April 26, 2022 • 30 mins
Despite all the back and forth, it looks like Elon Musk's bid for Twitter will be a success. And as you can expect, the Internet reacted with measured rationality and decorum.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tex 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 I Heart Radio.
And how the tech are Yet, it's time for the
tech news for Tuesday, April twenty six, two thousand, twenty two.
(00:27):
And after all the Twitter polls, the poison pills, and
the posturing, that's a lot of alliteration, Elon Musk and
Twitter's board of directors have come to an agreement for
Musk to purchase Twitter. Now that deal isn't done yet.
Shareholders have to agree on the acquisition and it also
(00:48):
has to pass regulatory approval. But that being said, I
think the general consensus is that there aren't gonna be
any serious roadblocks in the way of this deal and
it will in fact go through. It's a heck of
a story. I anticipate this is going to be one
of the really big stories when folks do retrospectives on
you know, the most important tech news of two. Elon
(01:10):
Musk has had a let's say controversial time on Twitter,
using a platform to post stuff that got him into
serious hot water with the SEC something that he protests
and says was unmerited um. Musk has also had a
bit of a dodgy past when it comes to following regulations,
and he's been known to use Twitter to promote certain cryptocurrencies,
(01:33):
which nearly always has had a massive effect and frequently
a short term effect on that cryptocurrency's value, which has
led some to accuse Musk of using his position to
try and pump and then dump crypto in an effort
to make a tidy profit at the expense of marks. Now,
Musk has said he plans on overseeing some really big
(01:54):
changes at Twitter, including authenticating every human on the platform
and eliminating bots. He has also repeatedly called for Twitter
to be a better steward of free speech, which has
led some to think that Musk might reverse some big
decisions like the lifelong ban on former President Donald Trump,
(02:14):
and this has a lot of people concerned that Twitter's
trend toward track cracking down on a misinformation and disinformation
campaigns could be reversed. Free speech is a pretty tricky
thing too, because you know, even the United States has
limits on free speech. It's not absolute. For example, the
United States Supreme Court has determined on numerous occasions that
(02:37):
free speech does have boundaries, like libel and slander are
two of those, so libel and slander don't count as
free speech, and so there's concerned that Musk's interpretation of
free speech might allow for rampant abuse on the platform.
Musk has said that there will still be content moderation
and that extreme tweets like those calling for physical violence
(03:00):
against people, will not be allowed, so it sounds like
there will be limitations there. He's also indicated that he
intends Twitter to work within the laws of various countries,
that he's not He's not advocating that Twitter flaunt uh
laws around the world, and that could also mean that,
(03:20):
you know, we're talking about free speech with limitations on
Twitter as well as elsewhere. So a lot of people
are kind of confused about this about where it's going
to go. Honestly, it's far too early to say because
we're not there yet. But a lot of people have
said they are leaving the platform. Much fewer are actually leaving,
(03:43):
So a lot of people are saying that's it, I'm moving,
and then they stay where they are, which you know
that happens every time we see a massive change in leadership,
whether we're talking about a social platform or a country. Uh.
Jack Dorsey, one of the co founders and the formers,
the EO of Twitter, says that Musk is the quote
singular solution I trust end quote. So there's definitely debate
(04:08):
on whether or not Musk taking over Twitter is a
good or bad thing. Now. I anticipate that I will
maintain my tech stuff hsw Twitter feed for this show,
but I have already sunset it, although not deactivated my
personal account. By sunset, I just mean I logged out. Uh.
And the reason I'm not deleting that account isn't because
(04:31):
I'm worried I'm gonna miss it. Instead, it's that I
don't want to surrender my Twitter handle and have someone
else take it over and then potentially post a lot
of nasty stuff that could, you know, for for a
casual follower, make them think that it was me. I
don't want that to ever happen. Uh. Now, for the record,
I don't think I'm really important enough for anyone to
(04:53):
actually care about doing that, but I feel as a
verified user it's probably for the best that I don't
open up that possibility anyway. I also want to say
to all of you that staying or leaving Twitter is
a personal choice. If you love Twitter and you don't
want to go and it's useful to you, those are
all legitimate reasons, and I feel you should feel fine
(05:15):
about staying on Twitter. That you know, I'm not my
own choice doesn't reflect my opinion of how other people operate.
But if you do feel uneasy and you want a skedaddle,
that's fine too. Even if it's just temporary, that's fine.
Don't let anyone dictate to you what you should or
should not do. For me, this is something I feel
(05:38):
I needed to do, both for myself as it can
have an impact on my mental well being, and also
because I genuinely feel that I won't be doing much
good on Twitter. Arguably I haven't done much good up
to this point, and I'm sure we'll have plenty more
stories about this as time goes on. And that's enough
(05:59):
for now, I think. But the Twitter conversation is absolutely
dominating the tech news space right now. It's lucky that
I was able to find a few other stories that
we can touch on to. One is that Netflix employee
morale is taking a serious hit. Now. This should come
as no real surprise last week, Netflix began a serious
(06:22):
slide in the stock market after reporting that the company
had a net loss of two hundred thousand subscribers around
the world in the first quarter of two thousand twenty two.
For many at Netflix, this slide has had a massive
personal impact, particularly people who are like in the executive level,
folks who own shares and Netflix. Because Netflix, like a
(06:45):
lot of tech companies, has rewarded employees with compensation in
the form of shares. Well, folks who have shares are
seeing their wealth decline every time the stock price takes
another hit, so it's like you're losing money working for
the company. The general caution that a lot of people
feel about Netflix after its first decline since it launched.
