October 27, 2022 • 36 mins
The EU will require Apple to switch to a USB-C port on iPhones starting in late 2024 and the company isn't happy about it. Plus Elon Musk is on the verge of closing his deal for Twitter, the US Department of Justice is reportedly investigating Tesla and gamers might be shocked to learn that physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II have no game on the physical disk.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And
how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
news for Thursday, October twenty, twenty twenty two, and we've
(00:24):
got a ton to get through, So let's start off
with some Apple news. Last week, I talked about how
lawmakers in the EU had approved legislation that will require
all smartphone manufacturers that use a physical charger to adopt
the USBC standard for sales in the European Union, and
(00:46):
that this news particularly affects Apple, as the company has
relied upon its own proprietary technology called Lightning up until now.
Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, has is
confirmed that Apple will comply with the new laws, though
he did not comment on whether or not Apple will
(01:07):
make a global switch to the USBC standard. So it
is possible that the European market will get a us
b C version of the iPhone starting in late and
that the rest of the world we'll stick with iPhones
that have a lightning part. We don't know yet, Josiak
(01:28):
also argued that the lightning technology actually cuts down on
E waste, which is a claim I find dubious at best.
So the claim says that charging bricks, you know, the
actual things that you plug into a wall outlet, they
frequently have ports for both USB and lightning cables, and
so by switching to USBC, folks will have no choice
(01:51):
but to toss all their old lightning cables because those
won't go to anything anymore, which you know, sure, but
I don't know about you. I know that I have
to replace my cables fairly regularly either they get wear
and tear on them. I'm particularly bad about rolling my
office chair over cables that honestly are just too long.
I need to get shorter cables, or more likely I
(02:15):
misplaced them during travel. And then I find that I
need a cable to connect my thing to my other thing,
like my phone to a charging brick or whatever. By
consolidating all that into a single standard, a standard that
works pretty darn well for that matter, then I'm more
likely to have a backup cable than if I need
(02:36):
to keep separate types for all my devices. Yes, there
are different levels of USBC. There are like three amp
and five amp versions, So there are differences, but for
the most part, like you can just swap cables out,
unless you're doing something like trying to power a computer
or a display or something, in which case you need
to make sure you have the five amp version. But otherwise, like,
(03:00):
it's really makes it simple to to swap in and
out of your cables, and I'm all for that kind
of consolidation anyway, Jaws re act, you know, Apple's rep
kind of made it clear that Apple is complying, but
is tots not happy about doing it. At least it's
going to comply in Europe. Here in the United States,
there are a few lawmakers who are considering similar legislation
(03:21):
that would standardize stuff like charging cables. But I am
not particularly optimistic that such legislation will ultimately become law here.
I don't I don't know. I just don't think it's likely.
Maybe we'll see swapping over to Alphabet, which of course
is the company that's the parent company of the stuff
like Google, YouTube, etcetera. It's starting to really tighten its
(03:44):
belt across all of its subsidiaries. Over the course of
the last year, Alphabet had added more than thirty six
thousand new employees to the company, which is a big
old yaalza. That's a lot of hires. But those days
of heavy hiring appeared to be at an end, or
at least to be put on pause. In an investor
called this Week, Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai assured investors that
(04:08):
the company is taking a much more critical look at
projects to determine which ones are really important and to
direct resources to those as well as to make quote
unquote course corrections. And I think this is important for Google.
The company has frequently launched projects that saw like a
lackluster response sometimes because you know, a lot of people
(04:32):
feel like it's a boy who Cried wolf situation that
Google has so frequently pulled the plug on products that
there's a reluctance to get invested in a new one
because you're worried that the company will stop supporting it
within a year or two. That's kind of earned that reputation.
So there really is a need to focus on specific
(04:54):
projects to make sure that those are adding value to
the company. I get that, But the company has also
had to cut way back on a lot of employee
travel and related expenses. At the same time, the advertising
business is taking a pretty big hit that is not
unusual in times of economic crisis or economic distress or recession,
(05:18):
whatever you want to call it. I'll spare you an
actual rant, but just in your head. Insert at this
point in the episode, a rant where I yell about
the fact that avoiding naming something like the reluctance to
name whatever economic situation we're in, does not at all
(05:38):
change the nature of that situation. It's still bad even
if we refuse to name it something specific. Anyway. All
this means that Alphabet's chief source of revenue the advertising business.
That's where I remind you Google is not really a
search company. It's an advertising company anyway, that's taken a
big hit. It also means that other entities that depend
(06:01):
upon ad revenue are hurting, So that would include folks
like YouTube creators, for example. So this is a pretty
big ripple effect. The Chi's call with investors does not
signal like a massive catastrophe or anything like that, but
you could say that this is another kind of red
flag that we're in a period where tech companies in particular,
and the people looking for work within the tech industry
(06:24):
are encountering some pretty tough challenges. Okay, let's switch over
to our favorite punching bag that is Meta Yesterday. Yesterday
being Wednesday, October twenty two for any of y'all from
the future who are listening back on old tech news
episodes for some reason. Anyway, yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and his
(06:46):
team held an earnings call that delivered some bad news
to investors, who have more than responded in kind, as
we will soon learn. So in that call, we learned
that Meta's revenue dropped four percent compared to this time
last year, that net income was down a whopping fifty
two from this time last year, and that spending is
(07:07):
up by nine So Meta is bringing in less money overall.
That would be the revenue bit. It's bringing in way
less of what we will generously refer to as profit.
That would be the income bit. That's the drop off
from a year ago. And this is all following on
the heels of other bad news like the fact that
(07:28):
EU regulators have forced Meta to divest itself of Giffee,
the animated gift platform it had purchased in twenty So
that's something that the company is going to have to
do in the near future, and considering that there's also
this growing skepticism around the concept of the metaverse, and
that Mark Zuckerberg appears fully dedicated to pursuing his version,
(07:51):
version his vision, I guess I could say of the metaverse,
it has some folks, like some investors, extremely displeased with
the company direction. This lack of confidence in in Meta
and Meta strategy is reflected in the company's stock price,
which dropped nearly twenty percent and after hours trading following
(08:12):
this earnings call. That drop in stock price meant that
Meta saw a rapid loss of around sixty five billion
dollars in its market capitalization. Market Cap is essentially the
what you get when you take the value of a
share of stock in a company multiplied by the numbers
of shares of that stock, and then it gives a
(08:34):
kind of general indication of the company's value. Right you
take like, if if you've got ten dollar stock and
there are ten shares out there, you multiplied ten by ten,
you get a hundred. That's how much market cap your
little your little approach has. So Meta saw a drop
of sixty billion dollars in its market cap because of
(08:54):
that stock price drop. By the way, that doesn't have
any real direct impact on how much cash the company
may or may not have on hand at that moment.
They can have an impact on a company if it
wants to, you know, borrow money or whatever for an acquisition,
then the market cap change can make a big difference.
