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: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? It's time for the tech news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: June twentieth, twenty twenty three, Time dot Com has an
Speaker 1: article by Billy Perigo titled exclusive open ai lobbied the
Speaker 1: EU to water down AI regulation and I think that
Speaker 1: article is worth a read. Now, it's not exactly surprising,
Speaker 1: because if you've been following the news, open AI's CEO
Speaker 1: Sam Altman has been proactive in engaging with politicians around
Speaker 1: the world, ostensibly to help create sensible regulations for the
Speaker 1: burgeoning AI industry. But, as it turns out, and again
Speaker 1: this is not really a surprise, Altman's work has mostly
Speaker 1: focused on how to create regulations that have a minimal
Speaker 1: impact on open AI's business. In other words, I think
Speaker 1: Altman recognized that regulations are unavoidable, so the next best
Speaker 1: thing is to have a hand in creating those regulations
Speaker 1: so that open ai can still pursue business with as
Speaker 1: few barriers in its way as possible. Now, you might
Speaker 1: remember that the EU created different designations for AI, ranging
Speaker 1: from minimal risk or no risk at all all the
Speaker 1: way up to unacceptable risk. Anything that's deemed an unacceptable
Speaker 1: risk would be unlawful into EU. Again, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Unacceptable suggests that right. Anyway, the original draft of EU's
Speaker 1: regulations would possibly put generative AI products like open AI's
Speaker 1: GPT three language model and chat GPT the chat pot
Speaker 1: into the high ra category at least for specific applications,
Speaker 1: and high risk is the rank just below unacceptable, and
Speaker 1: it would have meant that open ai would have to
Speaker 1: adhere to more strict regulations and rules. But last year
Speaker 1: open Ai sent a seven page white paper to the
Speaker 1: EU and also lobbied extensively to have the rules tweaked
Speaker 1: so that open AI's products don't count toward high risk applications. Instead,
Speaker 1: open ai and a few other large established companies would
Speaker 1: have products that would be kind of classified as foundation,
Speaker 1: you know, like these are the pillars of AI than
Speaker 1: they are above reproach. Which that's me being a little snarky,
Speaker 1: but because we've seen multiple times now how chatbots like
Speaker 1: chat GPT can cause real problems. Anyway, the lobbying actually worked.
Speaker 1: The amended regulation language carves out space for open ai
Speaker 1: and some other companies like at. Critics say that open
Speaker 1: ai has essentially neutered the legislation and that the company
Speaker 1: is being a bit two faced, that it's calling for
Speaker 1: regulation on the one hand and secretly negotiating for a
Speaker 1: favorable deal in the background. On a related note, tech
Speaker 1: Crunch's Ingrid London reports that a consumer group called the
Speaker 1: European Consumer Organization aka BUC. That initialism reflects the original
Speaker 1: French name of the organization, which no, I am not
Speaker 1: going to attempt to say, because I you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like I get enough abuse already. Anyway, the BUC
Speaker 1: is calling upon European Union regulators to actively investigate what
Speaker 1: risks Generative Ai actually poses to EU citizens, and y'all,
Speaker 1: I think that sounds perfectly reasonable. I mean, as it stands,
Speaker 1: the appearance is that lawmakers are relying heavily on companies
Speaker 1: like open ai, saying that they pinky promise not to
Speaker 1: do anything harmful and that their tools have appropriate protections
Speaker 1: in place already, so there's no need for further regulation.
Speaker 1: But a thorough investigation could put those claims to the
Speaker 1: test and then either confirm that those claims are true
Speaker 1: or prove them to be meritless. I think either way,
Speaker 1: you need to have that understanding before you actually start
Speaker 1: to create regulations. The BUC also submitted a report titled
Speaker 1: Ghost in the Machine addressing the consumer harms of generative AI,
Speaker 1: and as the name of the report spells out, the
Speaker 1: buc's position is pretty clear, generative AI does represent potential
Speaker 1: harm to citizens. Now, interestingly, the report is mostly about
Speaker 1: stuff like ensuring fair competition in the marketplace and limiting
Speaker 1: the spread of disinformation and ensuring accessibility. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's an alarm report. Right, This isn't
Speaker 1: a paper that's saying AI is going to destroy us
Speaker 1: all it's going to end too in a post apocalyptic scenario.
Speaker 1: That's not what this report says. So it's not that
Speaker 1: sort of inflammatory language that we frequently find in the
Speaker 1: media and in some reports here in the United States.
