Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech. And this is
Speaker 1: the tech News episode for Tuesday, March twenty one. Now,
Speaker 1: last week we had an episode that really went into
Speaker 1: how various companies and organizations are tracking you. But don't worry,
Speaker 1: We're only gonna do that a little bit in today's episode. So,
Speaker 1: which app do you think is the most invasive? TikTok? Nope,
Speaker 1: not that one. YouTube, Nope, Facebook, you're getting warmer. But
Speaker 1: according to the cloud storage company p Cloud, the actual
Speaker 1: answer is Instagram, So we're still in the Facebook family.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, right, that tracks The company came to
Speaker 1: this conclusion after reviewing updated app privacy labels. See not
Speaker 1: that long ago. Apple updated its privacy policy and it
Speaker 1: now requires companies to more thoroughly list out the ways
Speaker 1: in which those companies collect and use data through these apps.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the reasons why it took
Speaker 1: Google a long time to update the company's apps on iOS.
Speaker 1: Because it should come as a surprise to no one
Speaker 1: that Google is collecting a lot of user information. Well,
Speaker 1: the same appears to be true of Instagram, only more so.
Speaker 1: According to p Cloud, Instagram collects nearly eighty percent of
Speaker 1: users personal data, including stuff like search history, location, financial
Speaker 1: information like what bank do you use, where do you
Speaker 1: shop that kind of thing, plus who your contacts are,
Speaker 1: and Instagram shares that information with various third parties who
Speaker 1: presumably are paying a decent price for that level of access. Now,
Speaker 1: this is how companies like Facebook, which by the way,
Speaker 1: was in second place behind Instagram, It's how they can
Speaker 1: market you to various advertisers. The more these companies know
Speaker 1: about each user, the more they can target that user
Speaker 1: with specific ads. They can match that user up with advertisers,
Speaker 1: and being able to go to advertisers with the message
Speaker 1: that hey, our app is going to put your ads
Speaker 1: in front of the people who are most likely to
Speaker 1: act on those ads. That's a powerful selling point. We
Speaker 1: are well beyond the old days where you might, as
Speaker 1: part of your marketing strategy, really rely on putting up
Speaker 1: a billboard in a prominent location in town and hope
Speaker 1: you get as many eyeballs as possible. Now we have
Speaker 1: companies identifying which eyeballs are the most valuable to any
Speaker 1: given client, and then sending those ads that way. Now,
Speaker 1: what's the moral of this story, Well, it's that we
Speaker 1: should all be aware of how apps are collecting our information,
Speaker 1: how we are providing data to these apps. If we're
Speaker 1: okay with that, no worries, right, I mean, it's this
Speaker 1: is a personal thing. But if we're not okay with that,
Speaker 1: we need to consider if those apps are really something
Speaker 1: we want to use, because there's not really an easy
Speaker 1: way for us to go in and cherry pick which
Speaker 1: points of data can and cannot be used by any
Speaker 1: given app. I mean, just doing that alone would become
Speaker 1: a full time job. Now, in the interest of full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I have Instagram on my phone, So I say this
Speaker 1: as someone who is both aware that the app is
Speaker 1: collecting a lot of data and still is using that app.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people. But I am also very
Speaker 1: very boring. So my hope is that Facebook is not
Speaker 1: getting very much money at all for my information, because
Speaker 1: come on, I'm lame. According to the Korea Herald, the
Speaker 1: giant tech company l G is now considering just shutting
Speaker 1: down its smartphone division entirely. You might remember that. Earlier
Speaker 1: this year, LG announced that it was looking into the
Speaker 1: possibility of selling off its smartphone division to some other
Speaker 1: company and just getting out of the smartphone game. Now
Speaker 1: apparently no suitable parties have made an offer to LGS liking,
Speaker 1: so the company may just shut down that division entirely
Speaker 1: and then try to cut its losses. And LG has
Speaker 1: been experiencing losses through its smartphone division. While LG is
Speaker 1: the third largest smartphone maker behind Apple and Samsung, at
Speaker 1: least according to market share that is from a counterpoint research.
Speaker 1: Depending on which analysts you look at, you get different
Speaker 1: numbers for these things. Anyway, despite being a big are
Speaker 1: in the smartphone space, the division has been operating at
Speaker 1: a loss for several years in a row. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to the website gives China, l G has lost
Speaker 1: four point four three billion dollars total and has had
Speaker 1: a loss at the end of every single one of
Speaker 1: the past twenty three consecutive quarters. This is a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal. LG had even made a pretty big splash
Speaker 1: this year earlier at CS with the reveal of the
Speaker 1: rollable smartphone, a smartphone that can actually change screen sizes
Speaker 1: dynamically because it uses a flexible oh LED display that
Speaker 1: can unroll as it expands, and it also shows that
Speaker 1: the smartphone business is a really tough one to be in.