(07:07):
I mean, remember the earnings call we heard where we
found out about the two decline that was the first
decline in the history of Netflix. But apparently the same
concern that we're seeing outside Netflix is prevalent within the
ranks of Netflix itself. A lot of people are reportedly
considering leaving the company before things get worse, particularly again
(07:29):
at the executive and management levels. This is according to
Bloomberg by the Way, which published an article about the
whole ordeal. I still personally find this story a bit perplexing.
It's hard for me to reconcile that a company that
has been as monumentally successful as Netflix could be so
fragile that it's first really bad quarter sends the message
(07:50):
that the empire is on shaky ground. And here's the
thing that really wrinkles my brain. As Troy would say,
if enough people buy in to that perspective that Netflix
is in really serious trouble, it can become a self
fulfilling prophecy. Now, all that being said, it is clear
that there are huge challenges for Netflix and for other
(08:12):
streaming platforms. There's a limit to the audience out there.
Right Even if you are able to sign up everyone
who is interested, you eventually do stop getting new subscribers
because there's no one to to sign up. And that's
before you start taking into consideration the incredible competition in
(08:33):
the space, because there's so many different streaming platforms out
there now, and you know, obviously we're gonna probably see
more before we start to see things shake out. In
the long run, I don't think all of those streaming
services are going to survive. Some of them will end
up getting folded into others. Uh, or they might end
up changing hands. We'll see. But I always assume Netflix
(08:55):
would be one of the bedrock streaming services that would
be around, and and it really established itself so in
such a dominant position so early. Uh. But also it's
too early to suggest that the company is really at
the beginning of the end. This could be a blip
in Netflix's history, a serious one, but one that the
(09:16):
company fully recovers from. We just have to wait and see.
The Verge reports that Apple has retained the services of
a law firm called Littler Mendelssohn, widely known as a
union busting law firm. This is the same firm that
Starbucks hired in that company's efforts to counteract various union
pushes throughout its stores, and this comes on the heels
(09:39):
of an Atlanta Apple stores recent successful push to secure
enough employee signatures to warrant a union election. The flagship
Apple store in New York City is also in the
process of gathering signatures in order to have the same
kind of vote. And I am left to wonder if
the hiring of law firms like this one ultimately ends
(10:00):
up fueling the resolve of employees rather than discourages them.
It's hard for me to say from the outside. I
don't have an inside perspective of these things. It may
well be that the efforts to organize our succeeding despite
heavy opposition, rather than becoming energized by companies efforts to
squash them. I honestly can't tell. But again, it's another
(10:25):
indication that employees in the tech sector are really pushing
back against the established status quo. We've got several more
stories to go over before we get to those. Let's
take a quick break. We're back and over in Japan.
(10:46):
Apple is facing another battle, as is Google. Government report
in Japan named Apple and Google as essentially a duopoly
when it comes to the smartphone operating system market, and
that's totally true. Google is way in the lead worldwide.
Google has about a seventy percent of the smartphone operating
system market share according to stat Counter. Apple is at
(11:09):
a healthy twenty seven point five seven, which means that
together Apple and and Google or you know, iOS and Android,
make up about percent of the smartphone operating system market.
Kind Of hard to argue against the duopoly when you
have a figure like that. The government report expressed concern
(11:29):
that this arrangement, this du woppoly creates an unfair marketplace
for app developers and consumers alike, pointing out that it
is common practice for Android phones to come pre installed
with say the Chrome browser, or for Apple to favor Safari,
and the report argues that this stifles competition from other
(11:50):
browsers and and that it is actively discouraging users from
installing other browsers besides the ones that come pre installed
on the operating system. Further, the report argues that developers
are forced into ecosystems in order to have their work
accessible by people who use these smartphones, and that Apple
(12:11):
and Google should allow developers and users to choose alternative
app stores from the official ones on the platform. So,
in other words, you should be able to go to
other stores besides the Apple App Store and download apps
for your iPhone. Now, this is pretty much the opposite
of Apple's market strategy, and unsurprisingly, the company has protested
(12:31):
the report, arguing that Apple faces fierce competition in every arena.
And it remains to be seen what this report will
actually lead to in Japan, but it marks another spot
in the world where the big companies like Apple and
Google are starting to face resistance from regulators, like serious resistance.
And we've got another story about the shaky world of
(12:52):
n f t s. All right, So quick reminder, and
n f T is a non fungible token, which really
means it's a digital seartificate showing ownership of some sort
of digital asset, and it is tracked on a blockchain
of some sort so that there is a clear uh
chain of transactions so you can trace who owned it
(13:16):
at what point and who currently owns that digital asset.
As far as what that asset is, it could be
a line of code, it could be a piece of
digital art, it could be an item within a video game,
or pretty much anything else that's digital. And n f
t s have been put through the wringer after a
chaotic hype cycle that had its fair share of speculation, scams,
(13:39):
and other shenanigans, and The Verge reports that a hacker
has managed to steal n f t s, estimated to
be worth millions of dollars, using one really tricky method
and one super easy method. Now, the tricky part was
that the hacker was able to gain access to the
official Instagram account for the board Ape Yacht Club or
(14:01):
b A y C. That's one of the entities that
is famed for minting n f T s of digital art,
and folks have been speculating ridiculous amounts of money on
these pieces of art like this is the kind of
stuff that got people a bit wary of n f
T s in the first place, when they look at
the art and they say, wait, how much money are
(14:24):
people spending for a digital certificate showing ownership of this thing?
