March 16, 2021 • 18 mins
Tinder is getting background checks, India is banning BitCoin and in Pennsylvania robots can roam the streets legally. All this and a story about shooting sperm and egg cells into space!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
and I love all things tech. But you can call
me Techno King. I hear that that that title is
(00:26):
actually already taken. This is the tech news for Tuesday,
March twenty one. An internet security company called e set
that's e s e T reports that several well funded
hacking groups, perhaps as many as six, we're actively exploiting
the zero day vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange Server product.
(00:49):
I reported on this problem last week, and now it
appears as though it's gotten much more serious than it
was first reported. Previously, micros often said it had detected
the Chinese backed hacking group Halfnium, that that was the
group that had taken advantage of the vulnerabilities in the software.
(01:11):
Set says it wasn't just Halfnium, but also hacker groups
called calypso w, Nitty Group, web Sick, Lucky Mouse, and Tick.
The Register reports that a cybersecurity researcher in Taiwan with
the handle orange Sigh discover the vulnerability way back on
December and had even built an exploit that would give
(01:36):
a hacker the ability to perform a remote code execution
attack on a targeted system with the vulnerable software in place.
Now that security speak, that means it would give hackers
the opportunity to run processes on a targeted computer. So
you could compromise a machine and then have it execute
other code and thus get even further control over the device.
(02:00):
Orange Side had actually built out such a potential attack
vector by January one, But this hacker wasn't actually looking
to cause damage. Instead, it was to see if those
vulnerabilities could be exploited in this way. They could, so
he reported his discovery to Microsoft on January five, and
then he worked with Microsoft employees to draft a report
(02:24):
that was then sent to the company's primary security partners
around the world. That was sent out on February twenty three.
In the meantime, half of the hum exploited those same
vulnerabilities way back on January three, and a second wave
of attacks happened five days after Microsoft sentence report, So
the timing raises some questions. As pointed out in the register,
(02:47):
it's possible that all of these groups independently found the
same vulnerabilities and exploited them. It's also possible that there
was a lot of cooperation between those groups of hackers,
or it might even be possible that the later five
hacking groups learned about the vulnerability from the February twenty
(03:08):
three report, or maybe even we're spying on the the
Microsoft team and Orange Size as they were drafting their report.
We just don't know the timing. But whatever the case,
it was bad. Something odd happened on Twitter over the weekend. Well, okay,
many odd things frequently happened on Twitter, but in this case,
(03:30):
it was that the word Memphis became the city that
must not be named or something like that. Because if
you did sendella tweet that contained the word Memphis in
over the weekend, you got hit with a twelve hour suspension.
Naughty you. Now, according to those who got hit with this,
(03:51):
I think we can call it an over the top reaction.
The word was somehow triggering Twitter's moderation policies, specifically in
regards to rules against posting private information to Twitter. So,
for example, you're not supposed to post someone else's address
on Twitter. That's against the rules. Twitter cleared things up
in a tweet of their own stating that quote, A
(04:13):
number of accounts that tweeted the word Memphis were temporary
limited due to a bug. It's been fixed and the
accounts have now been restored. We're sorry this happened. End quote.