Speaker 1: So it's really more about how AI could potentially create
Speaker 1: problems for citizens and thus needs to be investigated more
Speaker 1: thoroughly before the EU passes actual regulations, Like how can
Speaker 1: you regulate something if you don't fully understand what it
Speaker 1: may or may not be able to do? And I
Speaker 1: think that's a pretty reasonable conclusion, particularly since it's not
Speaker 1: unusual to see leaders struggle with the implications of technologies
Speaker 1: that they don't fully understand or have experience using. Apple
Speaker 1: has joined Google in sending out a message to employees
Speaker 1: saying it's a no no to use AI chatbots like chat,
Speaker 1: GPT and Google Bard for internal company purposes. So Apple
Speaker 1: employees are not to rely on those bots to help
Speaker 1: them do work, whether it might be organized notes into
Speaker 1: a presentation or maybe help a developer build out code.
Speaker 1: So you may recall that Google also told its employees
Speaker 1: the same thing earlier, and that involved the odd situation
Speaker 1: of Google saying, hey, you know that tool that we're
Speaker 1: creating and we're trying to sell to businesses so that
Speaker 1: they can use it for business reasons. Yeah, don't use
Speaker 1: that for our business. It kind of makes me think
Speaker 1: of my aunt who covered all her furniture and plastic
Speaker 1: because it was quote unquote for company that never seemed
Speaker 1: to visit. It wasn't furniture that was meant for sitting
Speaker 1: on anyway. I would point to big companies making these
Speaker 1: sweeping rules as proof that perhaps regulators need to approach
Speaker 1: their work carefully. Because if the big companies are shying
Speaker 1: away from the tech, including the big companies that are
Speaker 1: making the tech in the first place, that should really
Speaker 1: be a red flag. And it's doubly awkward because open
Speaker 1: ai launched an iOS app based version of chat GPT recently,
Speaker 1: and since I've dogged on chat bots for three stories
Speaker 1: in a row, I want to say I don't think
Speaker 1: this technology is inherently bad or that it doesn't serve
Speaker 1: a purpose. I just don't think it has proven to
Speaker 1: be trustworthy, and considering the data harvesting practices of companies,
Speaker 1: I also question whether using it for sensitive business purposes
Speaker 1: or any sensitive purpose for that matter, is a good idea.
Speaker 1: While I can agree with Apple leadership on the whole
Speaker 1: generative AI thing, I do have to call them out
Speaker 1: for continuing to try and trademark the image of an
Speaker 1: actual Apple. And you might be thinking, huh, you know
Speaker 1: apples existed a long time before Apple the company did. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: why would you name the company Apple if there weren't
Speaker 1: apples already? And apples are grown all over the world
Speaker 1: and taking a photo of an Apple shouldn't be a
Speaker 1: big deal, So how could Apple the Company trade mark
Speaker 1: an image of Apple the fruit, and I guess the
Speaker 1: answer to that is they could repeatedly try to do this.
Speaker 1: Mashables Cecily Maron has a piece on this that goes
Speaker 1: over Apple's quest to trademark a black and white image
Speaker 1: of a Granny Smith Apple in various countries, including in Switzerland,
Speaker 1: and Malron points out that if Apple succeeds in doing this,
Speaker 1: the company could conceivably force any other organization that happens
Speaker 1: to have an Apple and its logo to change, which, y'all,
Speaker 1: this just seems outright bizarre to me. It's also only
Speaker 1: slightly tech related, so we're gonna move on now. Last
Speaker 1: week I talked about how thousands of communities on Reddit
Speaker 1: also known as subreddits, had gone dark in protest of
Speaker 1: how Reddit changed its API policy and how those changes
Speaker 1: are effectively forcing developers of several popular Reddit apps to
Speaker 1: shut those apps down. So basically, Reddit has set a
Speaker 1: very high fee for apps that reference the platform a lot,
Speaker 1: and the really popular apps reference Reddit on such a
Speaker 1: scale that the fee would equal several million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: which these developers can't pay, and so the apps have
Speaker 1: gone dark. Well, that protest, which was to last two
Speaker 1: days of these various subredts going dark has now continued
Speaker 1: for at least thousands of subreddit communities. This, in part
Speaker 1: is a response to how Reddit's leadership has chosen to
Speaker 1: respond to the protests, and by that I mean they have.