And uh, we actually don't know how the hacker managed
to get access of that Instagram account. As of the
recording of this podcast, the b A y C says
that it had activated two factor authentication on its Instagram account,
so it should have been impossible for anyone not in
(14:46):
possession of whatever that second factor was to be able
to get access to the account. Maybe it was an
inside job, but the hacker then used the official account
to send out a fishing link that, if followed, would
prompt n f T holders to interact with that link,
and the link would lead the hacker to joint crypto
(15:08):
tokens right out of those users wallets. So, in other words,
folks got a link from what they assumed to be
a trusted source. They got it from the official b
A y C Instagram account, which should be trustworthy, and
they ended up getting robbed because of that. Now, the
hacker convinced folks to follow follow the fishing link by
(15:29):
leaning on one of the most reliable techniques in the
history of humans, which is counting on greed. So the
link proclaimed to be an air drop of tokens, and
if folks joined and they connected their wallets to the link,
they were supposedly going to be showered with what amounts
to be free money, really free digital assets which could
(15:51):
later be sold or auctioned off for money, and folks
love the idea of free money, so there were a
lot of takers. Open C famous crypto exchange, has subsequently
banned the hackers wallet address on that platform, but it
is still visible on other platforms. No word yet on
how or if those who are affected by this theft
(16:14):
will be compensated. The Register reports that the Department of
Homeland Security, after initiating a hack DHS program in which
the department invited hackers to look for vulnerabilities and exploits
in the homeland securities systems, discovered that its systems are
far from secure. The four fifty security researchers who took
(16:36):
part in this event uncovered one hundred twenty two vulnerabilities,
seven of which they deemed to be critical. That's pretty
darned bad, but it really illustrates how these events are
critical for organizations, government or otherwise offering bug bounties. That
is a payment to people who uncover and subsequently report
(16:59):
vulnerabilities and systems. That gives organizations a chance to patch
those holes and prevent actual black hat hackers from exploiting
those vulnerabilities. I find it, frankly a little scary that
a department that has, let's face it, a checkered past,
had so many critical vulnerabilities and its various systems, But
(17:20):
I am glad that the department is taking steps to
address that in a responsible way. Penetration testing is a
pretty big deal, and I might need to get my
friend Shannon Morris back on the show to talk about
how that process typically works. She's an expert in that
field and I am not. The White House has urged
(17:42):
Congress to pass legislation that would allow more law enforcement
agencies in the United States access to drone tracking systems Now,
to be clear, this isn't about those agencies operating drones
in an effort to track citizens or identify suspects. Instead,
this is about giving those agencies the ability to detect
(18:03):
and track the drones themselves, presumably in an effort to
counteract crime and terrorism efforts that rely on drone technology. Now,
this is not yet a law. It's just a suggestion
to Congress, and it marks the continuation of the U.
S government's increased concern about drones and drone operation. One
story that I missed in one was the f a
(18:27):
a S new drone rules that require any new drones
sold in the United States to broadcast the drone operators
physical location. And that kind of makes sense in some scenarios,
like say there's a person who's operating a drone that's
in a restricted area which could pose as a threat.
(18:47):
Even if the person didn't intend to do that, it
could be critically important to track that person down and
be able to stop that person or to you know,
tell that person what's going on so that they can
move the drown out of the restricted area, because drones
could pose a threat to things like aircraft, for example. However,
(19:07):
this capability The idea of being able to track an
operator's physical location also has some troubling consequences. For instance,
during the Black Lives Matter protests in some folks were
using drones to keep an eye on police activity, and
it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination
to assume that a law enforcement agency that was under
(19:29):
citizens surveillance might use the drones broadcasting of the operator's
physical location to track down and stop that operator. So
it really does go both ways here, and it also
raises the point that drone tracking technology now is effectively
operator tracking technology, right if you're talking about a drone
(19:50):
that was purchased legally in the United States after this
f a A rule came into effect, then you could say, well, yeah,
it's important to track the drones, but we also have
to remember that this could be abused so that police
could track the operators. It's not even necessarily about the
(20:11):
technology in that respect. It's more again a kind of
citizen surveillance. So there are definitely some you know, dark
consequences to this as well. A UK watchdog called the
Competition and Markets Authority may soon have some new powers
when it comes to holding companies accountable for fake reviews
posted on sites websites, So we're talking about user generated
(20:36):
reviews for the most part, and the practice of certain
entities like shady product companies or sometimes the PR firms
hired to promote those products of either posting directly or
hiring people to post positive fake reviews in an effort
to market their goods. UH. The proposals in the UK
(20:57):
suggest making it quote clearly illegal end quote to hire
someone to write or host fake reviews, and if found guilty,
the c m A could find the responsible party, presumably
either the site that's hosting the reviews or the people
who are hiring people to post fake reviews up to
(21:17):
ten percent of their global turnover. This will create a
new responsibility for sites that host reviews, namely that they
need to have practices in place to be reasonably certain
that the reviews posted on the site are legitimate. So presumably,
if a website shows that it has taken reasonable action
to guard against fake reviews, the c m A won't
(21:41):
levy finds on that site should some fake reviews slip through. UM,
I'm guessing that there's going to be uh a grace
period where if a site is alerted to a fake review,
it has the opportunity to remove it before um any
kind of consideration would fall on it. In addition, the
UK government is looking to make it easier for consumers
(22:03):
to cancel subscriptions should they not want a service any longer.
I mentioned this in an earlier tech stuff News episode.
I'm sure all of you had some sort of experience
where you were put through a wild goose chase in
an effort to cancel a subscription. Now, personally, I think
these are good steps, assuming that the enforcement is reasonable
and fair, which admittedly is much easier said than done.
(22:27):
We have a couple more news stories to get through
before we get to those, Let's take another quick break.
