November 11, 2021 • 24 mins
South Korea is barging into the future with a municipal metaverse for Seoul and an air traffic control system for flying taxis. Plus an update on Elon Musk selling Tesla stock, why it's still hard to buy a PlayStation 5 and how a brain computer interface project interprets imaginary handwriting.
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Episode Transcript
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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
job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio
and a love all things tech, and let me cover
a couple of things before we get to the news today.
One of those is that I might sound a little different.
(00:25):
That's because super producer Tari sent me a brand new
microphone that is a serious upgrade from the one I
had been using, So if it sounds a little different,
that's why. Uh. Second, I will be on vacation next week,
but I will be running some reruns about General Electric
(00:45):
during the time I'm gone. Since we now know that
g E is going to split up into three companies
in the near future, I thought it would be a
good thing to go back over the history of that company.
So those will be publishing next week as well as
well as a Smart Talks with IBM episode which should
come out Thursday, and then I'll be back for part
(01:05):
of the following week and then we go into US Thanksgiving.
But that's all of the way. Now let's cover the
tech news for Thursday, November eleven one. So I'm going
to start off this News episode with a correction and
an explanation about the story that I mentioned earlier this week.
So on Tuesday, I talked about how Elon Musk had
(01:27):
set up a Twitter poll about whether or not he
should sell off ten percent of the stock he was
holding in Tesla, and he framed it as a response
to US lawmakers who said that, you know, stocks are
unrealized gains that wouldn't be taxed, and that this was
a way that the ultra rich billionaires like Elon Musk
(01:49):
use in order so that they don't have to pay
taxes on that. So essentially he was saying the US says,
I'm trying to avoid paying taxes, should I sell ten
percent of my stock? Because then you see, by selling
the stock, he would have to pay taxes on the
money he earned from that sale. Now, in the story,
I believe I mentioned that it would be worth around
(02:09):
twenty one billion dollars. Business Insider reports that Musk exercise
two point one five million stock options for six dollars
cents a share each. That means he actually purchased the
stock at that price that set him back thirteen point
four billion bucks. Then he sold off around four and
a half million shares for a total of around five
(02:32):
billion dollars, And you might say, hey, five billion dollars
is significantly less than twenty one billion. But then Musk
sold off less than his ten percent of holdings he
had mentioned in Twitter. In fact, it was less than
three percent that he sold off, So that is where
part of that discrepancy comes in. But the big thing
(02:54):
that Business Insider reported was that Musk had been planning
to sell off that stock for months and that the
poll was really more of a stunt than anything else.
And honestly, if I had used a little bit of
critical thinking, if I had taken my own advice, I
might have come to a similar conclusion. But I fell
short on that, which just goes to show that critical
(03:16):
thinking is an active skill that you have to work at. Anyway.
According to Business Insider, regulatory filings showed that Musk always
planned on this course of action because those stock options
that he exercised were set to expire next year and
he had to act before they actually did expire. On
top of that, he's going to face a pretty big
(03:37):
tax bill coming up, like a ten billion dollar one,
so liquidation was kind of a necessity. So might did
he post the Twitter poll. If all this was already
planned well, Speculation says that Musk might have done this
in order to soften the news that the CEO of
a company was selling off a large block of stocks
in that company, because that's a message that could have
(04:00):
a dramatic impact on the company's stock price. So instead
of the media saying Musk suddenly dumps millions of shares
of Tesla, the media says, Musk asks Twitter if he
should sell stock. So the price of Tesla stock still
took a hit, but by shifting accountability to Twitter rather
(04:22):
than to himself, Musk can avoid the appearance that the
CEO of a company has lost confidence in their own company,
because that really that doesn't reflect reality anyway. So yeah,
I was one of those stooges who pushed that narrative forward.
Dang it critical thinking, why are you got to be
so hard? I also mentioned on Tuesday that hackers accessed
(04:46):
user information on the broker company robin Hood's internal systems,
robin Hood allowing people to create accounts and then you know,
get involved in in stock market trades and stuff. Initially,
it's sounded as though the information that hackers accessed was
limited to stuff like email addresses for the vast majority
(05:07):
of those affected, UH, the names and physical addresses, and
some similar information for a smaller number. So the vast
the vast majority of users who were affected, it was
supposedly just their email address. Now Motherboard has released screenshots
showing the internal tools that the hackers used to get
(05:28):
a closer look of at least a few accounts, maybe
as few as ten UH, and they had access to
stuff like bank transfer histories, which devices were authorized to
access the account customers, support conversations with certain users, and
that kind of thing. There's no word on whether the
hackers actually used the tools to make changes to the accounts.