But it's really just to show that there's this drop
(09:16):
in confidence in Meta in general. Zuckerberg said on the
call that if Meta wasn't pursuing the development of a metaverse,
it might be the case that no one else would
have stepped up and no work would be done on it.
And to that, I say, okay, so what. But you know,
that's because I remain really skeptical that a metaverse approach
(09:39):
is really the future of connectivity, commerce, entertainment, etcetera. I mean,
maybe it is. Maybe that is the future, and and
I'm just incapable of seeing it. Maybe I am being
obstinate in my reluctance to buy into the metaverse vision,
but it just it just seems unrealistic to me because
(10:03):
of a lot of different factors. And I think a
lot of investors feel in a similar way. Right They
also feel feel uncertain. They certainly see how the metaverse
project is requiring enormous UH costs in Meta, and that
this is in fact impacting the company's performance. Maybe we're
(10:26):
all wrong. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is right on the money.
That is possible. But whether we're right, or Zuckerberg's right,
or there's no one who's right, Zuckerberg has indicated that
we're likely to see future quarters with similar tough results
moving forward, that Meta remains committed to this metaverse pursuit
(10:47):
and will continue to spend money and perhaps in increasing quantities,
in an effort to see it to fruition. Meanwhile, companies
like TikTok continue to attract the younger users that Meta
desperately wants to hook into its own ecosystem. So it
may be that Meta's future is really just meant for
a group of folks who are steadily aging out of
(11:08):
the platform with no replenishment in sight. Okay, we've got
a lot more tech news to go through, including some
more from Meta, but first let's take this quick break.
We're back. The Association for Computer Machineries Journal published a
(11:31):
study that has some disturbing findings, namely that Facebook ads
appear to target people not just on their interests, and
their likes and their dislikes, and their browsing activity, and
sometimes their app activity, unless it's an Apple iPhone, in
which case I got kind of eliminated once Apple gave
users the option to opt out of that, but also
(11:53):
on things like their race, their gender, and their age,
even if the user isn't sharing that info with the
platform itself. The study says that Facebook is using image
recognition software to draw conclusions about users and then serve
up ads based on those conclusions. For example, the study
found that white users were far less likely to encounter
ads that feature black people in them. The researchers actually
(12:16):
created ads for job listings to post on Facebook, and
these job listings featured AI generated images of people. Some
of the ads had white people in them, some had
black people in them, and by tracking the ads, the
research group saw that black users made up of the
audience that saw ads that had black people in them.
(12:37):
With ads that had white people in them, black users
made up fifty of that audience. Ads with teenage girls
featured in them went on to an audience that was
fifty seven percent mail, and many of them over the
age of fifty five, which creepy I mean, that's not
a good look for a platform that's often associated with
an aging user base. If it was an AD that
(13:00):
featured an older woman inside the image, well, the audience
for those ads ended up being women. So the researchers
indicate that for some uses, this kind of targeting might
feel like like it's a little suss, but it's not
necessarily a bad thing. I mean, let's face it, you
are more likely to respond to an AD if the
(13:21):
person or person's appearing in the ad kind of look
like you do right, like you. There's just this this tendency.
You know, we want to see ourselves reflected in the
things that we see. But when it comes to stuff
like job listings and housing and education, the targeting can
reinforce social problems. In fact, Facebook has been in trouble
(13:44):
for that in the past. Back in there was a
massive lawsuit that focused on this. Also, you know, we're
looking at a system that's using machine learning and AI
and machine learning by relying upon strategies that worked in
the past, could end up perpetuating discriminatory practices that disproportionately
hurt certain populations, namely people of color. The study also
(14:07):
indicates that Facebook's approach could be antithetical to the desires
of their clients, like the companies that are actually paying
for the ads, because a lot of these companies want
to project an image that values diversity. But if the
diversity reflected in the ads means that those ads aren't
being shown to all populations, that might mean that the
(14:28):
ad isn't getting the effect that the base company wanted
in the first place. Now, Meta reps say that Meta
is dedicated to preventing discrimination on its platforms and that
the company continues to develop its technologies with that goal
in mind. Further, we should be hearing more about Meta's
pushes to to fix these kinds of problems in the
(14:50):
months ahead. But this is a good example of how
machine learning and how AI can have a bias built
into it, and how that bias can have a negative impact.
Now that's not to say that all biases necessarily bad
or that all bias has to be avoided, but there
are definite areas where you could say, yeah, this is
a problem, and this kind of constitutes that and some
(15:13):
more Meta bad news. In Washington State here in the
United States, a judge has issued a twenty four point
seven million dollar fine for failing to comply with a
state campaign finance disclosure law. So the court found Facebook
guilty of violating the state's Fair Campaign Practices Act more
than eight hundred times eight hundred twenty two times in fact,
(15:37):
and this is not the first time this has happened.
The company came up for the same sort of problem
back in two thousand eighteen. So that law says that
any platform that airs or displays political advertising has to
maintain a publicly accessible database of who purchased the ads,
(15:58):
including their names and addresses. Plus the information has to
include whom the ads were targeting, how many views the
ads received, how the ads were paid for, and that
kind of stuff. So anyone who asks for this information
has the right to it, and the platforms are compelled
by law to comply and hand over that precious information.
(16:23):
But Facebook has declined to acquiesce to that request for
quite some time, has not followed the rules according to
the the case, and it has argued that the law
quote burdens political speech end quote. Though that's kind of
a tough thing to argue considering that, you know, platforms
like television, radio, and newspapers have all been complying with
(16:44):
this law since it was passed in nine two. So
I'm not sure that that's a really valid argument. Uh,
there's no doubt that Facebook has access to the information
that's required. The company has just repeatedly failed to hand
that information over. The law allow the judge to find
an entity up to ten thousand dollars per violation. And
as I said, there were eight hundred twenty two violations,
(17:06):
And you might say, huh, e d two times ten
thousand does not equal twenty four point seven million dollars.
That's that's way more than what you should expect. Well,
that same law also allows a judge to triple the
penalty per violation if the judge determines that the violations
were intentional in nature. And since Facebook went through this
(17:29):
same process back in two thousand eighteen, it's kind of
hard to argue that the company wasn't intentionally violating that law.
Thus we get the twenty four point seven million dollar
fine that might be the largest campaign finance penalty ever
issued here in the United States. Of course, compared to
Facebook's revenues, which even in the downturn it's experiencing right now,
(17:51):
or you know, measured in the billions of dollars. This
is small change, but then no company really wants to
just hand over twenty five million bucks, so it's not
exactly a slap on the wrist either. It's you know,
literally the largest penalty that the judge was allowed to
pass by law. Now let's hop on over to Twitter
to find out what's going on with Elon Musk's on again,
(18:13):
off again, on again again acquisition deal. So as it stands,
Musk has until the close of business tomorrow, Friday, October
to finalize his acquisition of Twitter. If you recall, Musk
initially agreed to buy Twitter at fifty four dollars twenty
cents per share back in the spring of this year.