Several years ago, I wrote an article for how stuff
works dot com about how the large had drawn Collider works,
And at the time of me writing that article, the
(22:51):
LHC had not yet graduated to full power experiments. Didn't
stop people from speculating on what the LHC would find
or potential calamity it might cause once it goes into power.
But yeah, I wrote the article on that, and then
it got up to doing full power experiments. But then
(23:12):
over the last three years, the LHC has been pretty quiet.
Scientists did initiate some pilot particle beams around the facility
in October twenty twenty one, but otherwise it's been offline. Now.
The purpose for that multi year hiatus was well, there's
it was manifold. There were quite a few One big
(23:32):
one was that there was a massive upgrade to the LHC,
and there were also repairs and maintenance to the facility.
And now it's back baby. Last week the LHC sent
out opposing beams of protons at an injection energy of
four fifty billion electron volts. All right, now, let's do
(23:53):
a quick rundown in case none of this is making
any sense to you. The Large Hadron Collider is a
particle accelerator, so it uses extremely powerful electromagnets to both
propel and direct opposing beams of particles such as protons,
but it could be other stuff too, so that these
particles collide at specific points along the pathway. Now located
(24:17):
at these specific points are a selection of different experiments.
These experiments focus on different elements of particle science, so
the collisions create scenarios that are otherwise impossible for us
to replicate. On Earth, including the formation of teeny tiny
black holes that last for a fraction of a fraction
(24:38):
of a second. That black hole thing is one of
the things that trips some people out, But it's really
important to note that the energy of these black holes
is such that they cannot last. It is less than
a gnat's beating of its wings once like it's it's tiny, tiny,
tiny amounts of energy, and they're gone before you can
even be aware that they were there without the use
(25:01):
of incredibly sensitive equipment, so they blip out of existence
almost as quickly as they appear. Anyway, the science done
at the LHC is expanding our understanding of how the
universe works. You know, how energy and how matter work,
and it's gone a long way to proving or disproving
various hypotheses in physics. And just because the facility wasn't
(25:24):
actively blasting particles around for three years and some change
doesn't mean that a lot of important science wasn't going on.
Quite the opposite, in fact, see one of the really
big challenges of these experiments is that the collisions generate
a truly tremendous amount of data, and it's a full
(25:46):
time gig just combing through all the information and making
sense of it. So, while the facility was effectively offline
as far as generating new experiments, there were countless scientists
examining the information that we're create was created through the
previous years of collisions. Now, in what is being called
Run three of the LHC, we're gonna see two new experiments,
(26:09):
one called S and D at LHC and another called Phaser.
These are going to look into everything from physics that
go beyond the standard model of physics to the production
of anti matter. Maybe it will help us understand why
our universe had a tiny bit more matter than it
had antimatter. That's that's why we've got stuff. If there
(26:32):
had been equal amounts, then they would have annihilated each
other completely and the universe would be empty. But it's
not why. Maybe this experiment will help us learn anyway.
I love learning about the LHC, though admittedly the stuff
is way over my head. China has announced that it
is going to launch a space mission sometime in the
(26:53):
next four years in order to send a spacecraft that
will collide with an asteroid on purpose to test a
potential asteroid deflection system. This is similar to a NASA
mission that was launched in November of last year. That
mission has sent to spacecraft to collide with Dimorphos, a
small asteroid that orbits a larger one called Didimus. Dimorphos
(27:16):
isn't on a collision course with Earth, so the NASA
mission is really just more of a proof of concept
to see if we can actually affect an asteroid's flight
path by hitting it kind of like a billiard ball,
which will happen later this year in September, I believe,
is when it's scheduled to have that collision. Now. NASA's
project is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART,
(27:37):
and China's test sounds like it's going to be pretty similar,
though the country has not yet chosen which asteroid it
will target for its own test, and asteroids certainly pose
a potential threat. The Earth has been hit before and
totally transformed by asteroids in the past, so this is
another step towards the identification, tracking, and deflection of space
(27:59):
objects that could otherwise pose catastrophic danger to life on Earth.
It's uh, it's something we definitely need, and it's it's
kind of cool to think we're getting there. I never
thought we were gonna, you know, try and deflect asteroids
by whacking them, you know, sort of the percussive maintenance
approach to asteroid deflection. There were a lot of people
(28:21):
discussing things like using a spacecraft to create become kind
of like a tug boat and using the gravitational attraction
between the asteroid and spacecraft itself to deflect the path.
But obviously for that to work, you have to go much, much,
much further out in order to affect an asteroid's path
before it gets too close to the Earth. Deflection might
(28:42):
be more effective with the percussive method for asteroids that
are a little closer in. We'll have to see. And finally,
for those of you who are eagerly anticipating the animated
Super Mario Brothers movie this holiday season, I have some
bad news. The movie has been delayed until April seven
in North America and April in Japan. This is the
(29:05):
film that controversially cast Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario. Anyway,
Nintendo didn't give any details about why there is going
to be this delay, but there could be a lot
of different reasons, including production delays due to COVID, but
we do know we will not be getting the Mario
film until next year. But no worries. You can still
(29:26):
hunt down and watch the classic nine three live action
movie starring Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Legozamo as Luigi,
and Dennis Hopper as Bowser. I've only ever seen that
once and it was like a fever dream. But I've
heard more and more folks recently, mostly in the millennial generation,
(29:47):
talk about it being entertaining. Not good, mind you, but entertaining.
Dear mileage may vary. And that's it for this episode
of tech stuff News. If you have suggestions for topics
I should cover on tech Stuff, feel free to keep
reaching out to me on Twitter with the handled text
stuff h SW That Twitter handle is not going anywhere.
