February 4, 2021 • 39 mins
Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO (but will stick around Amazon). Google releases how much money it made (and lost) in cloud services. Gearbox Software has a new owner, and more!
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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,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and a lot of all things tech. And it is
time for the news for Thursday, February four, twenty twenty one.
(00:26):
Let's get to it, and I think our top story
should be pretty obvious, and that's that Jeff Bezos is
stepping down as CEO of Amazon later this year. The
announcement came out on Tuesday, which I think was pretty rude,
as I had already recorded and published the news episode
(00:46):
for that day by the time the press release came out.
Not a lot of consideration there for me. Jeff. This
comes after a banner year for Amazon, at least the
corporate coffer part of it. While millions of folks were
struggling to find out how to work and parent and
all that stuff during a pandemic. Amazon passed the one
(01:09):
trillion dollar market cap, and it's well in its way
to to trillion at this point. Heck, Amazon made one
hundred billion dollars in one quarter. That means three months.
Bezos will not be leaving the company entirely he'll actually
be playing a pretty firm hand with Amazon as the
(01:31):
executive chairman of the board of directors. As for his replacement,
that will be Andy Jesse, who heads up the Amazon
Web Services Division a k a a w S. And
while I think most folks probably think of Amazon as
an online retail company, you know where you go to
buy everything from books to boats, more than half of
(01:53):
Amazon's operating income actually comes from a WS. The division
is responsible for enormous server farms that provide hosting services
for cloud based applications web companies. You might remember a
recent news item that AWS booted the social network Parlor
(02:13):
or parlay from its servers for failing to moderate content
on the platform, which was a violation of Amazon's policies.
Jesse will take over for Bezos later this year. According
to Bezos, he will quote focus my energies and attention
on new products and early initiatives end quote. In addition
(02:34):
to that work, Bezos also will spend more time with
several of his other companies, such as his private space
company Blue Origin, and I guess maybe figuring out what
he's gonna do with that more than five billion dollars
he has in wealth. Now, based on this reporting, you
might think that I envy Jeff Bezos, and you would
(02:57):
be right. But he's a business genius and I'm not.
So I also understand that I'm just not the type
of person to a mass that kind of wealth. Also,
as we'll be talking about in a little bit, I
probably don't have the stomach to do some of the
things that billionaires do in order to become billionaires. And
(03:19):
now for a few more Amazon stories, we could think
of this as being lost in the Amazon. So next
up our plans that Amazon has for a new glass
tower high rise building in Arlington, Virginia. This would be
part of Amazon's HQ two headquarters project. You might remember
that several years ago all of the United States was
(03:42):
in a bidding war to become the place for Amazon's headquarters,
and a lot of people, myself included, assumed that Amazon
was just playing the long game, trying to you know,
put some leverage on the choices that were already at
the top of its list to get them to give them,
you know, much better tax and syntoms and stuff. This
(04:04):
is the outcome of that. So the design of this
tower calls for it to be three fifty feet or
around a hundred six meters tall, and around this tower
will be three twenty two story buildings that will also
be part of the HQ two campus now. According to
a press release, the tower is meant to connect people
with nature and have a vertical forest arranged in a
(04:27):
couple of spiraling walkways that go from the base all
the way to the top of the tower. There will
be some public spaces incorporated, though not throughout the whole structure,
and Amazon plans to offer public tours of the building,
which will be called the Helix. Now. That sounds like
a setting in an Assassin's Creed game to me, but
(04:49):
Amazon says the inspiration for the design comes from the
helix shape found and everything from conk shells to DNA.
Inside the space will be a massive meeting area capable
of holding people, and there will be an artist in
residence program there. And spiraling around that exterior is that
green space allowing people to kind of stroll up a
(05:12):
wooded spiral walkway. Looks like it might be stairs all
the way up, so it might be a little rough
if you aren't like used to climbing a lot of steps,
and you can go all the way to the tippy top. Apparently,
my favorite description of the artist rendering for the helix
comes courtesy of Jacob Krastanaki's of The Verge, who calls
(05:34):
it a quote glass poop emoji covered in trees end quote. Also,
I should point out that as of this recording, this
whole thing is just a proposal for Amazon to move forward.