Speaker 1: Development costs are really high. It's a huge challenge to
Speaker 1: stand out when you've got so many different smartphone companies
Speaker 1: and models that are all on the market, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're all competing for the same customers, and the
Speaker 1: challenge to price units so that they are competitive in
Speaker 1: such a dense field. So not a huge surprise. It
Speaker 1: is sort of the end of an era with LG
Speaker 1: getting out because LG has played such a big part
Speaker 1: in smartphones. Atlas VPN released a report stating that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, there was a one thousand, nine two percent
Speaker 1: increase in development of malware aimed at the Mac operating system. Now,
Speaker 1: percentages are tricky things, right, because it doesn't actually tell
Speaker 1: you the total numbers. If only one instance of Mac
Speaker 1: OS malware had happened in twenty nineteen, that would just
Speaker 1: mean that there were one thousand, ninety two of them
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and that number is dwarfed by the
Speaker 1: number of incidents you would expect for Windows based operating systems,
Speaker 1: But in this case, the report found evidence of six
Speaker 1: hundred seventy four thousand, two hundred seventy three news samples
Speaker 1: of malware for the MA cos. Still that's nothing. I mean,
Speaker 1: half a million is a lot, so it's not nothing,
Speaker 1: But it's not the same as what you see for Windows.
Speaker 1: That's orders of magnitude bigger with Windows. So I just
Speaker 1: want to be clear because I don't want people saying
Speaker 1: my anti Mac bias is coming into play. The same
Speaker 1: group that is Atlas VbN found ninety one oh five
Speaker 1: million new Windows malware samples. Now that means that Windows
Speaker 1: would rack up as many examples of malware new malware
Speaker 1: in just three days as Mac had for the entire
Speaker 1: year of twenty Still, this is a reminder that Mac
Speaker 1: computers are not magically immune to malware. I'm not actually
Speaker 1: sure what the perception is these days, but when I
Speaker 1: got started in podcasting, there was this kind of general
Speaker 1: belief among the public that Mac computers were effectively malware proof.
Speaker 1: And there was, you know, some truth to that, but
Speaker 1: not because the Mac operating system was just magically better
Speaker 1: than Windows. It had more to do with opportunity. Because
Speaker 1: if you are someone who's developing malware you probably want
Speaker 1: that malware to hit as many targets as possible, and
Speaker 1: the market share of Windows versus Mac os machines was
Speaker 1: really out of whack. It just made more sense to
Speaker 1: develop malware targeting PCs because there were way more PC
Speaker 1: users out there. But we've seen a rise in instances
Speaker 1: of Mac based malware over the past few years and
Speaker 1: it's a solid reminder that there is no bulletproof operating
Speaker 1: system out there, and no matter what type of machine
Speaker 1: we used to access files and the Internet, we need
Speaker 1: to be wary of malware. And now we transition to
Speaker 1: a segment I like to call robots are scary and
Speaker 1: they can be over In the UK, the Defense Secretary
Speaker 1: Ben Wallace said that Britain's mill terry will be able
Speaker 1: to achieve a greater effect with fewer actual soldiers in
Speaker 1: the future thanks to technology, and part of that involves
Speaker 1: drones now. The established strength of the UK Army in
Speaker 1: the mid two thousands was set at eighty two thousand troops.
Speaker 1: UH This includes all people who have received basic training
Speaker 1: and then a secondary specialized training to focus on a
Speaker 1: particular role or area of expertise. Today, the army has
Speaker 1: seventy six thousand, five hundred personnel, including seventy six thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred fifty soldiers. Wallace's plans would reduce this number
Speaker 1: to seventy two five hundred by five. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the defense budget in the UK is to increase by
Speaker 1: twenty four billion pounds over the next four years, So
Speaker 1: the question is where is that money going if the
Speaker 1: army is actually scaling back on the number of soldiers
Speaker 1: that will be part of the army. Well, big part
Speaker 1: of it is automated systems and drones, including replacing existing
Speaker 1: Reaper drones with Protector drones. That is a little bit
Speaker 1: confusing to some folks, I'm sure, because both the Reaper
Speaker 1: and the Protector are themselves variants of the Predator B
Speaker 1: class drone. Other big expenses include establishing a national cyber force,
Speaker 1: building out a digital backbone for the purposes of rapid
Speaker 1: data sharing, and the development of a future combat air system.