(30:07):
I will continue to maintain it and check it, so
reach out there and I'll talk to you again really soon. YEA.
Tech Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to tex 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 I Heart Radio.
And how the tech are Yet, it's time for the
tech news for Tuesday, April twenty six, two thousand, twenty two.
(00:27):
And after all the Twitter polls, the poison pills, and
the posturing, that's a lot of alliteration, Elon Musk and
Twitter's board of directors have come to an agreement for
Musk to purchase Twitter. Now that deal isn't done yet.
Shareholders have to agree on the acquisition and it also
(00:48):
has to pass regulatory approval. But that being said, I
think the general consensus is that there aren't gonna be
any serious roadblocks in the way of this deal and
it will in fact go through. It's a heck of
a story. I anticipate this is going to be one
of the really big stories when folks do retrospectives on
you know, the most important tech news of two. Elon
(01:10):
Musk has had a let's say controversial time on Twitter,
using a platform to post stuff that got him into
serious hot water with the SEC something that he protests
and says was unmerited um. Musk has also had a
bit of a dodgy past when it comes to following regulations,
and he's been known to use Twitter to promote certain cryptocurrencies,
(01:33):
which nearly always has had a massive effect and frequently
a short term effect on that cryptocurrency's value, which has
led some to accuse Musk of using his position to
try and pump and then dump crypto in an effort
to make a tidy profit at the expense of marks. Now,
Musk has said he plans on overseeing some really big
(01:54):
changes at Twitter, including authenticating every human on the platform
and eliminating bots. He has also repeatedly called for Twitter
to be a better steward of free speech, which has
led some to think that Musk might reverse some big
decisions like the lifelong ban on former President Donald Trump,
(02:14):
and this has a lot of people concerned that Twitter's
trend toward track cracking down on a misinformation and disinformation
campaigns could be reversed. Free speech is a pretty tricky
thing too, because you know, even the United States has
limits on free speech. It's not absolute. For example, the
United States Supreme Court has determined on numerous occasions that
(02:37):
free speech does have boundaries, like libel and slander are
two of those, so libel and slander don't count as
free speech, and so there's concerned that Musk's interpretation of
free speech might allow for rampant abuse on the platform.
Musk has said that there will still be content moderation
and that extreme tweets like those calling for physical violence
(03:00):
against people, will not be allowed, so it sounds like
there will be limitations there. He's also indicated that he
intends Twitter to work within the laws of various countries,
that he's not He's not advocating that Twitter flaunt uh
laws around the world, and that could also mean that,
(03:20):
you know, we're talking about free speech with limitations on
Twitter as well as elsewhere. So a lot of people
are kind of confused about this about where it's going
to go. Honestly, it's far too early to say because
we're not there yet. But a lot of people have
said they are leaving the platform. Much fewer are actually leaving,
(03:43):
So a lot of people are saying that's it, I'm moving,
and then they stay where they are, which you know
that happens every time we see a massive change in leadership,
whether we're talking about a social platform or a country. Uh.
Jack Dorsey, one of the co founders and the formers,
the EO of Twitter, says that Musk is the quote
singular solution I trust end quote. So there's definitely debate
(04:08):
on whether or not Musk taking over Twitter is a
good or bad thing. Now. I anticipate that I will
maintain my tech stuff hsw Twitter feed for this show,
but I have already sunset it, although not deactivated my
personal account. By sunset, I just mean I logged out. Uh.
And the reason I'm not deleting that account isn't because
(04:31):
I'm worried I'm gonna miss it. Instead, it's that I
don't want to surrender my Twitter handle and have someone
else take it over and then potentially post a lot
of nasty stuff that could, you know, for for a
casual follower, make them think that it was me. I
don't want that to ever happen. Uh. Now, for the record,
I don't think I'm really important enough for anyone to
(04:53):
actually care about doing that, but I feel as a
verified user it's probably for the best that I don't
open up that possibility anyway. I also want to say
to all of you that staying or leaving Twitter is
a personal choice. If you love Twitter and you don't
want to go and it's useful to you, those are
all legitimate reasons, and I feel you should feel fine
(05:15):
about staying on Twitter. That you know, I'm not my
own choice doesn't reflect my opinion of how other people operate.
But if you do feel uneasy and you want a skedaddle,
that's fine too. Even if it's just temporary, that's fine.
Don't let anyone dictate to you what you should or
should not do. For me, this is something I feel
(05:38):
I needed to do, both for myself as it can
have an impact on my mental well being, and also
because I genuinely feel that I won't be doing much
good on Twitter. Arguably I haven't done much good up
to this point, and I'm sure we'll have plenty more
stories about this as time goes on. And that's enough
(05:59):
for now, I think. But the Twitter conversation is absolutely
dominating the tech news space right now. It's lucky that
I was able to find a few other stories that
we can touch on to. One is that Netflix employee
morale is taking a serious hit. Now. This should come
as no real surprise last week, Netflix began a serious
(06:22):
slide in the stock market after reporting that the company
had a net loss of two hundred thousand subscribers around
the world in the first quarter of two thousand twenty two.
For many at Netflix, this slide has had a massive
personal impact, particularly people who are like in the executive level,
folks who own shares and Netflix. Because Netflix, like a
(06:45):
lot of tech companies, has rewarded employees with compensation in
the form of shares. Well, folks who have shares are
seeing their wealth decline every time the stock price takes
another hit, so it's like you're losing money working for
the company. The general caution that a lot of people
feel about Netflix after its first decline since it launched.