Speaker 1: The leadership has largely dismissed the protests as being nothing
Speaker 1: more than an inconvenience. Now, a hacker criminal group known
Speaker 1: both as Alpha, but instead of a A at the end,
Speaker 1: it's a V, but it's ALPHV, also known as black Cat,
Speaker 1: is saying that Reddit leadership needs to pay a four
Speaker 1: and a half million dollar ransom fee as well as
Speaker 1: ditch the changes to its API policy, or the group
Speaker 1: is going to release internal data to the tune of
Speaker 1: eighty gigabytes of him. Now, we already know this group
Speaker 1: was successful in breaching company systems because Reddit actually confirmed
Speaker 1: the breach back in February. What black Cat did not do,
Speaker 1: which is what most ransomware groups will do, they did
Speaker 1: not encrypt Reddit's databases. Typically, that's what ransomware groups do, right,
Speaker 1: They lock down databases by encrypting them, and they say,
Speaker 1: we'll give you the decryption key, but first you have
Speaker 1: to pay a ransom. Well, they didn't do that. In
Speaker 1: this case, all they did was they accessed a bunch
Speaker 1: of systems and apparently stole around eighty gigabytes worth of information.
Speaker 1: Now this group is saying, hey, Reddit, pay up and
Speaker 1: change your ways, or else your data goes public. Reddit's
Speaker 1: probably not going to comply with this demand, and you
Speaker 1: could chalk this up to a hacker group taking advantage
Speaker 1: of our recent community flare up to grab some publicity
Speaker 1: for itself, rather than an earnest attempt to blackmail the company.
Speaker 1: The protests on Reddit continue in the meantime, and they've
Speaker 1: taken a rather absurd and mean centric approach, which, considering
Speaker 1: we're talking about Internet culture, is par for the course.
Speaker 1: While more than half of the previously dark subredits have returned,
Speaker 1: the outrage on Reddit has not gone away, and in
Speaker 1: some of those returned subreddits, a particular British comedian and
Speaker 1: TV host has taken a prominent role in the protests,
Speaker 1: and initially did so without his own involvement or consent.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking about John Oliver. Redditors on various subredits
Speaker 1: are flooding pages with photoshopped images of John Oliver, and
Speaker 1: other redditors are upvoting those images, which effectively drowns out
Speaker 1: anything that you know isn't John Oliver and would otherwise
Speaker 1: be relevant to the subreddit community. John Oliver himself approves
Speaker 1: of the move. He even posted along Twitter thread filled
Speaker 1: with selfies of himself to serve as fodder for the
Speaker 1: photoshopped memes. Reddit leaders have allegedly contacted some of the
Speaker 1: more popular subredits that remained dark and threatened to remove
Speaker 1: the moderators of those communities and force those communities to reopen.
Speaker 1: So this protest move seems like it's the next step
Speaker 1: to keep the subreddits from serving a useful purpose. Yes,
Speaker 1: they can reopen, but the users can flood it with
Speaker 1: just garbage in an effort to continue to protest, and
Speaker 1: presumably that would also end up discouraging advertisers from doing
Speaker 1: business with the platform, which ultimately is a pressure point
Speaker 1: that could work on Reddit management. Okay, we've got some
Speaker 1: more tech news to cover, but before we get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. We're back so here in
Speaker 1: the United States, the Senate has reintroduced a bill called
Speaker 1: the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act or PATA PATA. The
Speaker 1: bill was originally drafted in twenty twenty one. Initially, it
Speaker 1: was introduced in twenty twenty two, but didn't for seed
Speaker 1: to getting a vote, and now it's back again. So
Speaker 1: the purpose of this bill is not one that I
Speaker 1: would jump on the way or jump against, I guess
Speaker 1: the way I would with a lot of bills that
Speaker 1: involve the web, because often I see proposed legislation that
Speaker 1: I think is terribly misguided. This one I don't feel
Speaker 1: that way anyway. The purpose of it is to require
Speaker 1: social media companies to be more transparent with their advertising libraries,
Speaker 1: as well as give information on things like their recommendation
Speaker 1: algorithms and how those work. So if you've ever wondered, well,
Speaker 1: how the heck did this particular thing go viral? Like
Speaker 1: it's obviously really really popular, But why did this one
Speaker 1: go viral but this other similar piece of content that
Speaker 1: one just went unnoticed? What's the difference? That's the kind
Speaker 1: of question this bill aims to help answer by requiring