(05:49):
Robin Hood says that did not happen, but it does
look like they would have at least been able to
if they had wanted to. Also, no word on whether
the hackers purposefully targeted the small number of accounts that
received a more extensive probing or whether that was just
you know, random. In YouTube News, the platform is saying
(06:10):
goodbye to a feature that's been around for years, and
that is of the public dislike tally. The dislike button
is sticking around, but the tally is going away. Anyone
familiar with YouTube knows that the like and dislike options
below a video or there. I mean, you often have
creators saying, if you enjoyed this video, hit that little
(06:30):
like button. Like that's pretty common, and the assumption goes
that the likes factor into YouTube's recommendation algorithm and thus
makes it more likely that the video will one get
greater exposure to other users, and two that if you
like a video, YouTube is going to probably serve you
up stuff that's similar. Now, I say assumption because YouTube
(06:53):
is pretty darn quiet about how it's recommendation engine actually works,
and it's frequently tweaking the system. And for a just
you could actually see the tally of likes and dislikes
below the video. But now YouTube is going to hide
the number of dislikes that a video actually receives. The
dislike button is still going to be there, but you
(07:13):
won't see how many times folks have clicked on this. Uh,
this YouTube says is meant to prevent a kind of
snowball effect that sometimes happens where folks will dislike a
video and the number will go up, and then more
people will pile on and it becomes kind of an
avalanche of dislikes, and some folks join in on that
activity even if they've never watched the video in the
first place. I made this argument on Twitter that for
(07:36):
a very long time, the Justin Bieber music video for
Baby was the most disliked video on YouTube, and I
am certain that a large number of people who hit
dislike on that video had never bothered to watch it.
They just kind of thought it was funny to pile
on and dislike the video. I'm not saying the video
is good, by the way, I'm just saying that I
(07:59):
am convinced that it earned way more dislikes than people
actually watched in that in that sense, So the ideas
this will help prevent those kind of instance and you know,
hopefully reduce the amount of abuse people have heaped onto
creators using the dislike button. Now, the video creators will
(08:21):
still be able to see dislike counts through their analytics,
and the dislikes should help YouTube continue to tune recommendations
more to the individual users so that you're not flooded
with more videos that you don't like. And I actually
do like that because I I recently, you know, this
is a personal story, I watched some videos about camping.
Not that I think I'm gonna go camping anytime soon,
(08:43):
but for some reason I got on this camping kick,
and now YouTube occasionally suggests hunting videos to me. And
I've got nothing against hunting, at least as long as
it's not trophy hunting. I think trophy hunting is cruel
and horrifying and awful and unnecessary. But whether it's you know,
subsistence hunting or not, I don't want to watch videos
(09:06):
about it. That's not my bag. So knowing the dislike
feature is really more so that viewers can shape their
recommendations and less about mob mentality is cool. Whether or
not it works remains to be seen. I'm sure there
will still be campaigns against certain videos or creators that
will commence tons of folks to dislike specific videos, even
(09:27):
if they've never watched the video. But maybe it won't
be as bad as it was before because you won't
see how effective the attack is. There will be no
number associated with dislikes. Also, let's take a moment to
mourn the passing of an amazing internet meme joke, and
that is of the neutral Response video, which is a
clip from the show Futurama and in the clip, there's
(09:51):
an alien from this planet that's just filled with people
who have neutral tendencies, and the alien says, I have
no strong feelings one way or the other. And the
joke was that the number of likes and dislikes for
that video have balanced out, like whenever anyone would like
the video, someone else would come along and dislike it
in order to keep them even so, the current tally
(10:14):
is at five fifty four thousand each more or less. Well,
once dislikes disappear, that collective joke will be over. So
that's a little sad. It seems like the concept of
the metaverse is gonna be a theme for a while.
I think it's a little bit odd because the concept
itself isn't really that new, and arguably you could even
(10:36):
call stuff like Second Life a type of metaverse, and
that's been around for ages. Anyway. The reason I even
mentioned it is that the Soul Metropolitan Government, as in
Soul Korea, has announced it will create its own metaverse
with Blackjack and no way, I'm still thinking about Futurama quotes.
No uh, I mean it's going to create a metaverse
meant to allow quote citizens to conveniently meet with Avatar
(11:00):
officials to deal with civil complaints and consultations end quote.