(07:07):
I mean, remember the earnings call we heard where we
found out about the two decline that was the first
decline in the history of Netflix. But apparently the same
concern that we're seeing outside Netflix is prevalent within the
ranks of Netflix itself. A lot of people are reportedly
considering leaving the company before things get worse, particularly again
(07:29):
at the executive and management levels. This is according to
Bloomberg by the Way, which published an article about the
whole ordeal. I still personally find this story a bit perplexing.
It's hard for me to reconcile that a company that
has been as monumentally successful as Netflix could be so
fragile that it's first really bad quarter sends the message
(07:50):
that the empire is on shaky ground. And here's the
thing that really wrinkles my brain. As Troy would say,
if enough people buy in to that perspective that Netflix
is in really serious trouble, it can become a self
fulfilling prophecy. Now, all that being said, it is clear
that there are huge challenges for Netflix and for other
(08:12):
streaming platforms. There's a limit to the audience out there.
Right Even if you are able to sign up everyone
who is interested, you eventually do stop getting new subscribers
because there's no one to to sign up. And that's
before you start taking into consideration the incredible competition in
(08:33):
the space, because there's so many different streaming platforms out
there now, and you know, obviously we're gonna probably see
more before we start to see things shake out. In
the long run, I don't think all of those streaming
services are going to survive. Some of them will end
up getting folded into others. Uh, or they might end
up changing hands. We'll see. But I always assume Netflix
(08:55):
would be one of the bedrock streaming services that would
be around, and and it really established itself so in
such a dominant position so early. Uh. But also it's
too early to suggest that the company is really at
the beginning of the end. This could be a blip
in Netflix's history, a serious one, but one that the
(09:16):
company fully recovers from. We just have to wait and see.
The Verge reports that Apple has retained the services of
a law firm called Littler Mendelssohn, widely known as a
union busting law firm. This is the same firm that
Starbucks hired in that company's efforts to counteract various union
pushes throughout its stores, and this comes on the heels
(09:39):
of an Atlanta Apple stores recent successful push to secure
enough employee signatures to warrant a union election. The flagship
Apple store in New York City is also in the
process of gathering signatures in order to have the same
kind of vote. And I am left to wonder if
the hiring of law firms like this one ultimately ends
(10:00):
up fueling the resolve of employees rather than discourages them.
It's hard for me to say from the outside. I
don't have an inside perspective of these things. It may
well be that the efforts to organize our succeeding despite
heavy opposition, rather than becoming energized by companies efforts to
squash them. I honestly can't tell. But again, it's another
(10:25):
indication that employees in the tech sector are really pushing
back against the established status quo. We've got several more
stories to go over before we get to those. Let's
take a quick break. We're back and over in Japan.
(10:46):
Apple is facing another battle, as is Google. Government report
in Japan named Apple and Google as essentially a duopoly
when it comes to the smartphone operating system market, and
that's totally true. Google is way in the lead worldwide.
Google has about a seventy percent of the smartphone operating
system market share according to stat Counter. Apple is at
(11:09):
a healthy twenty seven point five seven, which means that
together Apple and and Google or you know, iOS and Android,
make up about percent of the smartphone operating system market.
Kind Of hard to argue against the duopoly when you
have a figure like that. The government report expressed concern
(11:29):
that this arrangement, this du woppoly creates an unfair marketplace
for app developers and consumers alike, pointing out that it
is common practice for Android phones to come pre installed
with say the Chrome browser, or for Apple to favor Safari,
and the report argues that this stifles competition from other
(11:50):
browsers and and that it is actively discouraging users from
installing other browsers besides the ones that come pre installed
on the operating system. Further, the report argues that developers
are forced into ecosystems in order to have their work
accessible by people who use these smartphones, and that Apple
(12:11):
and Google should allow developers and users to choose alternative
app stores from the official ones on the platform. So,
in other words, you should be able to go to
other stores besides the Apple App Store and download apps
for your iPhone. Now, this is pretty much the opposite
of Apple's market strategy, and unsurprisingly, the company has protested
(12:31):
the report, arguing that Apple faces fierce competition in every arena.
And it remains to be seen what this report will
actually lead to in Japan, but it marks another spot
in the world where the big companies like Apple and
Google are starting to face resistance from regulators, like serious resistance.
And we've got another story about the shaky world of
(12:52):
n f t s. All right, So quick reminder, and
n f T is a non fungible token, which really
means it's a digital seartificate showing ownership of some sort
of digital asset, and it is tracked on a blockchain
of some sort so that there is a clear uh
chain of transactions so you can trace who owned it
(13:16):
at what point and who currently owns that digital asset.
As far as what that asset is, it could be
a line of code, it could be a piece of
digital art, it could be an item within a video game,
or pretty much anything else that's digital. And n f
t s have been put through the wringer after a
chaotic hype cycle that had its fair share of speculation, scams,
(13:39):
and other shenanigans, and The Verge reports that a hacker
has managed to steal n f t s, estimated to
be worth millions of dollars, using one really tricky method
and one super easy method. Now, the tricky part was
that the hacker was able to gain access to the
official Instagram account for the board Ape Yacht Club or
(14:01):
b A y C. That's one of the entities that
is famed for minting n f T s of digital art,
and folks have been speculating ridiculous amounts of money on
these pieces of art like this is the kind of
stuff that got people a bit wary of n f
T s in the first place, when they look at
the art and they say, wait, how much money are
(14:24):
people spending for a digital certificate showing ownership of this thing?
