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 iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: I love all things tech. And this is the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday May one, and we're gonna concentrate a
Speaker 1: lot on Google for much of this episode. So, last year,
Speaker 1: Google canceled its annual io event for developers because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. This year, the company held a virtual event
Speaker 1: in which presenters appeared on camera in front of a
Speaker 1: small audience of Googlers at the Google Plex in Mountain View, California.
Speaker 1: So we're going to go over some of the announcements
Speaker 1: from that event. And first up is Android twelve. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of updates to Android's operating system that
Speaker 1: we're announced and it is now public beta, but it
Speaker 1: will launch for real zs this fall. Some of the
Speaker 1: changes are to use your interface and they're largely cosmetic.
Speaker 1: For example, the color palette of the operating system is
Speaker 1: more customizable in Android twelve, and you can set the
Speaker 1: OS so that it will choose a color palette sourced
Speaker 1: from whatever image you choose as your background wallpaper. So
Speaker 1: on my phone. I've got a picture of my doggie
Speaker 1: Tibolt as my wallpaper, and presumably if I run Android
Speaker 1: twelve on my phone, then my notifications and stuff will
Speaker 1: have a color scheme that reflects the colors in that photo,
Speaker 1: which is kind of neat. There are tons of other
Speaker 1: updates besides the cosmetic, however. One is that there's a
Speaker 1: new privacy dashboard and Android twelve, which lets you see
Speaker 1: which apps are accessing your phone's various features and how
Speaker 1: frequently they do so, so you can check to see
Speaker 1: which apps are checking on the your location, you know,
Speaker 1: really frequently, or making use of your camera or your
Speaker 1: microphone or whatever. And you can also use the dashboard
Speaker 1: to revoke access to those features should you wish. So
Speaker 1: if you look and say, oh, this app is pinging
Speaker 1: my location, you know, twenty times a day, you can
Speaker 1: revoke access from that dashboard. It's Google's way to give
Speaker 1: users more insight into how their phones are harvesting data
Speaker 1: with these various apps. And don't get me wrong, Google
Speaker 1: does this as much or more than anyone else, but
Speaker 1: I do think this is a really nice feature. Other
Speaker 1: updates to the OS include a feature in which the
Speaker 1: clock on the screen saver screen will change size depending
Speaker 1: upon how many notifications you have, so as you clear
Speaker 1: out notifications, the clock gets bigger. That's a pretty handy
Speaker 1: way to see if you've got messages waiting on you
Speaker 1: on your phone. One of the cool technologies Google showed
Speaker 1: off at the event was projects star Line, which is
Speaker 1: a sort of three D video conferencing technology. In the
Speaker 1: version we saw at the event, there were examples of
Speaker 1: two people each sitting down in front of a large screen,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't really any indication as to how far
Speaker 1: apart these people were in real space. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: they were across the country from each other, or maybe
Speaker 1: they were in different parts of the same building, but
Speaker 1: either way, the setup included depth sensing cameras that could
Speaker 1: capture light fields and then send that data over to
Speaker 1: the other screen while doing the same thing for the
Speaker 1: other side. So the effect was that the image you
Speaker 1: saw on screen appeared to have real depth to it,
Speaker 1: almost as if the person you're talking to on screen
Speaker 1: is actually sitting right in front of you in person.
Speaker 1: Which is pretty nifty stuff all by itself. But what
Speaker 1: I found particularly fascinating is that Google developed a compression
Speaker 1: algorithm that can handle this kind of application in the
Speaker 1: first place. High definition camera with depth sensing capabilities is
Speaker 1: going to generate a lot of data and transmitting that
Speaker 1: data in real time so that you can have a
Speaker 1: video chat with no perceptible lag time. That's a big challenge.
Speaker 1: Google says it developed a way to compress the data
Speaker 1: stream down to a factor of one hundred, so one
Speaker 1: hundred times smaller than the uncompressed size. The demonstration was cool.
Speaker 1: It was also prerecorded, I should add, but there's no
Speaker 1: word on whether Google is going to roll this out
Speaker 1: on any sort of meaningful scale, or if this will
Speaker 1: remain more as a demonstration of really neat technologies that
Speaker 1: might find their way into other applications in the future.