(18:35):
Right now, that's actually just a hair over what Twitter
is currently trading at. Like when I went to record,
Twitter is trading at just under fifty four dollars per share,
so it's really close to what that deal was proposed at.
I suspect that the current share price reflects people anticipating
that this deal is going to go through by the
(18:56):
end of tomorrow, So even a small gain is a game.
So I think that has driven up interest in the stock,
and thus we see it really close to what Musk
was um agreeing to buy it for. Of course, Musk
famously attempted to back out of the deal, which then
prompted a court case to force Musk to go through
(19:18):
with the deal. Twitter brought that against Musk. Uh That
court case is currently on hold unless the deal does
not complete by the end of day tomorrow, in which
case the case is back on. So Musk himself arrived
at Twitter HQ yesterday. On Wednesday, he carried a bathroom
sink as a kind of publicity stunt. Uh. I'm not
(19:39):
sure what the message was, because typically we talked about
kitchen sink deals, not bathroom sinc ones. According to Gizmoto,
Musk said it was a visual pun on let that
sink in. But you know, I don't know. Maybe he's
just very particular about where he washes his hands. I
don't know. Anyway. Musk also published an open letter to
(20:01):
Twitter employees to address some fears and concerns people have
had about this acquisition. For example, he denied that he
plans to eliminate up to the workforce at the company.
That was something that had been reported in the past
by The Washington Post. Uh, there is an indication that
he expects there to be some downsizing, and in fact
(20:22):
had received previous advice from Jason callicannacas out of old
people to require people to come into the office, because
that's going to weed people out, like people will self
select for leaving the company. But then that tends to
be like your best people too, So that's not the
(20:42):
best advice I've ever heard, But you know, it's it's
very possible that Busk will attempt to downsize Twitter simply
by being unpleasant, something that I am told he has
a modicum of experience at doing. Anyway, Moscostle said has
no intention to allow Twitter to become a quote free
(21:03):
for all hell scape where anything can be said with
no consequences end quote. That also conflicts a little bit
earlier with reports that must believe Twitter should be kind
of an unfettered platform for free speech. But to be fair,
Musk has pretty much always maintained that this should actually
fall within the legal parameters of the various countries within
(21:23):
which Twitter operates. So, in other words, you can't say
absolutely anything if the country where you are operating has
limits on free speech, like you have to you have
to operate within the boundaries of the law. Uh, he
has at least made that concession. He has also indicated
that he intends for Twitter to ease off on content moderation,
(21:45):
which could allow for even more misinformation to proliferate across
the platform, and that he would reverse the permanent bands
of several prominent accounts, most notably that of Donald Trump,
who has seen his own truth social platform struggle to
find significant traction. Anyway, we'll have to wait until tomorrow
to see if the deal actually does go through for real,
(22:06):
which I mean, I'm there's like a seventy chance in
my mind that's going to happen, or if Musk will
pull some other maneuver in an attempt to get out
of the deal. I'm not sure that there is an
exit strategy that wouldn't also put the court case back
on track to continue. So I think there's a more
than decent chance that by the end of tomorrow, Twitter
(22:27):
will be a privately held company owned by Elon Musk.
CNBC another outlets report that Tesla, another Elon Musk company,
is currently under investigation by the U. S Department of Justice.
This is with regards to Tesla's driver assist systems, and
whether or not the company misled consumers with exaggerated claims
(22:48):
about those systems and their capabilities, namely that they essentially
constituted self driving. Now, at the very least, there appears
to be two distinct storylines coming out of Tesla. So
on the marketing side, the company seems to indicate that
Tesla vehicles, when they're in full self driving mode, are
(23:12):
you know, to any practical consideration, an autonomous vehicle. They
don't go quite that far to say it, but one
video on Tesla's site that shows a man inside a
Tesla vehicle goes on to say, quote, the person in
the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He
is not doing anything. The car is driving itself end quote.
(23:35):
That is not the same thing as saying this car
is autonomous, but it does seem to imply, Hey, the
system can take full control of your vehicle safely and
you can just sit back and relax. However, during actual operation,
Tesla has messages that tell drivers they are required to
keep their hands on the wheel even when using the
driver assist features, and further the website. On Tesla's page,
(24:00):
it actually says the systems quote do not make the
vehicle autonomous end quote. So it does say on the
web page, this doesn't make this an autonomous vehicle, even
while they also show videos where they say the only
reason we have a driver in the the driver's seat
is for legal reasons. So it does sound a lot
(24:20):
like double speak, right, like the cars aren't autonomous, but
you know they can drive themselves anyway. Tesla's have been
involved in numerous high profile accidents, some of them involving fatalities,
So the d o J is investigating the company, presumably
to see if there are any criminal implications here. It's
possible that Tesla's seemingly contradictory messages may keep the company
(24:44):
legally safe in that Tesla's lawyers can truthfully point out
that Tesla has denied that its vehicles are autonomous. This
is not the only legal investigation into Tesla by any means,
and it might be a while before we hear any
potential judicial action against the company, if in fact any
any are pending. Okay, we've got some more news stories
(25:09):
to get through before we get to that. Let's take
another quick break. We're back from break. We still have
one more you know, tangentially Elon Musk related story because
we're gonna talk about SpaceX and specifically Starlink. So earlier
(25:30):
this year, Starlink, which is the satellite Internet service provider
arm of SpaceX, offered up a service for RV owners,
and r V owners would pay a hundred thirty five
bucks per month for Internet access through Starlink. However, it
would only work for r vs that were stationary that
were parked. In other words, However, later this year, in December,
(25:53):
starlink is going to offer a plan that will allow
RV owners to access the Internet even while driving the
r V. Now, to do so will require the installation
of a new kind of satellite dish, one that comes
with a hefty two thousand five fee. If you were
just getting the standard stationary access system in your r V,
that one costs to install. So it's a pretty hefty upgrade.
(26:18):
You know, it's almost two thousand dollars more expensive. The
monthly cost for access will still be a hundred thirty
five dollar subscription fee. Starlink has recently been targeting use
cases for moving vehicles for private planes to ships at sea,
and we can now add r vs on the road
to that list. Earlier today, hackers got access to the
(26:41):
New York Post's website and Twitter feed and use that
access to publish some really awful headlines, mostly targeting specific politicians.