And uh, we actually don't know how the hacker managed
to get access of that Instagram account. As of the
recording of this podcast, the b A y C says
that it had activated two factor authentication on its Instagram account,
so it should have been impossible for anyone not in
(14:46):
possession of whatever that second factor was to be able
to get access to the account. Maybe it was an
inside job, but the hacker then used the official account
to send out a fishing link that, if followed, would
prompt n f T holders to interact with that link,
and the link would lead the hacker to joint crypto
(15:08):
tokens right out of those users wallets. So, in other words,
folks got a link from what they assumed to be
a trusted source. They got it from the official b
A y C Instagram account, which should be trustworthy, and
they ended up getting robbed because of that. Now, the
hacker convinced folks to follow follow the fishing link by
(15:29):
leaning on one of the most reliable techniques in the
history of humans, which is counting on greed. So the
link proclaimed to be an air drop of tokens, and
if folks joined and they connected their wallets to the link,
they were supposedly going to be showered with what amounts
to be free money, really free digital assets which could
(15:51):
later be sold or auctioned off for money, and folks
love the idea of free money, so there were a
lot of takers. Open C famous crypto exchange, has subsequently
banned the hackers wallet address on that platform, but it
is still visible on other platforms. No word yet on
how or if those who are affected by this theft
(16:14):
will be compensated. The Register reports that the Department of
Homeland Security, after initiating a hack DHS program in which
the department invited hackers to look for vulnerabilities and exploits
in the homeland securities systems, discovered that its systems are
far from secure. The four fifty security researchers who took
(16:36):
part in this event uncovered one hundred twenty two vulnerabilities,
seven of which they deemed to be critical. That's pretty
darned bad, but it really illustrates how these events are
critical for organizations, government or otherwise offering bug bounties. That
is a payment to people who uncover and subsequently report
(16:59):
vulnerabilities and systems. That gives organizations a chance to patch
those holes and prevent actual black hat hackers from exploiting
those vulnerabilities. I find it, frankly a little scary that
a department that has, let's face it, a checkered past,
had so many critical vulnerabilities and its various systems, But
(17:20):
I am glad that the department is taking steps to
address that in a responsible way. Penetration testing is a
pretty big deal, and I might need to get my
friend Shannon Morris back on the show to talk about
how that process typically works. She's an expert in that
field and I am not. The White House has urged
(17:42):
Congress to pass legislation that would allow more law enforcement
agencies in the United States access to drone tracking systems Now,
to be clear, this isn't about those agencies operating drones
in an effort to track citizens or identify suspects. Instead,
this is about giving those agencies the ability to detect
(18:03):
and track the drones themselves, presumably in an effort to
counteract crime and terrorism efforts that rely on drone technology. Now,
this is not yet a law. It's just a suggestion
to Congress, and it marks the continuation of the U.
S government's increased concern about drones and drone operation. One
story that I missed in one was the f a
(18:27):
a S new drone rules that require any new drones
sold in the United States to broadcast the drone operators
physical location. And that kind of makes sense in some scenarios,
like say there's a person who's operating a drone that's
in a restricted area which could pose as a threat.
(18:47):
Even if the person didn't intend to do that, it
could be critically important to track that person down and
be able to stop that person or to you know,
tell that person what's going on so that they can
move the drown out of the restricted area, because drones
could pose a threat to things like aircraft, for example. However,
(19:07):
this capability The idea of being able to track an
operator's physical location also has some troubling consequences. For instance,
during the Black Lives Matter protests in some folks were
using drones to keep an eye on police activity, and
it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination
to assume that a law enforcement agency that was under
(19:29):
citizens surveillance might use the drones broadcasting of the operator's
physical location to track down and stop that operator. So
it really does go both ways here, and it also
raises the point that drone tracking technology now is effectively
operator tracking technology, right if you're talking about a drone
(19:50):
that was purchased legally in the United States after this
f a A rule came into effect, then you could say, well, yeah,
it's important to track the drones, but we also have
to remember that this could be abused so that police
could track the operators. It's not even necessarily about the
(20:11):
technology in that respect. It's more again a kind of
citizen surveillance. So there are definitely some you know, dark
consequences to this as well. A UK watchdog called the
Competition and Markets Authority may soon have some new powers
when it comes to holding companies accountable for fake reviews
posted on sites websites, So we're talking about user generated
(20:36):
reviews for the most part, and the practice of certain
entities like shady product companies or sometimes the PR firms
hired to promote those products of either posting directly or
hiring people to post positive fake reviews in an effort
to market their goods. UH. The proposals in the UK
(20:57):
suggest making it quote clearly illegal end quote to hire
someone to write or host fake reviews, and if found guilty,
the c m A could find the responsible party, presumably
either the site that's hosting the reviews or the people
who are hiring people to post fake reviews up to
(21:17):
ten percent of their global turnover. This will create a
new responsibility for sites that host reviews, namely that they
need to have practices in place to be reasonably certain
that the reviews posted on the site are legitimate. So presumably,
if a website shows that it has taken reasonable action
to guard against fake reviews, the c m A won't
(21:41):
levy finds on that site should some fake reviews slip through. UM,
I'm guessing that there's going to be uh a grace
period where if a site is alerted to a fake review,
it has the opportunity to remove it before um any
kind of consideration would fall on it. In addition, the
UK government is looking to make it easier for consumers
(22:03):
to cancel subscriptions should they not want a service any longer.
I mentioned this in an earlier tech stuff News episode.
I'm sure all of you had some sort of experience
where you were put through a wild goose chase in
an effort to cancel a subscription. Now, personally, I think
these are good steps, assuming that the enforcement is reasonable
and fair, which admittedly is much easier said than done.
(22:27):
We have a couple more news stories to get through
before we get to those, Let's take another quick break.
Several years ago, I wrote an article for how stuff
works dot com about how the large had drawn Collider works,
And at the time of me writing that article, the
(22:51):
LHC had not yet graduated to full power experiments. Didn't
stop people from speculating on what the LHC would find
or potential calamity it might cause once it goes into power.