So essentially, this would replace the need to physically travel
to a municipal office for an in person appointment, which
is not a bad thing considering it, you know, there's
a pandemic going at all. It's interesting that they're going
the avatar route. To me, I'm not sure how that
(11:20):
is more beneficial oversay a video conference called directly with
whomever it is you need to meet, Like, how is
it better than that? But the city government is willing
to invest around three billion dollars into the project, which
is part of a larger city plan that aims to
transform Soul by twenty and I guess one benefit is
(11:41):
the metaverse proposal would also include the ability to virtually
attend mass events like imagine a giant concert that kind
of thing. You could virtually be there and you would
be surrounded by other virtual people watching a virtual concert,
so you could still be part of a group experience
without actually having to leave house. Now, again, it's hard
(12:01):
for me to see this as being better than just say,
watching a live stream video of the concert. Uh. I
know that virtual reality can be really immersive. I've experienced
that myself. I get that, and probably there is some
sort of psychological boost compared to just watching a live
stream video on a classic screen. But I think part
of me would still be thinking to myself, it's weird
(12:23):
that I have to put on all this VR gear
just to witness this. You know. Then again, I've also
always been a little anxious in crowds. That has actually
gotten way worse since the pandemic. So maybe it's just
that this particular thing is not for me anyway. There's
some aspects to VR metaverse stuff that I can totally
get behind, like the idea of improved accessibility for folks
(12:46):
who otherwise would have trouble attending physical events. I think
that's great to give people who otherwise couldn't have that
chance to do it. That is fantastic. However, you also
have to acknowledge this has improved accessibility assuming you're able
to afford the hardware you need in order to run
VR properly. To me, that's still an accessibility barrier. We
(13:10):
have a few more stories to cover, but before we
get to that, let's take a quick break. Before the break,
I talked a little bit about accessibility. Sticking with that
that theme, of the United States government has sued the
ride hailing company Uber, saying that the company has failed
(13:32):
to ensure equitable fairs for passengers with disabilities. So Uber
has this weight time fee, and it's the idea is
that the weight time fee charges a passenger if they
force a driver to wait a couple of minutes once
they arrive at a destination UH to pick someone up. So,
(13:53):
in other words, if I call an Uber and the
Uber pulls up outside my house, but I'm still inside
puttering around, trying to get stuff done, putting on shoes,
whatever it may be, and I'm making the driver weight,
then Uber charges me for the fact that I have
inconvenience the driver, I have taken time away from the driver.
That's time that they could potentially be earning on another fair.
(14:16):
That's the idea behind the policy. Unfortunately, this policy would
also adversely affect people with disabilities who need more time
to get into a vehicle. If they are actually taking
more time to get into the vehicle and the driver
is sitting there for a few minutes, this policy would
pop into effect and the passengers would be essentially monetarily
(14:40):
penalized for the fact that they can't get into a
car very fast, and that's just discrimination as defined by
the Americans with Disabilities Act. So that's why the United
States government has sued Uber. Uber, by the way, has
introduced a feature in its app that will waive weight
time fees for passengers who are certified as being disabled.
(15:02):
I'm not sure what that certification process actually is. I
don't know how they determine that, but the Department of
Justice is seeking damages from Uber to compensate passengers who
had been affected by this policy, as well as just
mandating that that policy cannot apply to people with disabilities
because otherwise it does discriminate and the Americans with disabilities
(15:26):
that makes that illegal. So interesting story. Sony has recently
revealed that, due to ongoing supply chain issues, the company
expects to produce fewer PlayStation five consoles than they had
originally planned, by the tune of one million units. Now.
Their fiscal year ends in March or at the beginning
of March, I believe, and so I think the original
(15:49):
plan was to produce sixteen million units. It's going to
be closer to fifteen million, and the sales goal was
for fourteen point eight million, which means there's not a
whole lot of margin there. They have to pray much
sell every single unit they make in order to meet
the numbers that they had projected. The PS five launched
almost exactly a year ago. The original launch date was
(16:09):
November twelve, and it has been consistently challenging to find
in stores. You know, actually had the chance to snag
one a couple of weeks ago, but a dilly dallied
and then that chance went bye bye. And you know,
I'm sure a lot of you gamers out there have
had similar experiences. And unfortunately, this means there will be
(16:30):
fewer consoles produced than planned. That means it's still going
to be difficult to find them in stores, which is
a real blow, particularly since we're into the holiday gift
buying season. Uh that, by the way, is sure to
be impacted by various supply chain issues. A lot of
people have found that just the stuff that they were
planning on buying is taking way longer to get to
(16:50):
them than they had originally thought. That's gonna keep going, right,
I mean, the supply chain crunch is a real one,
and it has created bottle throughout the entire system where
you know, suddenly a facility gets flooded with products and
then it has to figure out how does it deal
with that to pass it further down the chain. This
(17:12):
is a domino effect, a cascading effect that we see
throughout the supply chain. So as a tech person, typically
I would be expected to suggest certain like Black Friday
or Cyber Monday deals that focus on stuff like TVs
and electronics and sound systems, that kind of thing. This year,
I humbly suggest that if you plan on buying holiday presents,
(17:34):
patronize like local shop owners and artists and tradespeople instead,
it will be a bigger benefit to your immediate community.