Speaker 1: Something that is rolling out is another collaborative work tool
Speaker 1: called smart Canvas. Google's demo showed team members working on
Speaker 1: a project together in real time on a Google platform
Speaker 1: that incorporates stuff like Google Docs and Google Sheets. Also
Speaker 1: allowed users to have a video chat going at the
Speaker 1: same time, so that people can talk with one another
Speaker 1: while collaborating in real time, and the tool incorporates some
Speaker 1: of Google's AI features as well to to help communicate
Speaker 1: clearly and avoid pitfalls. So the example they had in
Speaker 1: their video was using the word chairman in part of
Speaker 1: a presentation and the AI suggest changing it to chair
Speaker 1: person to avoid using a gender specific noun. So that
Speaker 1: was one example they gave. Google isn't a stranger to
Speaker 1: creating collaborative tools. I still remember the old Google Wave product,
Speaker 1: which was interesting but somewhat confusing way back in the day,
Speaker 1: and that would allow multiple people to work in the
Speaker 1: same virtual workspace simultaneously. At the time, it was kind
Speaker 1: of hard to imagine use cases for Google Wave beyond
Speaker 1: how I was using it, which was to build out
Speaker 1: a rundown for live shows. But smart Canvas has a
Speaker 1: more straightforward approach to collaboration that I think is pretty
Speaker 1: easy to understand. I wasn't super impressed with the interface
Speaker 1: when I saw it, but um, it was, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of stripped down. It wasn't like flashy or anything,
Speaker 1: so maybe simpler is better. I don't know. I'm also
Speaker 1: notoriously bad about using collaborative tools, so maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: the right one to comment on it. In addition, Google
Speaker 1: showed off an AI app called lamb DA that was odd.
Speaker 1: So this AI uses things like voice recognition, and natural
Speaker 1: language processing to interpret language. Then it generates responses and
Speaker 1: makes it very conversational, and moreover, it can generate responses
Speaker 1: as if it were something else, as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: the Google Assistant, which is just this kind of ephemeral
Speaker 1: AI assistant. In the demos that Google showed off, they
Speaker 1: had Lambda answering questions as if Lambda were a paper
Speaker 1: airplane or the dwarf planet Pluto. And this makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if you had Lamb a pose as a chicken,
Speaker 1: would it finally explain why it crossed the road, Because
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been asking about that. It
Speaker 1: really was interesting to think of an app that could
Speaker 1: presumably put itself in the role of different things and
Speaker 1: then answer questions about it, including bits in which the
Speaker 1: AI would make the equivalent of small talk only as
Speaker 1: if the AI were you know, the dwarf planet Pluto
Speaker 1: or whatever it was neat and it really shows how
Speaker 1: far we've come with natural language processing and the ability
Speaker 1: to create AI programs that can seemingly converse fairly well.
Speaker 1: Though Google does say that this is far from perfect,
Speaker 1: it's still a pretty early build. It feels like another
Speaker 1: big step forward from the demo we saw a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago in which a Google assistant program made
Speaker 1: reservations on the behalf of a user, and it seemed
Speaker 1: to be an actual assistant, like it called up a
Speaker 1: restaurant to make reservations, and it was impossible to tell
Speaker 1: that it was an automated program. It sounded like it
Speaker 1: was a person, which is pretty nifty. Google also had
Speaker 1: some announcements about where os that's w E A R.
Speaker 1: Now it's just known as where, and didn't really talk
Speaker 1: about the Pixel Watch. In fact, Google also didn't talk
Speaker 1: about pixel phones. Really. There was a distinct lack of
Speaker 1: talk about hardware at all. They didn't mention anything about
Speaker 1: the rumored Google design chips that are codenamed Whitechapel. You know,
Speaker 1: like Apple, Google is apparently moving toward developing its own
Speaker 1: processors rather than relying on stuff that's made by other companies.
Speaker 1: None of that was brought up in the IO event,
Speaker 1: at least not as of the recording of this episode.