Those headlines included racist, misogynists, and other disgusting language. The
Post regained control of its accounts not too long after
they had been seized, and was able to remove the
(27:03):
offending material. This marks the second time during the current
election season here in the United States that a publication
found itself hacked. Fast Company was a target of such
a hack in late September actually took its websites down
for a full week to deal with that. Both Fast
Company and The New York Post rely upon WordPress as
(27:24):
a content management system, but as of this recording, there's
been no further information about how the hackers got access
to the New York Post website. Anyway, it's yet another
fun example of how political events can drive terrible things
in technology. Sigh. This past August, US House Speaker Nancy
(27:44):
Pelosi visited Taiwan to meet with Morris Cheng, the founder
of semiconductor company t s MC. And you might remember
that t SMC is responsible for the production of much
of the chips we rely upon in our electronics and
most of the higher end chips. The US has recently
passed legislation aimed at bootstrapping the semiconductor industry here in
(28:06):
the United States, and so it aims to shift some
of the dependence on Taiwan to US based facilities. And now,
the Financial Times in Taiwan reports that during the visit
back in August, Cheng told Pelosi that the United States
efforts are quote doomed to fail end quote. Now that
might be the case, but there are some other factors
(28:29):
that may have influenced Chang when he made such a proclamation,
assuming that the reporting is accurate. For example, Taiwan currently
enjoys a not entirely stable independence from mainland China, and
the Western world's reliance on semiconductors means that countries like
the United States have a vested interest in keeping Taiwan
(28:51):
free from Chinese interference. Therefore, if China were to make
any kind of aggressive moves towards Taiwan, that would likely
pull the US into what could become a dangerous conflict.
So it's the threat of the US is involvement that
keeps Taiwan temporarily safe. But if the West were to
(29:11):
reduce its reliance on Taiwan when it comes to semi conductors,
then this silicon shield around Taiwan will weaken. Therefore, Jang
has an existential motivation to dismiss the US's efforts to
become independent with semi conductors. Now that doesn't mean he's wrong.
He might be right. We're very early in the United
(29:34):
States effort to revitalize the semiconductor industry here in the States,
and it could turn into a total fiasco. It is
sure to have some bumpy spots along the road. That's
just the nature of reality. We just don't know where
that road ultimately is going to lead. We know the
intended destination is greater independence when it comes to producing semiconductors. Now,
(29:57):
considering Taiwan situation, I think it's safe to say we
cannot assume Chang's projections on the matter are free from bias.
They're certainly not free from personal interest. Well, it's almost Halloween,
so how about some terrifying news. A video from the
official Kestral Defense page on the Chinese micro blogging site
way Bow shows a large drone dropping off a four
(30:21):
legged robot similar to the kinds of robots you've seen
from Boston Dynamics, only this robot also happens to have
a machine gun. Ho ho ho, Sorry I'm mixing up
my holidays here. Anyway, the video demonstrates that this technology
is ready to go, at least according to the defense
(30:42):
company behind it. The robot and the gun would be
under human control, so this would be a remotely controlled robot,
not an autonomous one. You would have an operator capable
of maneuvering the robot and firing its weapon. And this
tech could potentially be used in battlefield situations where you
want to draw off robotic soldiers, say behind enemy lines
(31:04):
to attack in a different direction, or you know, in
other locations that are all intended to put pressure on
the enemy on multiple fronts. This is exactly the kind
of use the companies like Boston Dynamics recently pledged they
would not pursue the weaponization of robotic platforms. Of course,
the U. S Military is certainly hard at work of
(31:24):
building these kinds of things itself, So this is something
that looks like it's going to be on the horizon
no matter what. And yes, this is terrifying because there's
really a worry that robotic forces are going to reduce
barriers that countries face before they engage at armed conflict. Right,
it might remove certain concerns and make it more likely
(31:47):
that will see more war. It's a lot easier to
sell your invasion to your population if that population isn't,
you know, seeing its own soldiers being put in harm's way.
See also Russia. There's also an additional fear that we
could see future technologies progress toward automation for navigation and combat.
That's something that's particularly scary when you keep in mind
(32:09):
that computer vision is by no means incapable of making mistakes.
So not only is it already scary to think of
a robot with a gun, it's even scarier to think
it's a robot with a gun that might think that
you're not on its side. Not great. Recently, in Video
unveiled its forty series of graphics cards, the new flagship
cards that set the company's standard for performance, but problems
(32:33):
have already popped up with the r t X from
Nvidio itself, as there have been a few reports of
users discovering that a sixteen pen adapter used to connect
the card to the computer's power supply can overheat, which
can cause the adapter to melt or even catch fire.
Now IGOR Labs has released an article that reveals that
(32:54):
these adapters were poorly made in the first place, with
substandard soldering that can lead to these issues. Igor Labs
has alerted in Video to the problem, which was likely
caused when the company relied on an assembly partner that
took some shortcuts. Gamers who are eager to get in
Video's new chips may want to hold off. There is
(33:14):
the distinct possibility that in Video will hold a recall
and and correct this issue before sending out new cards,
so it might be better to just wait, or you
might want to wait for a third party manufacturers to
offer their own forty cards because in Video's business strategy
is not just to manufacture the cards itself, but it
(33:34):
also licenses the design and the tech out to other manufacturers,
and if those manufacturers actually replace the adapter that in
Vidia includes in its kits, then it might solve the
problem as well, and thus you could end up with
a graphics card that is safer than the official in
Video version. I do think we're probably going to see
(33:57):
a recall and replacement process before long. But as of
the time I'm recording this, that has not yet been announced.
Gamers who have been anticipating the release of Call of
Duty Modern Warfare two and who got their hands on
a physical copy of the game might be shocked to
learn that there's no game on that physical disc. In fact,
according to euro Gamer, there's just seventy two megabytes of
(34:20):
data on those discs. Now, the game, it turns out,
is closer to thirty five gigabytes in size on the
PS five that can actually balloon up to one fifty
gigs once you install a Day one patch and you
have all the packs for the game installed. So seventy
two megabytes a hundred and fifty gigabytes is a huge gap.
(34:42):
What has going on, Well, it looks like the physical
disc really just directs machines to download the digital copy anyway.
So yes, you'll get a physical disc. That disc will
have like the logo and the art and all that
kind of stuff, but there's no game on the disc
and all it will do is direct you toward a
massive digital download. So if you live somewhere that has
(35:04):
lousy internet connectivity, or maybe your data plan has a
data cap to it, you might be shocked to learn
that your physical copy doesn't actually, you know, let you
experience the game. You still have to go through the
same steps that you would have had to go through
if you just purchased it digitally in the first place.
And that leads to the question why even have a
physical option that this is going to be the way
(35:26):
it works. That reminds me of a time when you
could find box copies of computer games and inside was
just a code where you could download the digital copy.
And I guess you bought the box so that you
would have something to put up on a shelf. I
mean maybe for collectors, but I don't know. It's it
hits me the wrong way to have a disc for
(35:48):
a game and the game is not on the disk.
That just bugs me. Anyway. That's it for today's news
episode of text Stuff. Hope you are all well. If
you have suggestions or any questions or anything like that,
you want to get in touch with me, there are
a couple of ways of doing that. One is to
download the I Heart radio app. It's free to download
(36:10):
and use. You can navigate over to tech Stuff in
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up to thirty seconds in length let me know if
you would like me to use it in a future episode,
or you can reach out on Twitter while Twitter is
still around. I have no idea what's going to happen
if Elon Musk closes the steal, so we'll see what happens.