Speaker 1: platforms to divulge how certain types of content get boosts
Speaker 1: from algorithms, and thus that content gets served up to
Speaker 1: more people and has a better chance of going viral. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: just serving that content up to people isn't enough. You
Speaker 1: have to actually get people to engage with the material,
Speaker 1: and that's when true virality happens. But obviously, if more
Speaker 1: people are able to see a particular piece of content,
Speaker 1: especially early early on, then the more likely it is
Speaker 1: to go viral. The bill would also require platforms to
Speaker 1: be transparent about content moderation policies and practices, And on
Speaker 1: top of that, journalists and researchers who use publicly available
Speaker 1: data from these platforms would also receive legal protections which
Speaker 1: would limit their liability as long as they followed specific
Speaker 1: privacy and security requirements. So, in other words, as long
Speaker 1: as you're handling the data properly and you're not allowing
Speaker 1: it to just disseminate without control, then you should be
Speaker 1: protected from legal action based upon whatever your research or
Speaker 1: or journalist investigation uncovers. One element that previously had been
Speaker 1: in the bill has now gone missing. So once upon
Speaker 1: a time, there was a section in this proposed bill
Speaker 1: that would have removed section two thirty protections for platforms
Speaker 1: if they refuse to comply with legal data requests. So,
Speaker 1: if you'll recall, Section two thirty grants platforms online platforms
Speaker 1: legal protections from being held liable for the stuff that
Speaker 1: users post to those platforms. So here's an example. If
Speaker 1: dishonest John posts something illegal to Facebook, it's not Facebook
Speaker 1: that's legally accountable for that material, assuming that Facebook is
Speaker 1: also following the rules and making a reasonable effort to
Speaker 1: remove illegal stuff from its platform when it gets notified
Speaker 1: about it. The earlier version of this bill said that
Speaker 1: platforms could lose Section two thirty protections if they did
Speaker 1: not comply with awful data requests. However, now that's out
Speaker 1: of the bill, so the teeth have been taken out
Speaker 1: of that, which probably is a good thing because there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of attacks on section two thirty,
Speaker 1: some of which I think aren't really you know, relevant,
Speaker 1: and this could have been used as sort of a
Speaker 1: backdoor approach to getting rid of section two thirty. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to argue that section two thirty should never
Speaker 1: go away. Maybe it should, but it needs to be
Speaker 1: done in a way that doesn't involve finding a loophole, right.
Speaker 1: You need to find a way to address that and
Speaker 1: discuss what are the merits, where's it failing if it
Speaker 1: is failing, and how should that be addressed Rather than
Speaker 1: just say, ah, I created a shortcut, so we can
Speaker 1: work away around it anyway. The bill has bipartisan support
Speaker 1: in the Senate, but it still has to go to
Speaker 1: a vote. If it does pass a vote, the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives would then have to discuss it and make
Speaker 1: any changes to the language of the bill they wanted
Speaker 1: and then vote on that. And if that vote passed,
Speaker 1: then it would go back to the Senate and they
Speaker 1: would look at any of the changes and they would
Speaker 1: vote again, and then eventually it would go to the
Speaker 1: President to be signed into law. So there's still a
Speaker 1: long way to go toward making social networks more transparent
Speaker 1: and accountable, and there's no guarantee that it will actually
Speaker 1: become a law, but it's on its way. Also here
Speaker 1: in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission or FCC,
Speaker 1: would really like to know more about data caps, specifically
Speaker 1: why we have data caps. Data caps, of course, being
Speaker 1: a limit to the amount of data you can download
Speaker 1: in a given amount of time. So a lot of
Speaker 1: providers will have a plan in place where you can
Speaker 1: access a certain amount of data, and then once you
Speaker 1: hit that limit, you might be throttled or charged more
Speaker 1: to access more information. On top of that, so the
Speaker 1: FCC is not saying that data caps are unnecessary. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of the FCC asking questions in
Speaker 1: the first place. They're not coming at this with a
Speaker 1: decision already in mind. The agency wants to understand data
Speaker 1: caps both from the perspective of providers as well as consumers.