And here I was thinking that it was Belgium that
was the rudest word in the universe. Thanks Douglas Adams,
he steered me wrong again. Heading over to Facebook, Reuter's
(04:34):
reports that the company has begun adding labels to posts
dedicated to discussing the safety of the various COVID vaccines,
and soon they are going to extend this labeling system
to all posts about the COVID vaccines in general. It
will also launch a vaccine tracking tool to help people
in the United States find where they can go to
(04:55):
get vaccinated once they are eligible. Previously, Facebook came under
fire due to the proliferation of misinformation about vaccines that
spread across the platform, much in the same way as
misinformation campaigns affected political discourse in the United States in
twenty And this is really a big move in a
(05:17):
lot of ways because Facebook has long maintained a very
stand office approach when it comes to handling misinformation campaigns
In general, but in particular ones against vaccines, not just
COVID vaccines, but all vaccines. So the new labels include
messaging that explains that these vaccines go through rigorous testing
(05:37):
before they're ever deployed to the public, and they represent
a safe course of action, particularly compared to not getting
the vaccination. Now, the company is also building out its
list of banned false claims about the COVID vaccine and
the disease in general, and as such has removed around
two million additional posts from Facebook and Instagram as result
(06:00):
over the last couple of months. And uh, this is
a crazy one. The company says it's now pulling back
on the reach of users who have been flagged for
posting false information repeatedly. Now, who could have thought that
by turning off the amplify signal on a message you
could reduce its overall impact on people. I get the
whole freedom of speech thing, but it's not just freedom
(06:23):
of speech. It's that Facebook, like I said, amplifies messaging,
and by taking that move to reduce that, that's a huge,
huge thing. As for vaccines, I sincerely hope everyone out there,
everyone out there who can get it goes and gets
it so all of you folks out there, when you're eligible,
I hope you're able to go and get the vaccine
(06:45):
as soon as possible. I registered to be notified when
I'm eligible. I'm in Georgia. Our state is dead last
in the United States when it comes to vaccination, so
not huge hopes that's going to happen super fast for me,
but I did register for it. Now, I have a
history with severe allergic reactions, so I have some concerns
about getting it, but I plan on getting my vaccine
(07:07):
in a medical center of some sorts so I can
at least be under observation in case I go into
ani fyl axis, because trust me, that's not fun at all.
But I'm still gonna get it because we do need
to get to herd immunity and protect each other. It's important.
So y'all stay safe out there, Okay, be careful, get
vaccinated when you can, and hey, I love you, so
(07:29):
take care of yourself. The U. S. Department of Justice
announced an indictment against the CEO of sky Global, Jean
Francois EEP, as well as Thomas Herdman, a former Sky
Global distributor. Now the d o J is accusing these
two of having facilitated the development, sale, and distribution of
special encrypted phones to international drug traffickers in violation of
(07:54):
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO. Now, essentially,
the d o J is saying, you guys create a
way for criminals to communicate with one another in a
secret and secure way, and that means your complicit in
helping them commit crimes. But those accusations actually go beyond that.
They allege that sky Global wasn't just providing the communication infrastructure,
(08:18):
but also allowing for money laundering activities, primarily in the
form of cryptocurrency transactions. On top of that, the d
o J states that sky Global set up numerous shell
companies to try and hide what was going on. So
if these allegations are true, I believe we really should
see justice served against those who are responsible. Part of
(08:38):
me worries that this is also an attack on encryption
in general. That's something that various law enforcement agencies around
the world have targeted in various ways, and you can
sort of understand from their perspective, right, encryption makes it
very hard to suss out what people, including criminals, are doing.
But it also provides protection against governments or government agencies
(09:03):
or gigantic private companies that might otherwise abuse the rights
of citizens and others. So, in other words, criminals might
use encryption, but encryption isn't a crime now. I say
that only so that we keep an eye on this
story to see how the legal argument shapes up against
sky Global, to make sure that we're not seeing an
(09:27):
attempt to undermine encryption as a valid approach in the
first place. Router's reports that India is poised to pass
a law that would make it illegal to mine, trade, transfer,
or possess private cryptocurrencies, while leaving the door open for
a state backed digital currency. An earlier version of this
(09:48):
bill had even suggested a jail sentence of around ten
years for violating the law, though as I record this episode,
it's unclear whether or not that penalty made it into
the more recent version of the law. It is not
available for public review. Now. Should this law pass, and
it looks like it's going to, Indian citizens will have
(10:08):
a grace period of about six months to liquidate their
digital wallets or face penalties. At the time I record this,
cryptocurrency transactions are way up in India, where it's estimated
that investors hold about one point four billion dollars worth
of cryptocurrency. But I should stress that is just an
estimate because there's virtually no hard data available to make
(10:30):
a more firm claim than that. It sounds as though
investors are determined to stick with cryptocurrency, at least until
the bill becomes official. Now, at that point, are we
going to see a massive move to sell off cryptocurrency
and it's so, how will that affect the value of
currencies like bitcoin? All of that remains to be seen.