And if enough of us actually do that, it will
relieve some of the insane pressure that's on the supply
side of the supply chain economy right now, and things
can get to a better equilibrium. But only if enough
(17:56):
of us actually kind of at least remove that part
to the pressure on the system, Like the demand side
is still super high, and that's just kind of exacerbating
an already tough situation. Okay, let's go back to South Korea.
I mentioned them earlier in the episode. Well, the country
recently unveiled a traffic control system designed to handle urban
(18:19):
air mobility vehicles or u a m s, which is
a fancy way of saying flying machines what take passengers
from one place to another place, or a flying taxi
in other words. And these typically take the form factor
of a really large multi rotor drone type thing, because
it's not drones, more like a multi rotor helicopter in
(18:42):
a way. So think of like like the drones you
would see that are remote controlled, but much much bigger
and sometimes with more rotors. The traffic control system would
be a necessary component if flying taxis are to be,
you know, a real thing, Like if they're to become
an integral component in transportation, then you've got you've got
(19:04):
to have some sort of system to be able to
handle that. So the country is actually testing this to
kind of work out the design flaws and to tweak
things in order to set a foundation for a future
with flying vehicles that are actually an actively carrying people
to and fro. The test involved a vehicle made by
a company called Volocopter, and according to the Korean Times,
(19:26):
that particular vehicle is one that can either be piloted
by a human or it can operate in an autonomous mode. Currently,
South Korea requires a pilot to be present should any
passengers be inside the vehicle, so you cannot, you know,
use this like an autonomous taxi under South Korean law currently.
(19:46):
I think that's a wise decision. The government says it's
necessary both as a safety measure and also to help
secure passenger confidence in the system. Makes sense to me.
The Korean Times also reports that the expected cost or
a customer to take a ride from the Incheon International
Airport to Central Soul to be around nine dollars American
(20:08):
the equivalent of ninety dollars when the pilot program No
Pun Intended launches No Pun Intended, which is supposed to
be in However, they say that that price should drop
dramatically once the technology and the business matures, so within
a decade they expect the cost to drop low enough
(20:31):
so that it would be the equivalent of less than
twenty dollars per trep. That to me is phenomenal. I
think it's really optimistic, but I would love to see
it happen, assuming, of course, that the system has proven
to be safe and reliable. Finally, I've written and talked
about brain computer interfaces quite a few times. I always
find them fascinating. Creating technology that can detect and interpret
(20:54):
brain waves and then produce some sort of meaningful output
is really cool, particularly for people who have limited or
no motor functions and who otherwise would find it challenging
or even impossible to communicate well. Science Alert reported earlier
this week on a research program called brain Gate that
has developed an interface that allows a paralyzed subject, a
(21:16):
man who volunteered to be part of this, to generate
text on a screen just by imagining his own handwriting,
so he can think about writing a word by hand,
even though he lost all uh control of his limbs
years ago, and that thought will then be interpreted by
(21:37):
the system, and then the text will appear on a
screen reflecting the letters he was imagining himself writing. Now,
I've heard of other systems that use training sessions so
that someone can learn how to control a cursor with
their mind, and they can move the cursor around to
kind of type things out on an on screen keyboard,
very similar to how you would use an on screen
(21:58):
touch keyboard. But this is the first time I've heard
about something that can interpret the thoughts about writing a
word and use that to display that same word on screen. Now,
it's still a slow process. The subject in the research
project could right around nine characters per minute, that's about
eighteen words per minute, but they could do it with
(22:20):
like accuracy before auto correct was brought in. And it
still requires surgery to implant electrodes into the brain, so
this is not like some hat you put on and
you can use it. It is an invasive process, but
for people who would otherwise find themselves unable to communicate,
this technology is incredibly powerful. It's also fascinating to me
(22:43):
that the brain can retain abilities related to fine motor
movements even years after someone has lost that actual physical capability.
So not only are we learning more about how to
develop these systems, we're learning more about the resilience of
the brain and how the brain operates. So those learnings
will inform future implementations which will continue to improve. And
(23:07):
my hope is that in the future will have systems
that give people a lot more independence and autonomy and
communication abilities and to dramatically improve their quality of life,
even in the case where they have lost or maybe
never even had abilities to to move around. I think
(23:28):
that that is really phenomenal. All right, that wraps up
the news episode for Thursday, November eleven, twenty one. If
you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future
episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out. The best way
to do that is on Twitter. The handle for the
show is tech Stuff hs W. I'm out next week.
You'll get your g E episodes in place of me,
(23:52):
and there will also be a Smart Talks with IBM
episode on Thursday. But I will be back the following Monday,
so catch you on the flip side. And if you
are walking around Disney World, look for a bald guy
who's probably staring on his phone because of Genie Plus.
