet has been made. The transaction 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.680 has happened. Specifically, this was a bid for the n 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:04.040 f T or on fungible token version of that tweet. Now. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.840 I have an episode coming up explaining what n f 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.280 t s are and how they work. That's going to 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.240 be later this week, but for the purposes of this story, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.080 it's safe to boil it down and just say this 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.400 is a way to certify a digital thing as being 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.560 unique anyway. In this case, the n f t was 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.840 Dorsey's first tweet, which reads just setting up my Twitter. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.640 Dorsey posted that back on March twenty one, two thousand six. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.320 Back then Twitter had no vowels. I mean, the service 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.640 would let you use vowels, but the the company didn't 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.760 use vowels in the name, so it was spelled t 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.440 W T t R. The winning bid came from Senna Estav, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:49.880 the CEO at Bridge Oracle and stiv Or Stav. His 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:54.200 winning bid was for two million, nine hundred fifteen thousand, 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:59.160 eight hundred thirty five dollars and forty seven cents, which 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.680 is not a round number and I don't know if 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:08.040 that number has any special significance. He paid for the 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:13.160 tweet using Ether cryptocurrency, and Dorsey took the money, converted 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.440 it to bitcoin, and then donated it to give directly 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.920 a charitable organization that gives money directly to those who 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.800 needed That two million and such and such dollars ended 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.720 up being just under fifty one bitcoin. The actual value 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:34.200 was fifty point eight seven five one six six nine bitcoin, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.920 because that's how bitcoin works. Five of the bid actually 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:42.400 went to the platform sent that's c E n T. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.320 That is the platform that hosted the auction pretty wild. 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.560 Also wild is that the actor William Shatner, perhaps best 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.880 known as the original Captain James T. Kirk in the 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.360 Star Trek franchise, has turned ninety years old, and he 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.080 has also spawned an AI version of himself with the 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.160 help of a company called story File. Now, according to 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.880 the CEO of story File, there will be a video 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.240 version of William Shatner that will not be a deep fake. 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.240 It will not be an avatar. In her words, it 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:22.400 will be the real Shatner. What that actually means, I 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.200 guess is up to interpretation. But the idea is that 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.400 this video version of Shatner will be able to interact 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.200 with people and respond to people, just as William Shatner 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.320 himself would if he were, you know, doing like a 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.560 video conference with you. So, in other words, it should 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.120 be a digital copy of William Shatner, though I have 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.720 questions about how faithfully the video will recreate the experience 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.640 of actually interacting with the star. Shatner said he wanted 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:52.440 to create a way that would allow his family and 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.760 friends to interact with him for all time. The video 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.600 version should be up and running by May of this year, 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.600 and I really, really hope that if you ask it 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.479 very trivial questions about Star Trek, it will prompt the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.080 video Shatner to respond in the same way that the 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.440 real Shatner did in an old Saturday Night Live sketch 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.919 in which he appeared as uh if you were a 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.440 guest at a science fiction convention and he fields increasingly 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.040 weird questions from a big group of nerdy Star Trek 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.680 fans until he just explodes and yells, get a life, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.879 will you people? That's what I want from my Shatner interaction. 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.200 I'll be disappointed if I don't get it. And our 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.800 final story for today's episode comes as a huge personal 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.119 challenge for me, but I will do my best to 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.200 keep things at the standards that we expect for tech stuff. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.640 In San Francisco, a couple who founded a company called 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.600 you Biome have now been indicted on multiple fraud charges 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:59.160 by the federal government. You Biome was in the how 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:04.560 do I put this uh fecal matter testing business? Now. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.400 The pitch was that this startup company would take your 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:13.199 sample and then they would run tests on it and 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.400 determine like your gut health and give recommendations on how 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.919 to improve your general well being. The only problem, according 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.520 to the charges anyway, is that their methods were totally 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.479 untested and without evidence, and there was no proof that 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.240 they were even at all effective. In the meantime, the 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:37.240 company developed so called clinical tests that they urged medical 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:42.840 professionals to give to patients, but these tests, again according 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.600 to the charges, also lacked any sort of actual validation 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.080 or accreditation. The whole purpose of the tests was just 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.400 to create a way for you biom to seek reimbursements 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:59.040 from health insurance companies. So essentially, again according to the charges, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.880 this was about committing a type of insurance fraud if 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.159 in fact the tests had no validity and had no 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.159 you know, medical necessity. The story is very similar to 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.840 that of thora nos in that the pitch for it 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.280 sounds plausible, right a company that you know analyzes poop 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.119 to determine gut health. That seems like that would be 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.439 achievable in a startup kind of company. But according to 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.280 the charges, the couple fooled an awful lot of people 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.200 in the process of trying to get this business going. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.560 It sounds like a really crappy situation to me. No 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.800 Beans A dun Winton did the thing I said I 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:44.280 wasn't gonna do anyway. But they also gained praise from 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:50.320 various parties, including Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle company Goop, which I 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:55.440 mean for Goop to praise Poop not a big surprise 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.800 if you follow Goop. The story of you Bioms should 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.439 mind everyone that hype can be exciting, but it can 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:08.320 also be really hazardous, not just to your investment, but 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.240 potentially to your health. If you're counting on something that 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:16.200 doesn't actually have any medical validity to it, you could 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.160 be making really bad decisions. So before you Biom began 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.240 to fall apart back in twenty nineteen, and it reached 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.640 a valuation of more than half a billion dollars. That 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.359 is terrible. It tells us that there is there's something 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:36.080 seriously broken in the investment tech sector. It's really just 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.120 enough for you to give them all the stink. I Well, 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:45.399 that wraps up all the stories for Tuesday March, or 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.560 at least all the stories I wanted to talk about. 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.840 We'll be covering more tech news later in the week. 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:53.840 If you have any suggestions for topics I should cover 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.000 in episodes of Tech Stuff, let me know. Reach out 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.359 to me on Twitter. The handle for the show is 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.520 text of H s W and I'll talk to You 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:10.800 again really soon. Y. Text Stuff is an I heart 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.640 Radio production. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.760 the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:19.159 listen to your favorite shows.