And while some leaders in India have likened cryptocurrency to
(10:52):
ponzi schemes, I think that might be going a bit
too far. Yeah, there are a lot of ponzi schemes
that lean on the public's general lack of understanding about cryptocurrencies.
But the value of cryptocurrency is at least as real
as other kinds of money is, I guess, though I
would still argue it's not really terribly useful as a
(11:13):
currency due to the volatility of bitcoin. Tender, the dating app,
is about to get a new feature, match Group, the
company that owns Tender, as well as Hinge Okay, Cupid,
and Match has announced that it has invested in a
background check platform called Garbo. As described on the Garbo website,
(11:33):
the company is quote a new kind of background check
designed to help proactively prevent gender based violence in the
digital age end quote. Garbo itself is a not for
profit organization founded by women, and the goal is to
provide access to public reports and records that could indicate
that it's most definitely time to swipe left on that
(11:53):
perspective date. Those records include stuff like criminal records like
arrests and convictions, and what or not the person has had, say,
a restraining order filed against them in the past, and
other data like that that makes it clear that you're
not looking at mr right, You're looking at Mr. This
guy is seriously bad news. However, Garbo reps have also
(12:14):
acknowledged there are disparities to take into account when scraping
the internet for signs that your possible date has had
a brush with the law. Here in the United States,
there's no denying that there are systemic iniquities in the
justice system, and as a result, people of color are
disproportionately affected by these flaws. To that end, Garbo has
(12:34):
said that they would take that into account and strikes
stuff like charges of drug possession out of the equation,
so those are not factored into reports. Those disproportionately affect
people of color. As of right now, there is no
integration on TENDER yet, so it's impossible for me to
say what form this is going to take once it
is implemented. But beyond the lookout for that, a group
(12:57):
of scientists, including University of Arizona researcher Jacken Thonga, have
proposed an interesting project, and it involves sending examples of
sperm and egg cells from more than six and a
half million species of animals to the Moon, along with
thousands of different types of seeds. It's similar to something
we already have here on Earth. This val Barred Seed Bank,
(13:18):
which is in Norway, keeps hundreds of thousands of seeds
safe in an effort to ensure biodiversity on the planet.
As regents cut back on biodiversity, there's an increased risk
that a disease or blight could wipe out enormous populations
of plants. Because they're all essentially the same plant, they
all have the same lack of ability to withstand certain
(13:42):
types of illness. Then if they get wiped out, all
the life forms that depend on those plants could suffer,
and then the ones that depend upon the animals that
depend on the plants, and so on. It goes up
the chain. But here's the problem with that. See Norway,
at least last I checked, is actually on Earth. In fact,
(14:02):
Earth is as the superhero the tick would say, where
we keep all our stuff? And if something truly calamitous
were to happen to the Earth, all of that would
be gone. Therefore, say these scientists, wouldn't it be a
great idea to establish a sort of vault on the
Moon to keep safe samples of various life forms, so
(14:23):
that should a true catastrophe occur, there will still be
samples that survivors of that catastrophe can retrieve to help
prepare the damage. The team suggests that we build a
vault within the lava tubes that are under the surface
of the Moon. These tubes have been dormant for billions
of years and completely untouched in the meantime. Donga estimates
(14:44):
that to establish this vault on the Moon would require
around two hundred fifty rocket launches, both to send up
all the various components to make up the vault itself
and the three five million samples that would be housed there.