But that's a that's a topic for another podcast. All right,
Bye bye, I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
(24:20):
Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
from I 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
job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio
and a love all things tech, and let me cover
a couple of things before we get to the news today.
One of those is that I might sound a little different.
(00:25):
That's because super producer Tari sent me a brand new
microphone that is a serious upgrade from the one I
had been using, So if it sounds a little different,
that's why. Uh. Second, I will be on vacation next week,
but I will be running some reruns about General Electric
(00:45):
during the time I'm gone. Since we now know that
g E is going to split up into three companies
in the near future, I thought it would be a
good thing to go back over the history of that company.
So those will be publishing next week as well as
well as a Smart Talks with IBM episode which should
come out Thursday, and then I'll be back for part
(01:05):
of the following week and then we go into US Thanksgiving.
But that's all of the way. Now let's cover the
tech news for Thursday, November eleven one. So I'm going
to start off this News episode with a correction and
an explanation about the story that I mentioned earlier this week.
So on Tuesday, I talked about how Elon Musk had
(01:27):
set up a Twitter poll about whether or not he
should sell off ten percent of the stock he was
holding in Tesla, and he framed it as a response
to US lawmakers who said that, you know, stocks are
unrealized gains that wouldn't be taxed, and that this was
a way that the ultra rich billionaires like Elon Musk
(01:49):
use in order so that they don't have to pay
taxes on that. So essentially he was saying the US says,
I'm trying to avoid paying taxes, should I sell ten
percent of my stock? Because then you see, by selling
the stock, he would have to pay taxes on the
money he earned from that sale. Now, in the story,
I believe I mentioned that it would be worth around
(02:09):
twenty one billion dollars. Business Insider reports that Musk exercise
two point one five million stock options for six dollars
cents a share each. That means he actually purchased the
stock at that price that set him back thirteen point
four billion bucks. Then he sold off around four and
a half million shares for a total of around five
(02:32):
billion dollars, And you might say, hey, five billion dollars
is significantly less than twenty one billion. But then Musk
sold off less than his ten percent of holdings he
had mentioned in Twitter. In fact, it was less than
three percent that he sold off, So that is where
part of that discrepancy comes in. But the big thing
(02:54):
that Business Insider reported was that Musk had been planning
to sell off that stock for months and that the
poll was really more of a stunt than anything else.
And honestly, if I had used a little bit of
critical thinking, if I had taken my own advice, I
might have come to a similar conclusion. But I fell
short on that, which just goes to show that critical
(03:16):
thinking is an active skill that you have to work at. Anyway.
According to Business Insider, regulatory filings showed that Musk always
planned on this course of action because those stock options
that he exercised were set to expire next year and
he had to act before they actually did expire. On
top of that, he's going to face a pretty big
(03:37):
tax bill coming up, like a ten billion dollar one,
so liquidation was kind of a necessity. So might did
he post the Twitter poll. If all this was already
planned well, Speculation says that Musk might have done this
in order to soften the news that the CEO of
a company was selling off a large block of stocks
in that company, because that's a message that could have
(04:00):
a dramatic impact on the company's stock price. So instead
of the media saying Musk suddenly dumps millions of shares
of Tesla, the media says, Musk asks Twitter if he
should sell stock. So the price of Tesla stock still
took a hit, but by shifting accountability to Twitter rather
(04:22):
than to himself, Musk can avoid the appearance that the
CEO of a company has lost confidence in their own company,
because that really that doesn't reflect reality anyway. So yeah,
I was one of those stooges who pushed that narrative forward.
Dang it critical thinking, why are you got to be
so hard? I also mentioned on Tuesday that hackers accessed
(04:46):
user information on the broker company robin Hood's internal systems,
robin Hood allowing people to create accounts and then you know,
get involved in in stock market trades and stuff. Initially,
it's sounded as though the information that hackers accessed was
limited to stuff like email addresses for the vast majority
(05:07):
of those affected, UH, the names and physical addresses, and
some similar information for a smaller number. So the vast
the vast majority of users who were affected, it was
supposedly just their email address. Now Motherboard has released screenshots
showing the internal tools that the hackers used to get
(05:28):
a closer look of at least a few accounts, maybe
as few as ten UH, and they had access to
stuff like bank transfer histories, which devices were authorized to
access the account customers, support conversations with certain users, and
that kind of thing. There's no word on whether the
hackers actually used the tools to make changes to the accounts.