Speaker 1: Technology is going to play a much bigger role, and
Speaker 1: in theory it will reduce the need to have as
Speaker 1: many human soldiers as are currently in service in the UK,
Speaker 1: so at least some of that responsibility will fall to
Speaker 1: technology and the operators who are in charge of it,
Speaker 1: including the drones, which, by the way, are pretty terrifying things. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: on this side of the pond, Ben Callos, a New
Speaker 1: York City Council member, has raised concerns about the New
Speaker 1: York Police Force using robots to respond to a hostage
Speaker 1: situation that took place in the Bronx. The robot in
Speaker 1: question was a Diggi Dog from Boston Dynamics, and according
Speaker 1: to Ours Technica, Callos reacted with horror seeing this robot
Speaker 1: in use, which then prompted him to propose a ban
Speaker 1: on police forces from owning or operating robots that are
Speaker 1: armed with weaponry. But I do want to be clear
Speaker 1: that the Digi Doog robot wasn't armed. It was only
Speaker 1: equipped with surveillance cameras which gave police a view into
Speaker 1: an area that was considered too dangerous for a human
Speaker 1: officer to enter. But it wasn't like Diggi Dog was
Speaker 1: packing heat or anything. Even so, without weapons, the Digi
Speaker 1: Dog still has its critics. The American Civil Liberties Union
Speaker 1: has asked why the Digi Dog didn't show up on
Speaker 1: a police list of surveillance devices that they use. That's
Speaker 1: a problem because New York recently passed a law that
Speaker 1: states law enforcement agencies have to divulge that kind of information.
Speaker 1: Groups like the A c L You are concerned that
Speaker 1: there aren't proper privacy protections in place that would prevent
Speaker 1: police from abusing the surveillance power on citizens. I did
Speaker 1: not realize how many words start with P in that sentence. Uh,
Speaker 1: there were until I actually said it out loud. But
Speaker 1: there have been a lot of people, myself included, who
Speaker 1: have been warning against the use of armed robots because
Speaker 1: going down that pathway could lead to another type of
Speaker 1: arms race, and that's one that will undoubtedly lead to
Speaker 1: tragic consequences, whether by intent or accident. Callis himself isn't
Speaker 1: totally anti robot. He said that utility robots like the
Speaker 1: digit dog are not really what he's concerned about. Despite
Speaker 1: that initial, you know, reaction of horror, I guess, nor
Speaker 1: would he want to see bomb disposal robots get banned either,
Speaker 1: But he is concerned about there being a slippery slope.
Speaker 1: The ARS Technica piece at atually quotes the director of
Speaker 1: the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic, and
Speaker 1: he points out that what is a non lethal robot
Speaker 1: today could be tweaked and modified and become a lethal
Speaker 1: robot in the future, and we've already seen what happens
Speaker 1: when we militarized police forces. To learn more about this,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend reading the full article on Ours Technica.
Speaker 1: It is titled New York lawmaker wants to ban police
Speaker 1: use of armed robots. It's by Sydney Fussele, who writes
Speaker 1: for Wired dot com. So, like I said, I found
Speaker 1: the article over at ours Technica. It is extremely well
Speaker 1: written and well researched, So go check that out. And
Speaker 1: now let's move to some varying degrees of weird stories.
Speaker 1: Our first one is that the final bid for Twitter
Speaker 1: CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet has been made. The transaction
Speaker 1: has happened. Specifically, this was a bid for the n
Speaker 1: f T or on fungible token version of that tweet. Now.
Speaker 1: I have an episode coming up explaining what n f
Speaker 1: t s are and how they work. That's going to
Speaker 1: be later this week, but for the purposes of this story,
Speaker 1: it's safe to boil it down and just say this
Speaker 1: is a way to certify a digital thing as being
Speaker 1: unique anyway. In this case, the n f t was
Speaker 1: Dorsey's first tweet, which reads just setting up my Twitter.
Speaker 1: Dorsey posted that back on March twenty one, two thousand six.
Speaker 1: Back then Twitter had no vowels. I mean, the service
Speaker 1: would let you use vowels, but the the company didn't
Speaker 1: use vowels in the name, so it was spelled t
Speaker 1: W T t R. The winning bid came from Senna Estav,
Speaker 1: the CEO at Bridge Oracle and stiv Or Stav. His
Speaker 1: winning bid was for two million, nine hundred fifteen thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred thirty five dollars and forty seven cents, which
Speaker 1: is not a round number and I don't know if
Speaker 1: that number has any special significance. He paid for the
Speaker 1: tweet using Ether cryptocurrency, and Dorsey took the money, converted
Speaker 1: it to bitcoin, and then donated it to give directly
Speaker 1: a charitable organization that gives money directly to those who
Speaker 1: needed That two million and such and such dollars ended
Speaker 1: up being just under fifty one bitcoin. The actual value
Speaker 1: was fifty point eight seven five one six six nine bitcoin,
Speaker 1: because that's how bitcoin works. Five of the bid actually
Speaker 1: went to the platform sent that's c E n T.
Speaker 1: That is the platform that hosted the auction pretty wild.