But yeah, I wrote the article on that, and then
it got up to doing full power experiments. But then
(23:12):
over the last three years, the LHC has been pretty quiet.
Scientists did initiate some pilot particle beams around the facility
in October twenty twenty one, but otherwise it's been offline. Now.
The purpose for that multi year hiatus was well, there's
it was manifold. There were quite a few One big
(23:32):
one was that there was a massive upgrade to the LHC,
and there were also repairs and maintenance to the facility.
And now it's back baby. Last week the LHC sent
out opposing beams of protons at an injection energy of
four fifty billion electron volts. All right, now, let's do
(23:53):
a quick rundown in case none of this is making
any sense to you. The Large Hadron Collider is a
particle accelerator, so it uses extremely powerful electromagnets to both
propel and direct opposing beams of particles such as protons,
but it could be other stuff too, so that these
particles collide at specific points along the pathway. Now located
(24:17):
at these specific points are a selection of different experiments.
These experiments focus on different elements of particle science, so
the collisions create scenarios that are otherwise impossible for us
to replicate. On Earth, including the formation of teeny tiny
black holes that last for a fraction of a fraction
(24:38):
of a second. That black hole thing is one of
the things that trips some people out, But it's really
important to note that the energy of these black holes
is such that they cannot last. It is less than
a gnat's beating of its wings once like it's it's tiny, tiny,
tiny amounts of energy, and they're gone before you can
even be aware that they were there without the use
(25:01):
of incredibly sensitive equipment, so they blip out of existence
almost as quickly as they appear. Anyway, the science done
at the LHC is expanding our understanding of how the
universe works. You know, how energy and how matter work,
and it's gone a long way to proving or disproving
various hypotheses in physics. And just because the facility wasn't
(25:24):
actively blasting particles around for three years and some change
doesn't mean that a lot of important science wasn't going on.
Quite the opposite, in fact, see one of the really
big challenges of these experiments is that the collisions generate
a truly tremendous amount of data, and it's a full
(25:46):
time gig just combing through all the information and making
sense of it. So, while the facility was effectively offline
as far as generating new experiments, there were countless scientists
examining the information that we're create was created through the
previous years of collisions. Now, in what is being called
Run three of the LHC, we're gonna see two new experiments,
(26:09):
one called S and D at LHC and another called Phaser.
These are going to look into everything from physics that
go beyond the standard model of physics to the production
of anti matter. Maybe it will help us understand why
our universe had a tiny bit more matter than it
had antimatter. That's that's why we've got stuff. If there
(26:32):
had been equal amounts, then they would have annihilated each
other completely and the universe would be empty. But it's
not why. Maybe this experiment will help us learn anyway.
I love learning about the LHC, though admittedly the stuff
is way over my head. China has announced that it
is going to launch a space mission sometime in the
(26:53):
next four years in order to send a spacecraft that
will collide with an asteroid on purpose to test a
potential asteroid deflection system. This is similar to a NASA
mission that was launched in November of last year. That
mission has sent to spacecraft to collide with Dimorphos, a
small asteroid that orbits a larger one called Didimus. Dimorphos
(27:16):
isn't on a collision course with Earth, so the NASA
mission is really just more of a proof of concept
to see if we can actually affect an asteroid's flight
path by hitting it kind of like a billiard ball,
which will happen later this year in September, I believe,
is when it's scheduled to have that collision. Now. NASA's
project is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART,
(27:37):
and China's test sounds like it's going to be pretty similar,
though the country has not yet chosen which asteroid it
will target for its own test, and asteroids certainly pose
a potential threat. The Earth has been hit before and
totally transformed by asteroids in the past, so this is
another step towards the identification, tracking, and deflection of space
(27:59):
objects that could otherwise pose catastrophic danger to life on Earth.
It's uh, it's something we definitely need, and it's it's
kind of cool to think we're getting there. I never
thought we were gonna, you know, try and deflect asteroids
by whacking them, you know, sort of the percussive maintenance
approach to asteroid deflection. There were a lot of people
(28:21):
discussing things like using a spacecraft to create become kind
of like a tug boat and using the gravitational attraction
between the asteroid and spacecraft itself to deflect the path.
But obviously for that to work, you have to go much, much,
much further out in order to affect an asteroid's path
before it gets too close to the Earth. Deflection might
(28:42):
be more effective with the percussive method for asteroids that
are a little closer in. We'll have to see. And finally,
for those of you who are eagerly anticipating the animated
Super Mario Brothers movie this holiday season, I have some
bad news. The movie has been delayed until April seven
in North America and April in Japan. This is the
(29:05):
film that controversially cast Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario. Anyway,
Nintendo didn't give any details about why there is going
to be this delay, but there could be a lot
of different reasons, including production delays due to COVID, but
we do know we will not be getting the Mario
film until next year. But no worries. You can still
(29:26):
hunt down and watch the classic nine three live action
movie starring Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Legozamo as Luigi,
and Dennis Hopper as Bowser. I've only ever seen that
once and it was like a fever dream. But I've
heard more and more folks recently, mostly in the millennial generation,
(29:47):
talk about it being entertaining. Not good, mind you, but entertaining.
Dear mileage may vary. And that's it for this episode
of tech stuff News. If you have suggestions for topics
I should cover on tech Stuff, feel free to keep
reaching out to me on Twitter with the handled text
stuff h SW That Twitter handle is not going anywhere.
(30:07):
I will continue to maintain it and check it, so
reach out there and I'll talk to you again really soon. YEA.
Tech Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
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TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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