(36:31):
But the handle on Twitter is tech stuff hs W
and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(36:52):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And
how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
news for Thursday, October twenty, twenty twenty two, and we've
(00:24):
got a ton to get through, So let's start off
with some Apple news. Last week, I talked about how
lawmakers in the EU had approved legislation that will require
all smartphone manufacturers that use a physical charger to adopt
the USBC standard for sales in the European Union, and
(00:46):
that this news particularly affects Apple, as the company has
relied upon its own proprietary technology called Lightning up until now.
Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, has is
confirmed that Apple will comply with the new laws, though
he did not comment on whether or not Apple will
(01:07):
make a global switch to the USBC standard. So it
is possible that the European market will get a us
b C version of the iPhone starting in late and
that the rest of the world we'll stick with iPhones
that have a lightning part. We don't know yet, Josiak
(01:28):
also argued that the lightning technology actually cuts down on
E waste, which is a claim I find dubious at best.
So the claim says that charging bricks, you know, the
actual things that you plug into a wall outlet, they
frequently have ports for both USB and lightning cables, and
so by switching to USBC, folks will have no choice
(01:51):
but to toss all their old lightning cables because those
won't go to anything anymore, which you know, sure, but
I don't know about you. I know that I have
to replace my cables fairly regularly either they get wear
and tear on them. I'm particularly bad about rolling my
office chair over cables that honestly are just too long.
I need to get shorter cables, or more likely I
(02:15):
misplaced them during travel. And then I find that I
need a cable to connect my thing to my other thing,
like my phone to a charging brick or whatever. By
consolidating all that into a single standard, a standard that
works pretty darn well for that matter, then I'm more
likely to have a backup cable than if I need
(02:36):
to keep separate types for all my devices. Yes, there
are different levels of USBC. There are like three amp
and five amp versions, So there are differences, but for
the most part, like you can just swap cables out,
unless you're doing something like trying to power a computer
or a display or something, in which case you need
to make sure you have the five amp version. But otherwise, like,
(03:00):
it's really makes it simple to to swap in and
out of your cables, and I'm all for that kind
of consolidation anyway, Jaws re act, you know, Apple's rep
kind of made it clear that Apple is complying, but
is tots not happy about doing it. At least it's
going to comply in Europe. Here in the United States,
there are a few lawmakers who are considering similar legislation
(03:21):
that would standardize stuff like charging cables. But I am
not particularly optimistic that such legislation will ultimately become law here.
I don't I don't know. I just don't think it's likely.
Maybe we'll see swapping over to Alphabet, which of course
is the company that's the parent company of the stuff
like Google, YouTube, etcetera. It's starting to really tighten its
(03:44):
belt across all of its subsidiaries. Over the course of
the last year, Alphabet had added more than thirty six
thousand new employees to the company, which is a big
old yaalza. That's a lot of hires. But those days
of heavy hiring appeared to be at an end, or
at least to be put on pause. In an investor
called this Week, Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai assured investors that
(04:08):
the company is taking a much more critical look at
projects to determine which ones are really important and to
direct resources to those as well as to make quote
unquote course corrections. And I think this is important for Google.
The company has frequently launched projects that saw like a
lackluster response sometimes because you know, a lot of people
(04:32):
feel like it's a boy who Cried wolf situation that
Google has so frequently pulled the plug on products that
there's a reluctance to get invested in a new one
because you're worried that the company will stop supporting it
within a year or two. That's kind of earned that reputation.
So there really is a need to focus on specific
(04:54):
projects to make sure that those are adding value to
the company. I get that, But the company has also
had to cut way back on a lot of employee
travel and related expenses. At the same time, the advertising
business is taking a pretty big hit that is not
unusual in times of economic crisis or economic distress or recession,
(05:18):
whatever you want to call it. I'll spare you an
actual rant, but just in your head. Insert at this
point in the episode, a rant where I yell about
the fact that avoiding naming something like the reluctance to
name whatever economic situation we're in, does not at all
(05:38):
change the nature of that situation. It's still bad even
if we refuse to name it something specific. Anyway. All
this means that Alphabet's chief source of revenue the advertising business.
That's where I remind you Google is not really a
search company. It's an advertising company anyway, that's taken a
big hit. It also means that other entities that depend
(06:01):
upon ad revenue are hurting, So that would include folks
like YouTube creators, for example. So this is a pretty
big ripple effect. The Chi's call with investors does not
signal like a massive catastrophe or anything like that, but
you could say that this is another kind of red
flag that we're in a period where tech companies in particular,
and the people looking for work within the tech industry
(06:24):
are encountering some pretty tough challenges. Okay, let's switch over
to our favorite punching bag that is Meta Yesterday. Yesterday
being Wednesday, October twenty two for any of y'all from
the future who are listening back on old tech news
episodes for some reason. Anyway, yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and his
(06:46):
team held an earnings call that delivered some bad news
to investors, who have more than responded in kind, as
we will soon learn. So in that call, we learned
that Meta's revenue dropped four percent compared to this time
last year, that net income was down a whopping fifty
two from this time last year, and that spending is
(07:07):
up by nine So Meta is bringing in less money overall.
That would be the revenue bit. It's bringing in way
less of what we will generously refer to as profit.
That would be the income bit. That's the drop off
from a year ago. And this is all following on
the heels of other bad news like the fact that
(07:28):
EU regulators have forced Meta to divest itself of Giffee,
the animated gift platform it had purchased in twenty So
that's something that the company is going to have to
do in the near future, and considering that there's also
this growing skepticism around the concept of the metaverse, and
that Mark Zuckerberg appears fully dedicated to pursuing his version,
(07:51):
version his vision, I guess I could say of the metaverse,
it has some folks, like some investors, extremely displeased with
the company direction. This lack of confidence in in Meta
and Meta strategy is reflected in the company's stock price,
which dropped nearly twenty percent and after hours trading following
(08:12):
this earnings call. That drop in stock price meant that
Meta saw a rapid loss of around sixty five billion
dollars in its market capitalization. Market Cap is essentially the
what you get when you take the value of a
share of stock in a company multiplied by the numbers
of shares of that stock, and then it gives a
(08:34):
kind of general indication of the company's value. Right you
take like, if if you've got ten dollar stock and
there are ten shares out there, you multiplied ten by ten,
you get a hundred. That's how much market cap your
little your little approach has. So Meta saw a drop
of sixty billion dollars in its market cap because of
(08:54):
that stock price drop. By the way, that doesn't have
any real direct impact on how much cash the company
may or may not have on hand at that moment.
They can have an impact on a company if it
wants to, you know, borrow money or whatever for an acquisition,
then the market cap change can make a big difference.
But it's really just to show that there's this drop
(09:16):
in confidence in Meta in general. Zuckerberg said on the
call that if Meta wasn't pursuing the development of a metaverse,
it might be the case that no one else would
have stepped up and no work would be done on it.