Speaker 1: So are data caps necessary and if they are, what
Speaker 1: purpose do they serve? Do they have an unfair impact
Speaker 1: on consumers? There's no denying that data consumption rates have
Speaker 1: blown up over the last decade. In fact, the pandemic
Speaker 1: really did a number on data use because millions of
Speaker 1: people were forced to work remotely. So the FCC is
Speaker 1: aiming to understand data cap practices better. Do they serve
Speaker 1: a purpose beyond just driving revenue for providers, Then the
Speaker 1: FCC can make rules to ensure that data caps don't
Speaker 1: prevent accessibility to consumers and that they don't create unf
Speaker 1: market conditions that discourage competition. So it's too early to
Speaker 1: say yay, data caps are on the way out. They
Speaker 1: may not be. There may very well be legitimate purposes
Speaker 1: for them beyond we make money this way, right, So
Speaker 1: we'll see how this unfolds. All right now, let's go
Speaker 1: back over to the European Union. You might remember that
Speaker 1: the EU created rules that will require companies to adopt
Speaker 1: the USBC standard in devices like smartphones and tablets and
Speaker 1: you know, other things like laptops as well, and that
Speaker 1: this decision is forcing companies like Apple to make significant
Speaker 1: changes in order to stay in the European market. Namely,
Speaker 1: Apple would have to either ditch the lightning port entirely
Speaker 1: and switch it out to USBC, or include USBC along
Speaker 1: with lightning ports on its devices, which would obviously add
Speaker 1: bulk to those gadgets. And now the EU Parliament has
Speaker 1: voted to require manufacturers to make it possible to easily
Speaker 1: place batteries on those types of devices for consumers. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you went out and bought yourself
Speaker 1: a smartphone, you as a consumer should be able to
Speaker 1: open up a back little section on that phone, pull
Speaker 1: out a battery and put in a new one. This
Speaker 1: would be huge and a huge change. Being able to
Speaker 1: pop up in your iPhone swap out the battery not
Speaker 1: only can give you extended use, but obviously you can
Speaker 1: replace the battery if your original one no longer holds
Speaker 1: a full charge. With these rules, in place. By necessity,
Speaker 1: companies would have to change the design of gadgets so
Speaker 1: that you could actually access the battery in the first place.
Speaker 1: And again, companies like Apple use a lot of proprietary
Speaker 1: fasteners that require special tools if you want to get
Speaker 1: into an iPhone's guts. Apple has made a lot of
Speaker 1: allowances and has made a lot of concessions to regulators
Speaker 1: by making these tools more readily available to independent repair people,
Speaker 1: but still not something that the average person can easily do.
Speaker 1: And Apple typically isn't keen on just letting anyone be
Speaker 1: able to pop open an Apple device, partly to discourage
Speaker 1: hackers from making Apple products do stuff that they weren't
Speaker 1: intended to do, because Apple has always been about control
Speaker 1: of the experience of using their products. And also it's
Speaker 1: partly or perhaps even mostly in an effort to create
Speaker 1: a closed ecosystem where Apple determines who can access a device,
Speaker 1: and this is a way of generating revenue, right because
Speaker 1: if you prevent just anyone from being able to open
Speaker 1: the device, then they have to go to specific repair
Speaker 1: shops and repair people, and those often end up being
Speaker 1: licensed by Apple, which means that Apple gets money from this,
Speaker 1: and it becomes a way to keep generating revenue by
Speaker 1: preventing just anyone from being able to open it up
Speaker 1: and mess around. Now, this new law goes into effect
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven, which makes sense like it's it's
Speaker 1: there's a reason it's that far out. It has they
Speaker 1: have to give manufacturers time to design products that will
Speaker 1: comply with these rules. And this rule may not be,
Speaker 1: you know, the most wonderful thing in the world for
Speaker 1: all gadget lovers out there, because it may mean that
Speaker 1: we start to see gadgets get a little chonky again,
Speaker 1: because a big reason for preventing people from accessing the
Speaker 1: innerds of these devices is that, forim, factors have become
Speaker 1: so small and so slim that it requires manufacturers to
Speaker 1: design components that cram together in such a way that
Speaker 1: you can't really separate them. Like the battery ends up
Speaker 1: being literally built into the phone, which means it's impossible
Speaker 1: to remove the battery without breaking the phone. So this
Speaker 1: could mean that the smartphones of the future, at least
Speaker 1: in Europe, get a bit more hefty, but the trade
Speaker 1: off would be you'd be able to pop out the
Speaker 1: battery and swap it for a new one anytime you like.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to see how this impacts the design
Speaker 1: of gadgets that are sold in the European Union. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break. When we come back.