The concept gets really science ACTIONI though it's all based
in science fact. So, for example, the storage temperatures needed
(15:04):
to preserve the samples would be so incredibly low, I
mean like crazy cold, that metal itself would freeze, which
makes shelving a bit of a headache for storing all
these samples. So the researchers have proposed using superconductor material that,
when cool to these very very cold temperatures, can enter
into a type of magnetic lock when paired with a
(15:27):
permanent magnet, and you get quantum levitation. This is something
we can do here on Earth if you have access
to the right equipment. It's not easy to get hold of,
but you can do it, and it's really interesting. Now,
the thought of using superconductors as shelving tickles me quite
a bit. As it stands, this is all a proposal,
it's not an actual project yet. Whether we ever see
(15:48):
a real series of missions to carry this out remains
to be seen. And finally, in Pennsylvania, robots are people too, well,
not really, but they are kind of sort of classified
as podest Trians. If they happen to be autonomous delivery drones.
The state has deemed it legal for delivery robots to
make use of sidewalks and pathways as well as roadways,
(16:09):
and that they will be considered as pedestrians from a
legal standpoint. That means it's officially legal for these robots
to share the road and sidewalks with human beings, which
is a big deal because making robots that are safe
to interact in human spaces that have actual human beings
in them, and we human beings tend to be squishy, well,
(16:31):
that's a really challenging field of robotics. It requires a
lot of work to make the robots safer operation within
those spaces, as well as the designs to keep the
robots protected because you know, people are just the worst.
Add to that the fact that humans can be distracted,
which means the robots might have to factor in someone
who isn't really paying attention as they walk down the sidewalk.
(16:54):
I know I've been guilty of that, Or the fact
that human beings can change their minds really quickly and
stop in place all of a sudden or change direction immediately.
You've got a lot of logical challenges you have to tackle.
But these rules that Pennsylvania is putting in place well
mean companies can at least operate their robots on the
sidewalks and such within certain parameters, like once a robot
(17:15):
gets particularly massive, it's no longer legally allowed on sidewalks.
But not everyone is a big fan of this idea.
I may have to do a full episode dedicated to this,
because it's an interesting challenge, not just from a tech standpoint,
but also a legal standpoint and then a cultural standpoint.
(17:36):
So there's a lot of different factors at play here,
but I'll save that for a later episode. Well that's it.
Those are the top stories I have for you for Tuesday,
March one. I hope you guys are staying safe. Join
me for a new episode of tech Stuff tomorrow, and
I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
(18:02):
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 tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
and I love all things tech. But you can call
me Techno King. I hear that that that title is
(00:26):
actually already taken. This is the tech news for Tuesday,
March twenty one. An internet security company called e set
that's e s e T reports that several well funded
hacking groups, perhaps as many as six, we're actively exploiting
the zero day vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange Server product.
(00:49):
I reported on this problem last week, and now it
appears as though it's gotten much more serious than it
was first reported. Previously, micros often said it had detected
the Chinese backed hacking group Halfnium, that that was the
group that had taken advantage of the vulnerabilities in the software.
(01:11):
Set says it wasn't just Halfnium, but also hacker groups
called calypso w, Nitty Group, web Sick, Lucky Mouse, and Tick.
The Register reports that a cybersecurity researcher in Taiwan with
the handle orange Sigh discover the vulnerability way back on
December and had even built an exploit that would give
(01:36):
a hacker the ability to perform a remote code execution
attack on a targeted system with the vulnerable software in place.
Now that security speak, that means it would give hackers
the opportunity to run processes on a targeted computer. So
you could compromise a machine and then have it execute
other code and thus get even further control over the device.
(02:00):
Orange Side had actually built out such a potential attack
vector by January one, But this hacker wasn't actually looking
to cause damage. Instead, it was to see if those
vulnerabilities could be exploited in this way. They could, so
he reported his discovery to Microsoft on January five, and
then he worked with Microsoft employees to draft a report
(02:24):
that was then sent to the company's primary security partners
around the world. That was sent out on February twenty three.
In the meantime, half of the hum exploited those same
vulnerabilities way back on January three, and a second wave
of attacks happened five days after Microsoft sentence report, So
the timing raises some questions. As pointed out in the register,
(02:47):
it's possible that all of these groups independently found the
same vulnerabilities and exploited them. It's also possible that there
was a lot of cooperation between those groups of hackers,
or it might even be possible that the later five
hacking groups learned about the vulnerability from the February twenty
(03:08):
three report, or maybe even we're spying on the the
Microsoft team and Orange Size as they were drafting their report.