And to that, I say, okay, so what. But you know,
that's because I remain really skeptical that a metaverse approach
(09:39):
is really the future of connectivity, commerce, entertainment, etcetera. I mean,
maybe it is. Maybe that is the future, and and
I'm just incapable of seeing it. Maybe I am being
obstinate in my reluctance to buy into the metaverse vision,
but it just it just seems unrealistic to me because
(10:03):
of a lot of different factors. And I think a
lot of investors feel in a similar way. Right They
also feel feel uncertain. They certainly see how the metaverse
project is requiring enormous UH costs in Meta, and that
this is in fact impacting the company's performance. Maybe we're
(10:26):
all wrong. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is right on the money.
That is possible. But whether we're right, or Zuckerberg's right,
or there's no one who's right, Zuckerberg has indicated that
we're likely to see future quarters with similar tough results
moving forward, that Meta remains committed to this metaverse pursuit
(10:47):
and will continue to spend money and perhaps in increasing quantities,
in an effort to see it to fruition. Meanwhile, companies
like TikTok continue to attract the younger users that Meta
desperately wants to hook into its own ecosystem. So it
may be that Meta's future is really just meant for
a group of folks who are steadily aging out of
(11:08):
the platform with no replenishment in sight. Okay, we've got
a lot more tech news to go through, including some
more from Meta, but first let's take this quick break.
We're back. The Association for Computer Machineries Journal published a
(11:31):
study that has some disturbing findings, namely that Facebook ads
appear to target people not just on their interests, and
their likes and their dislikes, and their browsing activity, and
sometimes their app activity, unless it's an Apple iPhone, in
which case I got kind of eliminated once Apple gave
users the option to opt out of that, but also
(11:53):
on things like their race, their gender, and their age,
even if the user isn't sharing that info with the
platform itself. The study says that Facebook is using image
recognition software to draw conclusions about users and then serve
up ads based on those conclusions. For example, the study
found that white users were far less likely to encounter
ads that feature black people in them. The researchers actually
(12:16):
created ads for job listings to post on Facebook, and
these job listings featured AI generated images of people. Some
of the ads had white people in them, some had
black people in them, and by tracking the ads, the
research group saw that black users made up of the
audience that saw ads that had black people in them.
(12:37):
With ads that had white people in them, black users
made up fifty of that audience. Ads with teenage girls
featured in them went on to an audience that was
fifty seven percent mail, and many of them over the
age of fifty five, which creepy I mean, that's not
a good look for a platform that's often associated with
an aging user base. If it was an AD that
(13:00):
featured an older woman inside the image, well, the audience
for those ads ended up being women. So the researchers
indicate that for some uses, this kind of targeting might
feel like like it's a little suss, but it's not
necessarily a bad thing. I mean, let's face it, you
are more likely to respond to an AD if the
(13:21):
person or person's appearing in the ad kind of look
like you do right, like you. There's just this this tendency.
You know, we want to see ourselves reflected in the
things that we see. But when it comes to stuff
like job listings and housing and education, the targeting can
reinforce social problems. In fact, Facebook has been in trouble
(13:44):
for that in the past. Back in there was a
massive lawsuit that focused on this. Also, you know, we're
looking at a system that's using machine learning and AI
and machine learning by relying upon strategies that worked in
the past, could end up perpetuating discriminatory practices that disproportionately
hurt certain populations, namely people of color. The study also
(14:07):
indicates that Facebook's approach could be antithetical to the desires
of their clients, like the companies that are actually paying
for the ads, because a lot of these companies want
to project an image that values diversity. But if the
diversity reflected in the ads means that those ads aren't
being shown to all populations, that might mean that the
(14:28):
ad isn't getting the effect that the base company wanted
in the first place. Now, Meta reps say that Meta
is dedicated to preventing discrimination on its platforms and that
the company continues to develop its technologies with that goal
in mind. Further, we should be hearing more about Meta's
pushes to to fix these kinds of problems in the
(14:50):
months ahead. But this is a good example of how
machine learning and how AI can have a bias built
into it, and how that bias can have a negative impact.
Now that's not to say that all biases necessarily bad
or that all bias has to be avoided, but there
are definite areas where you could say, yeah, this is
a problem, and this kind of constitutes that and some
(15:13):
more Meta bad news. In Washington State here in the
United States, a judge has issued a twenty four point
seven million dollar fine for failing to comply with a
state campaign finance disclosure law. So the court found Facebook
guilty of violating the state's Fair Campaign Practices Act more
than eight hundred times eight hundred twenty two times in fact,
(15:37):
and this is not the first time this has happened.
The company came up for the same sort of problem
back in two thousand eighteen. So that law says that
any platform that airs or displays political advertising has to
maintain a publicly accessible database of who purchased the ads,
(15:58):
including their names and addresses. Plus the information has to
include whom the ads were targeting, how many views the
ads received, how the ads were paid for, and that
kind of stuff. So anyone who asks for this information
has the right to it, and the platforms are compelled
by law to comply and hand over that precious information.
(16:23):
But Facebook has declined to acquiesce to that request for
quite some time, has not followed the rules according to
the the case, and it has argued that the law
quote burdens political speech end quote. Though that's kind of
a tough thing to argue considering that, you know, platforms
like television, radio, and newspapers have all been complying with
(16:44):
this law since it was passed in nine two. So
I'm not sure that that's a really valid argument. Uh,
there's no doubt that Facebook has access to the information
that's required. The company has just repeatedly failed to hand
that information over. The law allow the judge to find
an entity up to ten thousand dollars per violation. And
as I said, there were eight hundred twenty two violations,
(17:06):
And you might say, huh, e d two times ten
thousand does not equal twenty four point seven million dollars.
That's that's way more than what you should expect. Well,
that same law also allows a judge to triple the
penalty per violation if the judge determines that the violations
were intentional in nature. And since Facebook went through this
(17:29):
same process back in two thousand eighteen, it's kind of
hard to argue that the company wasn't intentionally violating that law.
Thus we get the twenty four point seven million dollar
fine that might be the largest campaign finance penalty ever
issued here in the United States. Of course, compared to
Facebook's revenues, which even in the downturn it's experiencing right now,
(17:51):
or you know, measured in the billions of dollars. This
is small change, but then no company really wants to
just hand over twenty five million bucks, so it's not
exactly a slap on the wrist either. It's you know,
literally the largest penalty that the judge was allowed to
pass by law. Now let's hop on over to Twitter
to find out what's going on with Elon Musk's on again,
(18:13):
off again, on again again acquisition deal. So as it stands,
Musk has until the close of business tomorrow, Friday, October
to finalize his acquisition of Twitter. If you recall, Musk
initially agreed to buy Twitter at fifty four dollars twenty
cents per share back in the spring of this year.