Speaker 1: Other stuff Google showed off included phone apps that are
Speaker 1: better at working with different skin tones for stuff like
Speaker 1: white balance that has traditionally been one of the big
Speaker 1: problems with Google photo apps. They simply didn't work as
Speaker 1: well for people of color, which is one of the
Speaker 1: many ways tech can turn out to have a bias
Speaker 1: against certain groups. And Google demonstrated a cool technology that
Speaker 1: could create an animation from two different photos of the
Speaker 1: same scene. So let's say you take a picture of
Speaker 1: someone who's standing in a particular pose and they're standing
Speaker 1: in front of like a landmark of some sort, and
Speaker 1: then they make a different pose and you take a
Speaker 1: second photo. With this new feature, Google could create interpretative
Speaker 1: frames between those two photos and create a short animation
Speaker 1: moving from one pose to the other. It's kind of
Speaker 1: creepy in a way because Google is literally creating new
Speaker 1: images based off the input of the two reference frames
Speaker 1: and then joining them together. So it's creepy and cool
Speaker 1: at the same time, kinda like most of my friends.
Speaker 1: And Google showed off updates two maps which will now
Speaker 1: include more relevant information as you move through areas. For example,
Speaker 1: the new maps will show you restaurants that happened to
Speaker 1: be open as you pass through town, so you're not
Speaker 1: getting a notification about, you know, Billy Bob's Best b
Speaker 1: b Q when Billy Bob's happens to be closed. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't do you much good, and maps will alert you
Speaker 1: when areas are getting busy and help you plan routes better.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's best to stay at the office for another
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and that will end up saving you forty
Speaker 1: five minutes of sitting in traffic, for example. And there
Speaker 1: are some cool a R features in Google Maps that
Speaker 1: they showed off, like virtual signs that can pop up
Speaker 1: in your view that tell you where certain landmarks are
Speaker 1: in relation to where you are. Oh and they will
Speaker 1: also help drivers pick the most eco friendly routes, routes
Speaker 1: that will have fewer stops and starts to them, or
Speaker 1: fewer locations where you know you might have to break
Speaker 1: suddenly or drive up a steep hill, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a neat feature. So it may not be the
Speaker 1: fastest route to your destination, but it would be at least,
Speaker 1: in theory, a route that would generate fewer carbon emissions
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the drive, which sounds kind
Speaker 1: of chill to me. Oh and if you have a
Speaker 1: BM double you you might be able to unlock and
Speaker 1: start your car using your phone as a digital key.
Speaker 1: Android twelve will support digital key operations over u w
Speaker 1: B and NFC protocols. But so far, BMW is the
Speaker 1: only automaker confirmed to offer compatible car models with this technology.
Speaker 1: It is another example of how smart devices are replacing
Speaker 1: various other things we typically use, from payments to car keys.
Speaker 1: But in non Google news, the cryptocurrency world has seen
Speaker 1: a dramatic drop in value over the last two weeks.
Speaker 1: Since May twelve, the overall market, which includes cryptocurrencies like
Speaker 1: Bitcoin and ethereum, as well as doge coin, the joke
Speaker 1: that really got out of hand, and numerous others, the
Speaker 1: market has dropped in value to the tune around eight
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars as I record this. Many cryptocurrencies are
Speaker 1: experiencing a brief climate value as I record this episode,
Speaker 1: So it could be that we just saw ma of
Speaker 1: drop and now the market is recovering. Or it could
Speaker 1: be that what I'm seeing is just a blip and
Speaker 1: we're going to have a bear market in which valuation
Speaker 1: will continue to drop further. No one is really sure,
Speaker 1: and the big part of that is that the value
Speaker 1: of many of these currencies largely depends on whether people
Speaker 1: are buying into them or selling them off. Buying cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: decreases the supply, at least for most cryptocurrencies, which in turn,
Speaker 1: you know, drives up the value of the remaining cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: that are in circulation. Selling off cryptocurrencies to convert them
Speaker 1: into cash, that increases the supply and thus the value decreases.