We just don't know the timing. But whatever the case,
it was bad. Something odd happened on Twitter over the weekend. Well, okay,
many odd things frequently happened on Twitter, but in this case,
(03:30):
it was that the word Memphis became the city that
must not be named or something like that. Because if
you did sendella tweet that contained the word Memphis in
over the weekend, you got hit with a twelve hour suspension.
Naughty you. Now, according to those who got hit with this,
(03:51):
I think we can call it an over the top reaction.
The word was somehow triggering Twitter's moderation policies, specifically in
regards to rules against posting private information to Twitter. So,
for example, you're not supposed to post someone else's address
on Twitter. That's against the rules. Twitter cleared things up
in a tweet of their own stating that quote, A
(04:13):
number of accounts that tweeted the word Memphis were temporary
limited due to a bug. It's been fixed and the
accounts have now been restored. We're sorry this happened. End quote.
And here I was thinking that it was Belgium that
was the rudest word in the universe. Thanks Douglas Adams,
he steered me wrong again. Heading over to Facebook, Reuter's
(04:34):
reports that the company has begun adding labels to posts
dedicated to discussing the safety of the various COVID vaccines,
and soon they are going to extend this labeling system
to all posts about the COVID vaccines in general. It
will also launch a vaccine tracking tool to help people
in the United States find where they can go to
(04:55):
get vaccinated once they are eligible. Previously, Facebook came under
fire due to the proliferation of misinformation about vaccines that
spread across the platform, much in the same way as
misinformation campaigns affected political discourse in the United States in
twenty And this is really a big move in a
(05:17):
lot of ways because Facebook has long maintained a very
stand office approach when it comes to handling misinformation campaigns
In general, but in particular ones against vaccines, not just
COVID vaccines, but all vaccines. So the new labels include
messaging that explains that these vaccines go through rigorous testing
(05:37):
before they're ever deployed to the public, and they represent
a safe course of action, particularly compared to not getting
the vaccination. Now, the company is also building out its
list of banned false claims about the COVID vaccine and
the disease in general, and as such has removed around
two million additional posts from Facebook and Instagram as result
(06:00):
over the last couple of months. And uh, this is
a crazy one. The company says it's now pulling back
on the reach of users who have been flagged for
posting false information repeatedly. Now, who could have thought that
by turning off the amplify signal on a message you
could reduce its overall impact on people. I get the
whole freedom of speech thing, but it's not just freedom
(06:23):
of speech. It's that Facebook, like I said, amplifies messaging,
and by taking that move to reduce that, that's a huge,
huge thing. As for vaccines, I sincerely hope everyone out there,
everyone out there who can get it goes and gets
it so all of you folks out there, when you're eligible,
I hope you're able to go and get the vaccine
(06:45):
as soon as possible. I registered to be notified when
I'm eligible. I'm in Georgia. Our state is dead last
in the United States when it comes to vaccination, so
not huge hopes that's going to happen super fast for me,
but I did register for it. Now, I have a
history with severe allergic reactions, so I have some concerns
about getting it, but I plan on getting my vaccine
(07:07):
in a medical center of some sorts so I can
at least be under observation in case I go into
ani fyl axis, because trust me, that's not fun at all.
But I'm still gonna get it because we do need
to get to herd immunity and protect each other. It's important.
So y'all stay safe out there, Okay, be careful, get
vaccinated when you can, and hey, I love you, so
(07:29):
take care of yourself. The U. S. Department of Justice
announced an indictment against the CEO of sky Global, Jean
Francois EEP, as well as Thomas Herdman, a former Sky
Global distributor. Now the d o J is accusing these
two of having facilitated the development, sale, and distribution of
special encrypted phones to international drug traffickers in violation of
(07:54):
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO. Now, essentially,
the d o J is saying, you guys create a
way for criminals to communicate with one another in a
secret and secure way, and that means your complicit in
helping them commit crimes. But those accusations actually go beyond that.