(18:35):
Right now, that's actually just a hair over what Twitter
is currently trading at. Like when I went to record,
Twitter is trading at just under fifty four dollars per share,
so it's really close to what that deal was proposed at.
I suspect that the current share price reflects people anticipating
that this deal is going to go through by the
(18:56):
end of tomorrow, So even a small gain is a game.
So I think that has driven up interest in the stock,
and thus we see it really close to what Musk
was um agreeing to buy it for. Of course, Musk
famously attempted to back out of the deal, which then
prompted a court case to force Musk to go through
(19:18):
with the deal. Twitter brought that against Musk. Uh That
court case is currently on hold unless the deal does
not complete by the end of day tomorrow, in which
case the case is back on. So Musk himself arrived
at Twitter HQ yesterday. On Wednesday, he carried a bathroom
sink as a kind of publicity stunt. Uh. I'm not
(19:39):
sure what the message was, because typically we talked about
kitchen sink deals, not bathroom sinc ones. According to Gizmoto,
Musk said it was a visual pun on let that
sink in. But you know, I don't know. Maybe he's
just very particular about where he washes his hands. I
don't know. Anyway. Musk also published an open letter to
(20:01):
Twitter employees to address some fears and concerns people have
had about this acquisition. For example, he denied that he
plans to eliminate up to the workforce at the company.
That was something that had been reported in the past
by The Washington Post. Uh, there is an indication that
he expects there to be some downsizing, and in fact
(20:22):
had received previous advice from Jason callicannacas out of old
people to require people to come into the office, because
that's going to weed people out, like people will self
select for leaving the company. But then that tends to
be like your best people too, So that's not the
(20:42):
best advice I've ever heard, But you know, it's it's
very possible that Busk will attempt to downsize Twitter simply
by being unpleasant, something that I am told he has
a modicum of experience at doing. Anyway, Moscostle said has
no intention to allow Twitter to become a quote free
(21:03):
for all hell scape where anything can be said with
no consequences end quote. That also conflicts a little bit
earlier with reports that must believe Twitter should be kind
of an unfettered platform for free speech. But to be fair,
Musk has pretty much always maintained that this should actually
fall within the legal parameters of the various countries within
(21:23):
which Twitter operates. So, in other words, you can't say
absolutely anything if the country where you are operating has
limits on free speech, like you have to you have
to operate within the boundaries of the law. Uh, he
has at least made that concession. He has also indicated
that he intends for Twitter to ease off on content moderation,
(21:45):
which could allow for even more misinformation to proliferate across
the platform, and that he would reverse the permanent bands
of several prominent accounts, most notably that of Donald Trump,
who has seen his own truth social platform struggle to
find significant traction. Anyway, we'll have to wait until tomorrow
to see if the deal actually does go through for real,
(22:06):
which I mean, I'm there's like a seventy chance in
my mind that's going to happen, or if Musk will
pull some other maneuver in an attempt to get out
of the deal. I'm not sure that there is an
exit strategy that wouldn't also put the court case back
on track to continue. So I think there's a more
than decent chance that by the end of tomorrow, Twitter
(22:27):
will be a privately held company owned by Elon Musk.
CNBC another outlets report that Tesla, another Elon Musk company,
is currently under investigation by the U. S Department of Justice.
This is with regards to Tesla's driver assist systems, and
whether or not the company misled consumers with exaggerated claims
(22:48):
about those systems and their capabilities, namely that they essentially
constituted self driving. Now, at the very least, there appears
to be two distinct storylines coming out of Tesla. So
on the marketing side, the company seems to indicate that
Tesla vehicles, when they're in full self driving mode, are
(23:12):
you know, to any practical consideration, an autonomous vehicle. They
don't go quite that far to say it, but one
video on Tesla's site that shows a man inside a
Tesla vehicle goes on to say, quote, the person in
the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He
is not doing anything. The car is driving itself end quote.
(23:35):
That is not the same thing as saying this car
is autonomous, but it does seem to imply, Hey, the
system can take full control of your vehicle safely and
you can just sit back and relax. However, during actual operation,
Tesla has messages that tell drivers they are required to
keep their hands on the wheel even when using the
driver assist features, and further the website. On Tesla's page,
(24:00):
it actually says the systems quote do not make the
vehicle autonomous end quote. So it does say on the
web page, this doesn't make this an autonomous vehicle, even
while they also show videos where they say the only
reason we have a driver in the the driver's seat
is for legal reasons. So it does sound a lot
(24:20):
like double speak, right, like the cars aren't autonomous, but
you know they can drive themselves anyway. Tesla's have been
involved in numerous high profile accidents, some of them involving fatalities,
So the d o J is investigating the company, presumably
to see if there are any criminal implications here. It's
possible that Tesla's seemingly contradictory messages may keep the company
(24:44):
legally safe in that Tesla's lawyers can truthfully point out
that Tesla has denied that its vehicles are autonomous. This
is not the only legal investigation into Tesla by any means,
and it might be a while before we hear any
potential judicial action against the company, if in fact any
any are pending. Okay, we've got some more news stories
(25:09):
to get through before we get to that. Let's take
another quick break. We're back from break. We still have
one more you know, tangentially Elon Musk related story because
we're gonna talk about SpaceX and specifically Starlink. So earlier
(25:30):
this year, Starlink, which is the satellite Internet service provider
arm of SpaceX, offered up a service for RV owners,
and r V owners would pay a hundred thirty five
bucks per month for Internet access through Starlink. However, it
would only work for r vs that were stationary that
were parked. In other words, However, later this year, in December,
(25:53):
starlink is going to offer a plan that will allow
RV owners to access the Internet even while driving the
r V. Now, to do so will require the installation
of a new kind of satellite dish, one that comes
with a hefty two thousand five fee. If you were
just getting the standard stationary access system in your r V,
that one costs to install. So it's a pretty hefty upgrade.
(26:18):
You know, it's almost two thousand dollars more expensive. The
monthly cost for access will still be a hundred thirty
five dollar subscription fee. Starlink has recently been targeting use
cases for moving vehicles for private planes to ships at sea,
and we can now add r vs on the road
to that list. Earlier today, hackers got access to the
(26:41):
New York Post's website and Twitter feed and use that
access to publish some really awful headlines, mostly targeting specific politicians.