Speaker 1: Also wild is that the actor William Shatner, perhaps best
Speaker 1: known as the original Captain James T. Kirk in the
Speaker 1: Star Trek franchise, has turned ninety years old, and he
Speaker 1: has also spawned an AI version of himself with the
Speaker 1: help of a company called story File. Now, according to
Speaker 1: the CEO of story File, there will be a video
Speaker 1: version of William Shatner that will not be a deep fake.
Speaker 1: It will not be an avatar. In her words, it
Speaker 1: will be the real Shatner. What that actually means, I
Speaker 1: guess is up to interpretation. But the idea is that
Speaker 1: this video version of Shatner will be able to interact
Speaker 1: with people and respond to people, just as William Shatner
Speaker 1: himself would if he were, you know, doing like a
Speaker 1: video conference with you. So, in other words, it should
Speaker 1: be a digital copy of William Shatner, though I have
Speaker 1: questions about how faithfully the video will recreate the experience
Speaker 1: of actually interacting with the star. Shatner said he wanted
Speaker 1: to create a way that would allow his family and
Speaker 1: friends to interact with him for all time. The video
Speaker 1: version should be up and running by May of this year,
Speaker 1: and I really, really hope that if you ask it
Speaker 1: very trivial questions about Star Trek, it will prompt the
Speaker 1: video Shatner to respond in the same way that the
Speaker 1: real Shatner did in an old Saturday Night Live sketch
Speaker 1: in which he appeared as uh if you were a
Speaker 1: guest at a science fiction convention and he fields increasingly
Speaker 1: weird questions from a big group of nerdy Star Trek
Speaker 1: fans until he just explodes and yells, get a life,
Speaker 1: will you people? That's what I want from my Shatner interaction.
Speaker 1: I'll be disappointed if I don't get it. And our
Speaker 1: final story for today's episode comes as a huge personal
Speaker 1: challenge for me, but I will do my best to
Speaker 1: keep things at the standards that we expect for tech stuff.
Speaker 1: In San Francisco, a couple who founded a company called
Speaker 1: you Biome have now been indicted on multiple fraud charges
Speaker 1: by the federal government. You Biome was in the how
Speaker 1: do I put this uh fecal matter testing business? Now.
Speaker 1: The pitch was that this startup company would take your
Speaker 1: sample and then they would run tests on it and
Speaker 1: determine like your gut health and give recommendations on how
Speaker 1: to improve your general well being. The only problem, according
Speaker 1: to the charges anyway, is that their methods were totally
Speaker 1: untested and without evidence, and there was no proof that
Speaker 1: they were even at all effective. In the meantime, the
Speaker 1: company developed so called clinical tests that they urged medical
Speaker 1: professionals to give to patients, but these tests, again according
Speaker 1: to the charges, also lacked any sort of actual validation
Speaker 1: or accreditation. The whole purpose of the tests was just
Speaker 1: to create a way for you biom to seek reimbursements
Speaker 1: from health insurance companies. So essentially, again according to the charges,
Speaker 1: this was about committing a type of insurance fraud if
Speaker 1: in fact the tests had no validity and had no
Speaker 1: you know, medical necessity. The story is very similar to
Speaker 1: that of thora nos in that the pitch for it
Speaker 1: sounds plausible, right a company that you know analyzes poop
Speaker 1: to determine gut health. That seems like that would be
Speaker 1: achievable in a startup kind of company. But according to
Speaker 1: the charges, the couple fooled an awful lot of people
Speaker 1: in the process of trying to get this business going.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a really crappy situation to me. No
Speaker 1: Beans A dun Winton did the thing I said I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna do anyway. But they also gained praise from
Speaker 1: various parties, including Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle company Goop, which I
Speaker 1: mean for Goop to praise Poop not a big surprise
Speaker 1: if you follow Goop. The story of you Bioms should
Speaker 1: mind everyone that hype can be exciting, but it can
Speaker 1: also be really hazardous, not just to your investment, but
Speaker 1: potentially to your health. If you're counting on something that
Speaker 1: doesn't actually have any medical validity to it, you could
Speaker 1: be making really bad decisions. So before you Biom began
Speaker 1: to fall apart back in twenty nineteen, and it reached
Speaker 1: a valuation of more than half a billion dollars. That
Speaker 1: is terrible. It tells us that there is there's something
Speaker 1: seriously broken in the investment tech sector. It's really just
Speaker 1: enough for you to give them all the stink. I Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up all the stories for Tuesday March, or
Speaker 1: at least all the stories I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: We'll be covering more tech news later in the week.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for topics I should cover
Speaker 1: in episodes of Tech Stuff, let me know. Reach out
Speaker 1: to me on Twitter. The handle for the show is
Speaker 1: text of H s W and I'll talk to You
Speaker 1: again really soon. Y. Text Stuff is an I heart
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