Speaker 1: I got about four more stories to cover. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back again. When HDTVs first began to take off
Speaker 1: in the consumer market, you really had two major technologies
Speaker 1: that were in competition. You had LCD screens and you
Speaker 1: had plasma televisions, and each of them had their own
Speaker 1: pros and cons. Plasma televisions were really great with resolution
Speaker 1: and color, especially on mid sized television screens. However, they
Speaker 1: were also not as bright, and they also had the
Speaker 1: possibility of screen burn in, which was another kind of
Speaker 1: negative for plasma screens. They also were more expensive to
Speaker 1: manufacture than LCD screens, and by extension, they were much
Speaker 1: more expensive to purchase for consumers. Those costs got bigger
Speaker 1: as the screens themselves got bigger and they consumed more
Speaker 1: energy than LCDs. So while plasma screens had their fans
Speaker 1: like people who just passionately loved the quality of plasma
Speaker 1: over LCD, by twenty thirteen the plasma had kind of
Speaker 1: faded away. The Phillips stopped making them in twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: and they pretty much died as a result. So while
Speaker 1: LCDs enjoyed a decade more in the spotlight, they are
Speaker 1: now also kind of going off to live on the
Speaker 1: farm and pet the rabbits, if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So technologies like LED and LED or O lead screens
Speaker 1: are dominant, and LCD research and development is yesterday's news.
Speaker 1: According to industry insiders. They're saying, like, yeah, the LCD
Speaker 1: has pretty much gone as far as it can, like
Speaker 1: that technology is sort of maxed out, and thus there's
Speaker 1: no real reason to pour money in R and D,
Speaker 1: and instead you would be researching other technologies. However, I
Speaker 1: don't want to actually say that LCD stuff is literally
Speaker 1: going away, like it's dying off like plasma did. I'm
Speaker 1: having a bit of fun with this, but it's not
Speaker 1: quite to that level. LCD will likely still be part
Speaker 1: of LCD LED TVs. It's just that those televisions are
Speaker 1: going to be the lower end televisions because they'll they'll
Speaker 1: max out in resolution and quality, but they'll still represent
Speaker 1: sort of the bargain end of high definition televisions, and
Speaker 1: that the future of ultra high resolution television really rests
Speaker 1: on the metaphorical shoulders of o LED tech. So thanks
Speaker 1: for all your hard work, LCD. Enjoy your retirement now.
Speaker 1: Today I learned about muons, which I previously believe to
Speaker 1: be the sound that was made by cows. Sorry, it
Speaker 1: was Father's Day this past weekend and in the United
Speaker 1: States here, and I think I've got some residual Dad
Speaker 1: jokes stuck to me. But no, muons are not the
Speaker 1: sound made by cow ons. Mooons are subatomic particles. They
Speaker 1: are similar to electrons, but they weigh a lot more
Speaker 1: than electrons do. And the mooons that visit our little
Speaker 1: planet come from interactions between cosmic rays hitting little particles
Speaker 1: way up in our atmosphere, and thousands of them hit
Speaker 1: every square meter of the Earth every minute. The particles
Speaker 1: themselves zip along at pretty dang incredible speed. They're not
Speaker 1: quite moving at the speed of light. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't really hit speed of light with if you've got mass.
Speaker 1: That's one of the tricky things about the speed of light.
Speaker 1: But they are super duper fast, and they're teeny teeny tiny,
Speaker 1: and they can penetrate solid stuff like the ground by
Speaker 1: a lot like miles. Now, scientists in Japan have created
Speaker 1: Muon detectors that collectively can serve as a kind of
Speaker 1: underground GPS. Researchers at the University of Tokyo showed that
Speaker 1: using Muon detectors, they could calculate a receiver's position in
Speaker 1: the basement of a six story building. So the thought
Speaker 1: is this technology could potentially be used in areas where
Speaker 1: other means of navigation like GPS would be useless because
Speaker 1: signals would not be able to penetrate the correct depth.
Speaker 1: In order to be useful, the tech could be used
Speaker 1: to monitor underground volcanic activity, or to plot a path
Speaker 1: for an unmanned underground vehicle, that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: it would rely on naturally occurring muons. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, thousands of these are hitting every square meter,
Speaker 1: like ten thousand every minute hitting a square meter. So
Speaker 1: the tech really is all about coordinating the efforts of
Speaker 1: various receiving stations for the purposes of mapping and navigation.