Those headlines included racist, misogynists, and other disgusting language. The
Post regained control of its accounts not too long after
they had been seized, and was able to remove the
(27:03):
offending material. This marks the second time during the current
election season here in the United States that a publication
found itself hacked. Fast Company was a target of such
a hack in late September actually took its websites down
for a full week to deal with that. Both Fast
Company and The New York Post rely upon WordPress as
(27:24):
a content management system, but as of this recording, there's
been no further information about how the hackers got access
to the New York Post website. Anyway, it's yet another
fun example of how political events can drive terrible things
in technology. Sigh. This past August, US House Speaker Nancy
(27:44):
Pelosi visited Taiwan to meet with Morris Cheng, the founder
of semiconductor company t s MC. And you might remember
that t SMC is responsible for the production of much
of the chips we rely upon in our electronics and
most of the higher end chips. The US has recently
passed legislation aimed at bootstrapping the semiconductor industry here in
(28:06):
the United States, and so it aims to shift some
of the dependence on Taiwan to US based facilities. And now,
the Financial Times in Taiwan reports that during the visit
back in August, Cheng told Pelosi that the United States
efforts are quote doomed to fail end quote. Now that
might be the case, but there are some other factors
(28:29):
that may have influenced Chang when he made such a proclamation,
assuming that the reporting is accurate. For example, Taiwan currently
enjoys a not entirely stable independence from mainland China, and
the Western world's reliance on semiconductors means that countries like
the United States have a vested interest in keeping Taiwan
(28:51):
free from Chinese interference. Therefore, if China were to make
any kind of aggressive moves towards Taiwan, that would likely
pull the US into what could become a dangerous conflict.
So it's the threat of the US is involvement that
keeps Taiwan temporarily safe. But if the West were to
(29:11):
reduce its reliance on Taiwan when it comes to semi conductors,
then this silicon shield around Taiwan will weaken. Therefore, Jang
has an existential motivation to dismiss the US's efforts to
become independent with semi conductors. Now that doesn't mean he's wrong.
He might be right. We're very early in the United
(29:34):
States effort to revitalize the semiconductor industry here in the States,
and it could turn into a total fiasco. It is
sure to have some bumpy spots along the road. That's
just the nature of reality. We just don't know where
that road ultimately is going to lead. We know the
intended destination is greater independence when it comes to producing semiconductors. Now,
(29:57):
considering Taiwan situation, I think it's safe to say we
cannot assume Chang's projections on the matter are free from bias.
They're certainly not free from personal interest. Well, it's almost Halloween,
so how about some terrifying news. A video from the
official Kestral Defense page on the Chinese micro blogging site
way Bow shows a large drone dropping off a four
(30:21):
legged robot similar to the kinds of robots you've seen
from Boston Dynamics, only this robot also happens to have
a machine gun. Ho ho ho, Sorry I'm mixing up
my holidays here. Anyway, the video demonstrates that this technology
is ready to go, at least according to the defense
(30:42):
company behind it. The robot and the gun would be
under human control, so this would be a remotely controlled robot,
not an autonomous one. You would have an operator capable
of maneuvering the robot and firing its weapon. And this
tech could potentially be used in battlefield situations where you
want to draw off robotic soldiers, say behind enemy lines
(31:04):
to attack in a different direction, or you know, in
other locations that are all intended to put pressure on
the enemy on multiple fronts. This is exactly the kind
of use the companies like Boston Dynamics recently pledged they
would not pursue the weaponization of robotic platforms. Of course,
the U. S Military is certainly hard at work of
(31:24):
building these kinds of things itself, So this is something
that looks like it's going to be on the horizon
no matter what. And yes, this is terrifying because there's
really a worry that robotic forces are going to reduce
barriers that countries face before they engage at armed conflict. Right,
it might remove certain concerns and make it more likely
(31:47):
that will see more war. It's a lot easier to
sell your invasion to your population if that population isn't,
you know, seeing its own soldiers being put in harm's way.
See also Russia. There's also an additional fear that we
could see future technologies progress toward automation for navigation and combat.
That's something that's particularly scary when you keep in mind
(32:09):
that computer vision is by no means incapable of making mistakes.
So not only is it already scary to think of
a robot with a gun, it's even scarier to think
it's a robot with a gun that might think that
you're not on its side. Not great. Recently, in Video
unveiled its forty series of graphics cards, the new flagship
cards that set the company's standard for performance, but problems
(32:33):
have already popped up with the r t X from
Nvidio itself, as there have been a few reports of
users discovering that a sixteen pen adapter used to connect
the card to the computer's power supply can overheat, which
can cause the adapter to melt or even catch fire.
Now IGOR Labs has released an article that reveals that
(32:54):
these adapters were poorly made in the first place, with
substandard soldering that can lead to these issues. Igor Labs
has alerted in Video to the problem, which was likely
caused when the company relied on an assembly partner that
took some shortcuts. Gamers who are eager to get in
Video's new chips may want to hold off. There is
(33:14):
the distinct possibility that in Video will hold a recall
and and correct this issue before sending out new cards,
so it might be better to just wait, or you
might want to wait for a third party manufacturers to
offer their own forty cards because in Video's business strategy
is not just to manufacture the cards itself, but it
(33:34):
also licenses the design and the tech out to other manufacturers,
and if those manufacturers actually replace the adapter that in
Vidia includes in its kits, then it might solve the
problem as well, and thus you could end up with
a graphics card that is safer than the official in
Video version. I do think we're probably going to see
(33:57):
a recall and replacement process before long. But as of
the time I'm recording this, that has not yet been announced.
Gamers who have been anticipating the release of Call of
Duty Modern Warfare two and who got their hands on
a physical copy of the game might be shocked to
learn that there's no game on that physical disc. In fact,
according to euro Gamer, there's just seventy two megabytes of
(34:20):
data on those discs. Now, the game, it turns out,
is closer to thirty five gigabytes in size on the
PS five that can actually balloon up to one fifty
gigs once you install a Day one patch and you
have all the packs for the game installed. So seventy
two megabytes a hundred and fifty gigabytes is a huge gap.
(34:42):
What has going on, Well, it looks like the physical
disc really just directs machines to download the digital copy anyway.
So yes, you'll get a physical disc. That disc will
have like the logo and the art and all that
kind of stuff, but there's no game on the disc
and all it will do is direct you toward a
massive digital download. So if you live somewhere that has
(35:04):
lousy internet connectivity, or maybe your data plan has a
data cap to it, you might be shocked to learn
that your physical copy doesn't actually, you know, let you
experience the game. You still have to go through the
same steps that you would have had to go through
if you just purchased it digitally in the first place.
And that leads to the question why even have a
physical option that this is going to be the way
(35:26):
it works. That reminds me of a time when you
could find box copies of computer games and inside was
just a code where you could download the digital copy.
And I guess you bought the box so that you
would have something to put up on a shelf. I
mean maybe for collectors, but I don't know. It's it
hits me the wrong way to have a disc for
(35:48):
a game and the game is not on the disk.
That just bugs me. Anyway. That's it for today's news
episode of text Stuff. Hope you are all well. If
you have suggestions or any questions or anything like that,
you want to get in touch with me, there are
a couple of ways of doing that. One is to
download the I Heart radio app. It's free to download
(36:10):
and use. You can navigate over to tech Stuff in
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or you can reach out on Twitter while Twitter is
still around. I have no idea what's going to happen
if Elon Musk closes the steal, so we'll see what happens.
(36:31):
But the handle on Twitter is tech stuff hs W
and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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TechStuff News
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Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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