(05:49):
Robin Hood says that did not happen, but it does
look like they would have at least been able to
if they had wanted to. Also, no word on whether
the hackers purposefully targeted the small number of accounts that
received a more extensive probing or whether that was just
you know, random. In YouTube News, the platform is saying
(06:10):
goodbye to a feature that's been around for years, and
that is of the public dislike tally. The dislike button
is sticking around, but the tally is going away. Anyone
familiar with YouTube knows that the like and dislike options
below a video or there. I mean, you often have
creators saying, if you enjoyed this video, hit that little
(06:30):
like button. Like that's pretty common, and the assumption goes
that the likes factor into YouTube's recommendation algorithm and thus
makes it more likely that the video will one get
greater exposure to other users, and two that if you
like a video, YouTube is going to probably serve you
up stuff that's similar. Now, I say assumption because YouTube
(06:53):
is pretty darn quiet about how it's recommendation engine actually works,
and it's frequently tweaking the system. And for a just
you could actually see the tally of likes and dislikes
below the video. But now YouTube is going to hide
the number of dislikes that a video actually receives. The
dislike button is still going to be there, but you
(07:13):
won't see how many times folks have clicked on this. Uh,
this YouTube says is meant to prevent a kind of
snowball effect that sometimes happens where folks will dislike a
video and the number will go up, and then more
people will pile on and it becomes kind of an
avalanche of dislikes, and some folks join in on that
activity even if they've never watched the video in the
first place. I made this argument on Twitter that for
(07:36):
a very long time, the Justin Bieber music video for
Baby was the most disliked video on YouTube, and I
am certain that a large number of people who hit
dislike on that video had never bothered to watch it.
They just kind of thought it was funny to pile
on and dislike the video. I'm not saying the video
is good, by the way, I'm just saying that I
(07:59):
am convinced that it earned way more dislikes than people
actually watched in that in that sense, So the ideas
this will help prevent those kind of instance and you know,
hopefully reduce the amount of abuse people have heaped onto
creators using the dislike button. Now, the video creators will
(08:21):
still be able to see dislike counts through their analytics,
and the dislikes should help YouTube continue to tune recommendations
more to the individual users so that you're not flooded
with more videos that you don't like. And I actually
do like that because I I recently, you know, this
is a personal story, I watched some videos about camping.
Not that I think I'm gonna go camping anytime soon,
(08:43):
but for some reason I got on this camping kick,
and now YouTube occasionally suggests hunting videos to me. And
I've got nothing against hunting, at least as long as
it's not trophy hunting. I think trophy hunting is cruel
and horrifying and awful and unnecessary. But whether it's you know,
subsistence hunting or not, I don't want to watch videos
(09:06):
about it. That's not my bag. So knowing the dislike
feature is really more so that viewers can shape their
recommendations and less about mob mentality is cool. Whether or
not it works remains to be seen. I'm sure there
will still be campaigns against certain videos or creators that
will commence tons of folks to dislike specific videos, even
(09:27):
if they've never watched the video. But maybe it won't
be as bad as it was before because you won't
see how effective the attack is. There will be no
number associated with dislikes. Also, let's take a moment to
mourn the passing of an amazing internet meme joke, and
that is of the neutral Response video, which is a
clip from the show Futurama and in the clip, there's
(09:51):
an alien from this planet that's just filled with people
who have neutral tendencies, and the alien says, I have
no strong feelings one way or the other. And the
joke was that the number of likes and dislikes for
that video have balanced out, like whenever anyone would like
the video, someone else would come along and dislike it
in order to keep them even so, the current tally
(10:14):
is at five fifty four thousand each more or less. Well,
once dislikes disappear, that collective joke will be over. So
that's a little sad. It seems like the concept of
the metaverse is gonna be a theme for a while.
I think it's a little bit odd because the concept
itself isn't really that new, and arguably you could even
(10:36):
call stuff like Second Life a type of metaverse, and
that's been around for ages. Anyway. The reason I even
mentioned it is that the Soul Metropolitan Government, as in
Soul Korea, has announced it will create its own metaverse
with Blackjack and no way, I'm still thinking about Futurama quotes.
No uh, I mean it's going to create a metaverse
meant to allow quote citizens to conveniently meet with Avatar
(11:00):
officials to deal with civil complaints and consultations end quote.