Speaker 1: I can't pretend to understand the subtleties of how all
Speaker 1: this works, but I do plan to look into it
Speaker 1: a lot more and do a full episode about it
Speaker 1: in the future. I just don't want to say anything
Speaker 1: else here where, I just end up making an assumption
Speaker 1: that's completely off basin incorrect. So in the meantime, you
Speaker 1: should know that while cowons do not make muons, a
Speaker 1: quark is the sound made by a dirk. Space dot
Speaker 1: Com reports that scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are
Speaker 1: zeroing in on the answer to one of the most
Speaker 1: perplexing questions in cosmic history. Why do we live in
Speaker 1: a universe made of matter instead of antimatter? Now keep
Speaker 1: in mind we humans gave matter and antimatter their names,
Speaker 1: so really you could say, why has our universe made
Speaker 1: up of this stuff rather than this other stuff which
Speaker 1: also existed? So when matter and antimatter encounter one another,
Speaker 1: they annihilate each other. So if there had been equal
Speaker 1: amounts of matter and antimatter created at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the universe, the whole universe should have poofed out of
Speaker 1: existence in a big old explosion of energy and radiation.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, matter one out. Why though, why
Speaker 1: was the creation asymmetrical? Because based on our understanding of
Speaker 1: the standard model of physics, it should have been symmetrical.
Speaker 1: The scientists have been conducting research in this area creating
Speaker 1: antimatter and labs at the Large Hadron Collider and trying
Speaker 1: to get a better understanding of why this imbalance existed
Speaker 1: and what that means with regard to our understanding of
Speaker 1: cosmology and physics in general. It's pretty cool stuff and
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more, I recommend reading the
Speaker 1: article Large Hadron Collider may be closing in on the
Speaker 1: Universe's missing antimatter by Keith Cooper at space dot Com. Finally,
Speaker 1: Suzuki Motor Corporation and SkyDrive, a startup company in Japan
Speaker 1: that's in the flying car biz, jointly announced intentions to
Speaker 1: produce flying cars starting next year like the spring of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. SkyDrive is going to use Suzuki's manufacturing
Speaker 1: facilities to assemble the flying cars. These flying cars look
Speaker 1: a little bit like oversized quad copter drones, except instead
Speaker 1: of having like a quad copter, it's called that because
Speaker 1: you have four sets of rotors, one on the end
Speaker 1: of each arm, So you've got a central unit and
Speaker 1: four arms that go off at in different angles, and
Speaker 1: there's a set of rotors at the end of each one.
Speaker 1: This one would actually have three sets of rotors and
Speaker 1: like a triangular formation at the end of each arm,
Speaker 1: so you'd have twelve sets total instead of just four. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the goal is to have some flying
Speaker 1: cars available in time for the twenty twenty five World Exposition,
Speaker 1: which taking place in Osaka, Japan. As for how they
Speaker 1: would be used, like, what would be the practical purpose
Speaker 1: of these flying cars? Your guess is as good as mine.
Speaker 1: The most frequent suggestion I have seen for flying cars
Speaker 1: is that they might be used to transport people from
Speaker 1: one area to an airport or back from an airport
Speaker 1: to that area, which sounds kind of like a park
Speaker 1: and fly situation. Like based on that description, I think
Speaker 1: you would have to drive to a facility that has
Speaker 1: a landing pad, and then you would board a flying car,
Speaker 1: get whisked away to the airport, and then you would
Speaker 1: go through the joy that is navigating through an airport.
Speaker 1: I remain somewhat skeptical that that's actually a good use
Speaker 1: of technology and resources, but that might be because I
Speaker 1: also live in a city where it's not that hard
Speaker 1: to get to and from the major airport. So maybe
Speaker 1: if I lived in Los Angeles or Manhattan or Tokyo,
Speaker 1: maybe I would feel differently, but as it stands, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that it's a viable business model. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. And that wraps
Speaker 1: up the tech news for Tuesday, June twentieth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. Just ahead up. I
Speaker 1: will be out next week taking a vacation. My plan
Speaker 1: right now is to have some reruns run next week,
Speaker 1: but I'll be back the following week with brand new episodes,
Speaker 1: So just one to make you aware of that heading
Speaker 1: into it. I'll probably mention it again at the end
Speaker 1: of the other episodes this week, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
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