They allege that sky Global wasn't just providing the communication infrastructure,
(08:18):
but also allowing for money laundering activities, primarily in the
form of cryptocurrency transactions. On top of that, the d
o J states that sky Global set up numerous shell
companies to try and hide what was going on. So
if these allegations are true, I believe we really should
see justice served against those who are responsible. Part of
(08:38):
me worries that this is also an attack on encryption
in general. That's something that various law enforcement agencies around
the world have targeted in various ways, and you can
sort of understand from their perspective, right, encryption makes it
very hard to suss out what people, including criminals, are doing.
But it also provides protection against governments or government agencies
(09:03):
or gigantic private companies that might otherwise abuse the rights
of citizens and others. So, in other words, criminals might
use encryption, but encryption isn't a crime now. I say
that only so that we keep an eye on this
story to see how the legal argument shapes up against
sky Global, to make sure that we're not seeing an
(09:27):
attempt to undermine encryption as a valid approach in the
first place. Router's reports that India is poised to pass
a law that would make it illegal to mine, trade, transfer,
or possess private cryptocurrencies, while leaving the door open for
a state backed digital currency. An earlier version of this
(09:48):
bill had even suggested a jail sentence of around ten
years for violating the law, though as I record this episode,
it's unclear whether or not that penalty made it into
the more recent version of the law. It is not
available for public review. Now. Should this law pass, and
it looks like it's going to, Indian citizens will have
(10:08):
a grace period of about six months to liquidate their
digital wallets or face penalties. At the time I record this,
cryptocurrency transactions are way up in India, where it's estimated
that investors hold about one point four billion dollars worth
of cryptocurrency. But I should stress that is just an
estimate because there's virtually no hard data available to make
(10:30):
a more firm claim than that. It sounds as though
investors are determined to stick with cryptocurrency, at least until
the bill becomes official. Now, at that point, are we
going to see a massive move to sell off cryptocurrency
and it's so, how will that affect the value of
currencies like bitcoin? All of that remains to be seen.
And while some leaders in India have likened cryptocurrency to
(10:52):
ponzi schemes, I think that might be going a bit
too far. Yeah, there are a lot of ponzi schemes
that lean on the public's general lack of understanding about cryptocurrencies.
But the value of cryptocurrency is at least as real
as other kinds of money is, I guess, though I
would still argue it's not really terribly useful as a
(11:13):
currency due to the volatility of bitcoin. Tender, the dating app,
is about to get a new feature, match Group, the
company that owns Tender, as well as Hinge Okay, Cupid,
and Match has announced that it has invested in a
background check platform called Garbo. As described on the Garbo website,
(11:33):
the company is quote a new kind of background check
designed to help proactively prevent gender based violence in the
digital age end quote. Garbo itself is a not for
profit organization founded by women, and the goal is to
provide access to public reports and records that could indicate
that it's most definitely time to swipe left on that
(11:53):
perspective date. Those records include stuff like criminal records like
arrests and convictions, and what or not the person has had, say,
a restraining order filed against them in the past, and
other data like that that makes it clear that you're
not looking at mr right, You're looking at Mr. This
guy is seriously bad news. However, Garbo reps have also
(12:14):
acknowledged there are disparities to take into account when scraping
the internet for signs that your possible date has had
a brush with the law. Here in the United States,
there's no denying that there are systemic iniquities in the
justice system, and as a result, people of color are
disproportionately affected by these flaws. To that end, Garbo has
(12:34):
said that they would take that into account and strikes
stuff like charges of drug possession out of the equation,
so those are not factored into reports. Those disproportionately affect
people of color. As of right now, there is no
integration on TENDER yet, so it's impossible for me to
say what form this is going to take once it
is implemented. But beyond the lookout for that, a group
(12:57):
of scientists, including University of Arizona researcher Jacken Thonga, have
proposed an interesting project, and it involves sending examples of
sperm and egg cells from more than six and a
half million species of animals to the Moon, along with
thousands of different types of seeds. It's similar to something
we already have here on Earth. This val Barred Seed Bank,
(13:18):
which is in Norway, keeps hundreds of thousands of seeds
safe in an effort to ensure biodiversity on the planet.