So essentially, this would replace the need to physically travel
to a municipal office for an in person appointment, which
is not a bad thing considering it, you know, there's
a pandemic going at all. It's interesting that they're going
the avatar route. To me, I'm not sure how that
(11:20):
is more beneficial oversay a video conference called directly with
whomever it is you need to meet, Like, how is
it better than that? But the city government is willing
to invest around three billion dollars into the project, which
is part of a larger city plan that aims to
transform Soul by twenty and I guess one benefit is
(11:41):
the metaverse proposal would also include the ability to virtually
attend mass events like imagine a giant concert that kind
of thing. You could virtually be there and you would
be surrounded by other virtual people watching a virtual concert,
so you could still be part of a group experience
without actually having to leave house. Now, again, it's hard
(12:01):
for me to see this as being better than just say,
watching a live stream video of the concert. Uh. I
know that virtual reality can be really immersive. I've experienced
that myself. I get that, and probably there is some
sort of psychological boost compared to just watching a live
stream video on a classic screen. But I think part
of me would still be thinking to myself, it's weird
(12:23):
that I have to put on all this VR gear
just to witness this. You know. Then again, I've also
always been a little anxious in crowds. That has actually
gotten way worse since the pandemic. So maybe it's just
that this particular thing is not for me anyway. There's
some aspects to VR metaverse stuff that I can totally
get behind, like the idea of improved accessibility for folks
(12:46):
who otherwise would have trouble attending physical events. I think
that's great to give people who otherwise couldn't have that
chance to do it. That is fantastic. However, you also
have to acknowledge this has improved accessibility assuming you're able
to afford the hardware you need in order to run
VR properly. To me, that's still an accessibility barrier. We
(13:10):
have a few more stories to cover, but before we
get to that, let's take a quick break. Before the break,
I talked a little bit about accessibility. Sticking with that
that theme, of the United States government has sued the
ride hailing company Uber, saying that the company has failed
(13:32):
to ensure equitable fairs for passengers with disabilities. So Uber
has this weight time fee, and it's the idea is
that the weight time fee charges a passenger if they
force a driver to wait a couple of minutes once
they arrive at a destination UH to pick someone up. So,
(13:53):
in other words, if I call an Uber and the
Uber pulls up outside my house, but I'm still inside
puttering around, trying to get stuff done, putting on shoes,
whatever it may be, and I'm making the driver weight,
then Uber charges me for the fact that I have
inconvenience the driver, I have taken time away from the driver.
That's time that they could potentially be earning on another fair.
(14:16):
That's the idea behind the policy. Unfortunately, this policy would
also adversely affect people with disabilities who need more time
to get into a vehicle. If they are actually taking
more time to get into the vehicle and the driver
is sitting there for a few minutes, this policy would
pop into effect and the passengers would be essentially monetarily
(14:40):
penalized for the fact that they can't get into a
car very fast, and that's just discrimination as defined by
the Americans with Disabilities Act. So that's why the United
States government has sued Uber. Uber, by the way, has
introduced a feature in its app that will waive weight
time fees for passengers who are certified as being disabled.
(15:02):
I'm not sure what that certification process actually is. I
don't know how they determine that, but the Department of
Justice is seeking damages from Uber to compensate passengers who
had been affected by this policy, as well as just
mandating that that policy cannot apply to people with disabilities
because otherwise it does discriminate and the Americans with disabilities
(15:26):
that makes that illegal. So interesting story. Sony has recently
revealed that, due to ongoing supply chain issues, the company
expects to produce fewer PlayStation five consoles than they had
originally planned, by the tune of one million units. Now.
Their fiscal year ends in March or at the beginning
of March, I believe, and so I think the original
(15:49):
plan was to produce sixteen million units. It's going to
be closer to fifteen million, and the sales goal was
for fourteen point eight million, which means there's not a
whole lot of margin there. They have to pray much
sell every single unit they make in order to meet
the numbers that they had projected. The PS five launched
almost exactly a year ago. The original launch date was
(16:09):
November twelve, and it has been consistently challenging to find
in stores. You know, actually had the chance to snag
one a couple of weeks ago, but a dilly dallied
and then that chance went bye bye. And you know,
I'm sure a lot of you gamers out there have
had similar experiences. And unfortunately, this means there will be
(16:30):
fewer consoles produced than planned. That means it's still going
to be difficult to find them in stores, which is
a real blow, particularly since we're into the holiday gift
buying season. Uh that, by the way, is sure to
be impacted by various supply chain issues. A lot of
people have found that just the stuff that they were
planning on buying is taking way longer to get to
(16:50):
them than they had originally thought. That's gonna keep going, right,
I mean, the supply chain crunch is a real one,
and it has created bottle throughout the entire system where
you know, suddenly a facility gets flooded with products and
then it has to figure out how does it deal
with that to pass it further down the chain. This
(17:12):
is a domino effect, a cascading effect that we see
throughout the supply chain. So as a tech person, typically
I would be expected to suggest certain like Black Friday
or Cyber Monday deals that focus on stuff like TVs
and electronics and sound systems, that kind of thing. This year,
I humbly suggest that if you plan on buying holiday presents,
(17:34):
patronize like local shop owners and artists and tradespeople instead,
it will be a bigger benefit to your immediate community.