Speaker 1: Now it's a bit more complicated than that, but those
Speaker 1: are the basics. So does this mean you should rush
Speaker 1: in and buy up cryptocurrencies while they are still relatively
Speaker 1: low or at least, you know, lower than they were
Speaker 1: two weeks ago. I have no idea. We might see
Speaker 1: the market plunge again. Heck, this could be the big
Speaker 1: getting of a relatively long bear market where values dropped
Speaker 1: week after week before they recover. Or we might already
Speaker 1: be in another upswing. It's really hard to tell, and
Speaker 1: chances are anyone who is giving you hard and firm
Speaker 1: advice has a vested interest in the outcome. So if
Speaker 1: someone you know is stressing that, hey, now is the
Speaker 1: time to buy, a good follow up question for that
Speaker 1: person is how much money do you have wrapped up
Speaker 1: in cryptocurrency? Because it could be that the person telling
Speaker 1: you to buy is desperate to see those values go
Speaker 1: up so that they can recapture some of the wealth
Speaker 1: they had been accumulating prior to the market downturn. Just
Speaker 1: be careful, is all I'm saying. I mentioned in the
Speaker 1: Google Stories about how Google's photo app is getting tweaks
Speaker 1: to address negative biases and the app has with regard
Speaker 1: to people of color. Twitter is doing something similar. Twitter
Speaker 1: had been using a tool to auto crop photos, using
Speaker 1: I to identify the subject of a photograph and then
Speaker 1: to crop the image so that it would better fit
Speaker 1: within Twitter feeds, particularly on mobile devices. But in use
Speaker 1: it was shown to work best with pictures of white people,
Speaker 1: and it would crop those images fairly effectively, but it
Speaker 1: worked much less well for people who weren't white. Not great,
Speaker 1: So now Twitter is abandoning the auto crop feature. The
Speaker 1: company tested the algorithm for gender and race biases and
Speaker 1: concluded that in fact, the algorithm does have problems. Now
Speaker 1: Twitter's mobile app will show full images in the Twitter
Speaker 1: feed and will only crop photos if the pictures are
Speaker 1: just too tall or too wide to fit on screen,
Speaker 1: and then only doing that in a pretty standard way
Speaker 1: as opposed to trying to auto identify the subject of
Speaker 1: the photo. Once again we see how bias can work
Speaker 1: its way into code, even unintentionally, and I think Twitter
Speaker 1: made the right move here. Perhaps in the future the
Speaker 1: company will have an improved auto cropping tool that won't
Speaker 1: show the same tendencies towards bias, But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's better to have nothing than to have a tool
Speaker 1: that works really well for one demographic and not so
Speaker 1: well for all the others. Finally, byte Dance, the parent
Speaker 1: company that owns TikTok, has announced a change in leadership
Speaker 1: that I find interesting and fairly refreshing. Co founder jeng
Speaker 1: Yi Ming says he will step down as CEO to
Speaker 1: take on some other role in the company. So in
Speaker 1: a message to employees, he explained that he felt his
Speaker 1: strengths were in areas outside of managing people, including ideation
Speaker 1: and data analysis and that kind of thing. He also
Speaker 1: said he's not a very social person and that he
Speaker 1: felt that byte Dance needed a leader who would be
Speaker 1: able to take the company to new places. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, he was saying, I might have been the
Speaker 1: right person to get things moving to where they are,
Speaker 1: but I'm not the right person to evolve the company
Speaker 1: from here. Co founder Liang Rubo will take over as
Speaker 1: ce oh, and I've seen this sort of thing happen
Speaker 1: with a few companies here in the States. There are
Speaker 1: some entrepreneurs who absolutely love the experience of launching a
Speaker 1: new company and then having it grow to a certain point,
Speaker 1: but beyond that they tend to lose interest. Their strengths
Speaker 1: lie in those early phases of getting a company off
Speaker 1: the ground and establishing a presence. But once these companies
Speaker 1: reach a certain scale, the entrepreneurs find it less interesting
Speaker 1: or outside of their wheelhouse of skills, and so they
Speaker 1: look for ways to move into other roles. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a healthy thing. Not everyone is made to
Speaker 1: grow into these leadership positions while the company itself is
Speaker 1: also scaling up, and a transparent transition of leadership tends
Speaker 1: to be a sign of a healthy company as opposed
Speaker 1: to some of the revolving door situations we've seen with
Speaker 1: companies in the past. Analysts don't expect this change in
Speaker 1: leadership to have massive consequences for daily operations of either
Speaker 1: Byte Dance or TikTok. And that's it. That's the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, May one. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: are well. If you have any suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in tech stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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