As regents cut back on biodiversity, there's an increased risk
that a disease or blight could wipe out enormous populations
of plants. Because they're all essentially the same plant, they
all have the same lack of ability to withstand certain
(13:42):
types of illness. Then if they get wiped out, all
the life forms that depend on those plants could suffer,
and then the ones that depend upon the animals that
depend on the plants, and so on. It goes up
the chain. But here's the problem with that. See Norway,
at least last I checked, is actually on Earth. In fact,
(14:02):
Earth is as the superhero the tick would say, where
we keep all our stuff? And if something truly calamitous
were to happen to the Earth, all of that would
be gone. Therefore, say these scientists, wouldn't it be a
great idea to establish a sort of vault on the
Moon to keep safe samples of various life forms, so
(14:23):
that should a true catastrophe occur, there will still be
samples that survivors of that catastrophe can retrieve to help
prepare the damage. The team suggests that we build a
vault within the lava tubes that are under the surface
of the Moon. These tubes have been dormant for billions
of years and completely untouched in the meantime. Donga estimates
(14:44):
that to establish this vault on the Moon would require
around two hundred fifty rocket launches, both to send up
all the various components to make up the vault itself
and the three five million samples that would be housed there.
The concept gets really science ACTIONI though it's all based
in science fact. So, for example, the storage temperatures needed
(15:04):
to preserve the samples would be so incredibly low, I
mean like crazy cold, that metal itself would freeze, which
makes shelving a bit of a headache for storing all
these samples. So the researchers have proposed using superconductor material that,
when cool to these very very cold temperatures, can enter
into a type of magnetic lock when paired with a
(15:27):
permanent magnet, and you get quantum levitation. This is something
we can do here on Earth if you have access
to the right equipment. It's not easy to get hold of,
but you can do it, and it's really interesting. Now,
the thought of using superconductors as shelving tickles me quite
a bit. As it stands, this is all a proposal,
it's not an actual project yet. Whether we ever see
(15:48):
a real series of missions to carry this out remains
to be seen. And finally, in Pennsylvania, robots are people too, well,
not really, but they are kind of sort of classified
as podest Trians. If they happen to be autonomous delivery drones.
The state has deemed it legal for delivery robots to
make use of sidewalks and pathways as well as roadways,
(16:09):
and that they will be considered as pedestrians from a
legal standpoint. That means it's officially legal for these robots
to share the road and sidewalks with human beings, which
is a big deal because making robots that are safe
to interact in human spaces that have actual human beings
in them, and we human beings tend to be squishy, well,
(16:31):
that's a really challenging field of robotics. It requires a
lot of work to make the robots safer operation within
those spaces, as well as the designs to keep the
robots protected because you know, people are just the worst.
Add to that the fact that humans can be distracted,
which means the robots might have to factor in someone
who isn't really paying attention as they walk down the sidewalk.
(16:54):
I know I've been guilty of that, Or the fact
that human beings can change their minds really quickly and
stop in place all of a sudden or change direction immediately.
You've got a lot of logical challenges you have to tackle.
But these rules that Pennsylvania is putting in place well
mean companies can at least operate their robots on the
sidewalks and such within certain parameters, like once a robot
(17:15):
gets particularly massive, it's no longer legally allowed on sidewalks.
But not everyone is a big fan of this idea.
I may have to do a full episode dedicated to this,
because it's an interesting challenge, not just from a tech standpoint,
but also a legal standpoint and then a cultural standpoint.
(17:36):
So there's a lot of different factors at play here,
but I'll save that for a later episode. Well that's it.
Those are the top stories I have for you for Tuesday,
March one. I hope you guys are staying safe. Join
me for a new episode of tech Stuff tomorrow, and
I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
(18:02):
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.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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