And if enough of us actually do that, it will
relieve some of the insane pressure that's on the supply
side of the supply chain economy right now, and things
can get to a better equilibrium. But only if enough
(17:56):
of us actually kind of at least remove that part
to the pressure on the system, Like the demand side
is still super high, and that's just kind of exacerbating
an already tough situation. Okay, let's go back to South Korea.
I mentioned them earlier in the episode. Well, the country
recently unveiled a traffic control system designed to handle urban
(18:19):
air mobility vehicles or u a m s, which is
a fancy way of saying flying machines what take passengers
from one place to another place, or a flying taxi
in other words. And these typically take the form factor
of a really large multi rotor drone type thing, because
it's not drones, more like a multi rotor helicopter in
(18:42):
a way. So think of like like the drones you
would see that are remote controlled, but much much bigger
and sometimes with more rotors. The traffic control system would
be a necessary component if flying taxis are to be,
you know, a real thing, Like if they're to become
an integral component in transportation, then you've got you've got
(19:04):
to have some sort of system to be able to
handle that. So the country is actually testing this to
kind of work out the design flaws and to tweak
things in order to set a foundation for a future
with flying vehicles that are actually an actively carrying people
to and fro. The test involved a vehicle made by
a company called Volocopter, and according to the Korean Times,
(19:26):
that particular vehicle is one that can either be piloted
by a human or it can operate in an autonomous mode. Currently,
South Korea requires a pilot to be present should any
passengers be inside the vehicle, so you cannot, you know,
use this like an autonomous taxi under South Korean law currently.
(19:46):
I think that's a wise decision. The government says it's
necessary both as a safety measure and also to help
secure passenger confidence in the system. Makes sense to me.
The Korean Times also reports that the expected cost or
a customer to take a ride from the Incheon International
Airport to Central Soul to be around nine dollars American
(20:08):
the equivalent of ninety dollars when the pilot program No
Pun Intended launches No Pun Intended, which is supposed to
be in However, they say that that price should drop
dramatically once the technology and the business matures, so within
a decade they expect the cost to drop low enough
(20:31):
so that it would be the equivalent of less than
twenty dollars per trep. That to me is phenomenal. I
think it's really optimistic, but I would love to see
it happen, assuming, of course, that the system has proven
to be safe and reliable. Finally, I've written and talked
about brain computer interfaces quite a few times. I always
find them fascinating. Creating technology that can detect and interpret
(20:54):
brain waves and then produce some sort of meaningful output
is really cool, particularly for people who have limited or
no motor functions and who otherwise would find it challenging
or even impossible to communicate well. Science Alert reported earlier
this week on a research program called brain Gate that
has developed an interface that allows a paralyzed subject, a
(21:16):
man who volunteered to be part of this, to generate
text on a screen just by imagining his own handwriting,
so he can think about writing a word by hand,
even though he lost all uh control of his limbs
years ago, and that thought will then be interpreted by
(21:37):
the system, and then the text will appear on a
screen reflecting the letters he was imagining himself writing. Now,
I've heard of other systems that use training sessions so
that someone can learn how to control a cursor with
their mind, and they can move the cursor around to
kind of type things out on an on screen keyboard,
very similar to how you would use an on screen
(21:58):
touch keyboard. But this is the first time I've heard
about something that can interpret the thoughts about writing a
word and use that to display that same word on screen. Now,
it's still a slow process. The subject in the research
project could right around nine characters per minute, that's about
eighteen words per minute, but they could do it with
(22:20):
like accuracy before auto correct was brought in. And it
still requires surgery to implant electrodes into the brain, so
this is not like some hat you put on and
you can use it. It is an invasive process, but
for people who would otherwise find themselves unable to communicate,
this technology is incredibly powerful. It's also fascinating to me
(22:43):
that the brain can retain abilities related to fine motor
movements even years after someone has lost that actual physical capability.
So not only are we learning more about how to
develop these systems, we're learning more about the resilience of
the brain and how the brain operates. So those learnings
will inform future implementations which will continue to improve. And
(23:07):
my hope is that in the future will have systems
that give people a lot more independence and autonomy and
communication abilities and to dramatically improve their quality of life,
even in the case where they have lost or maybe
never even had abilities to to move around. I think
(23:28):
that that is really phenomenal. All right, that wraps up
the news episode for Thursday, November eleven, twenty one. If
you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future
episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out. The best way
to do that is on Twitter. The handle for the
show is tech Stuff hs W. I'm out next week.
You'll get your g E episodes in place of me,
(23:52):
and there will also be a Smart Talks with IBM
episode on Thursday. But I will be back the following Monday,
so catch you on the flip side. And if you
are walking around Disney World, look for a bald guy
who's probably staring on his phone because of Genie Plus.
But that's a that's a topic for another podcast. All right,
Bye bye, I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
(24:20):
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Karah Preiss
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