They will need to get clearance from Arlington City government
before they can break any ground on the structure. In
a previous news update, I talked about how workers at
(05:56):
an Amazon warehouse and Bessemer, Alabama, which I just want
to call Bessame, was that they were attempting to unionize
and if they manage that, they will be the first
of Amazon's US based warehouses to do it. The company
isn't exactly backing down from this development, however. The Seattle
(06:17):
Times reports that Amazon has funded a pr campaign against
the unionization efforts that employees are pursuing with the retail,
wholesale and department store union. According to the papers sources,
Amazon employees have been ordered to attend mandatory meetings in
which managers present quote anti union propaganda thinly veiled as
(06:39):
factual information end quote. These meetings are pretty small. There
are about fifteen employees per meeting and they last about
half an hour. While I'm sure the meetings aren't much fun,
I also imagine managers must have a pretty tough message
to sell. After all, if you work for a company
that makes one hundred billion dollars in just three months,
(07:02):
I figure you might start asking yourself questions like, Hey,
couldn't you afford better compensation and benefits for us? According
to the Seattle Times piece, Amazon hasn't had to worry
about unions a lot due to the fact that the
company pays a little bit better than most competing retail
and warehouse based jobs, and to the employee turnover is
(07:24):
so high that there aren't a lot of people who
are in a position for long enough for any real
momentum to build. But the pandemic really change things. Not
only did it spur on more consumer activity well a
lot more folks buying stuff online, and also more cloud
based activity, with more businesses having to move to the
(07:45):
cloud to conduct business, but it also brought to light
work conditions in these warehouses that included a higher risk
of spreading COVID nineteen. In addition, the black Lives Matter
movement has played a part. Many of the employees at
Amazon's Bessemer where house are black. Employees, will vote on
whether to unionize later this month. That voting process actually
(08:06):
extends all the way through March, and employees should expect
to see a lot more anti union rhetoric from Amazon
in the meantime. And we're not quite out of the
Amazon yet. The company will pay a settlement of sixty
one point seven million dollars over allegations brought against it
by the US Federal Trade Commission, or f TC. The
(08:29):
reason well, according to the FTC, Amazon didn't pay its
Flex delivery driver force the full amount of tips that
were received from customers. Flex drivers, by the way, our
delivery personnel who pick up shifts on demand to deliver
stuff like Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods orders, as well
as help with particularly heavy delivery days. And who boy,
(08:52):
this thing, I mean, it really makes my blood boil.
I'm in a position in which I can afford to
tip delivery personnel, and because I did penn upon them
so much, and because these workers are in a much
more risky position than I am, I feel like tipping
is away from me to support them and to thank
them for doing a tough and demanding job. So to
(09:13):
hear about companies pocketing money from tips from customers, money
that customers expect will go to the delivery employee, not
you know, the machine that is profiting from that employee's work, Well,
that just burns my biscuits, y'all. Now, granted, I'm talking
about kind of the situation that we're in right now,
but these allegations are actually from before the pandemic. In sixteen,
(09:37):
the FTC says that Amazon made a policy change. Drivers
had been earning between eighteen to twenty an hour plus tips.
Amazon pushed them to a lower hourly rate, and, according
to the FTC, quote intentionally failed end quote to tell
drivers about the change and then use the tips from
(09:58):
customers to pad out the difference between the new lower
hourly rate and the old higher hourly rate, the one
that people were promised. So, in other words, Amazon, according
to the FTC, was using tips to subsidize what had
been the promised hourly rate before they changed it, which
(10:19):
is pretty dang scummy. Amazon of course, disagrees with the
FDC's conclusions, stating that there was never any intentional miscommunication
and then the company added quote additional clarity in two
thousand nineteen end quote and just to be clear, while
I am dunking on Amazon right now. Other companies have
(10:40):
similarly used tips to subsidize worker wages in the past.
Door Dash did that up to two thousand nineteen, at
which point the CEO of the company said that door
Dash would stop doing that. Instacart also had a similar
approach until the company was called out on it. So
if you are someone who tips still have refolks, and
(11:01):
if you use delivery folks and you can afford to tip,
you probably should be doing that. It's good to also
do a bit of research on the various companies to
make sure that those tips are actually going to the
people who are doing the work, not subsidizing a company's payroll.
Let's move over to Google. For the first time, Google
revealed how much revenue it generated through its cloud services business.
(11:24):
The division brought in thirteen point oh six billion dollars
in twenty twenty. However, it also reported an operating loss
of five point six one billion dollars, so it costs
more than they made that those losses don't indicate a
floundering business. Rather Google has been pouring a lot of
(11:45):
money into expanding its cloud services division, including hiring on
more sales personnel. As I mentioned earlier, cloud services are
a big business. I mean, they represent more than half
of Amazon's revenue for twenty twenty, and Google is pressure
to diversify as its chief source of revenue is through
online advertising. That's a sector that was hit very hard
(12:08):
in twenty twenty as companies across various industries began to
scale back marketing efforts during the pandemic. I'm sure we'll
see a lot more about Google being a cloud services
company moving forward. And rounding out this first segment of
our news episode is the story of India issuing a
warning to Twitter. Now, the heart of the matter is
(12:29):
the issue of ongoing protests among farmers in India. That
whole political situation is incredibly complicated, and I am no
expert on Indian politics or agricultural policies, but basically, if
I'm interpreting it correctly, I believe the main concern is
that a trio of farm acts that were passed by
(12:53):
the Indian government in September twenty twenty might set the
stage for big corporations to dominate the farming into street
in India and muscle out all the independent farmers. That
appears to be the interpretation now. While the majority Indian
government has kind of dismissed such concerns, calling this misinformation
(13:14):
or a misunderstanding, members of the opposition have voiced concerns
and farmers in India have organized some pretty massive and
sometimes violent protests. Part of the government's response to the
protests has been to pressure Twitter to block high profile
accounts in India that support the protests, as well as
(13:35):
you know, restrict certain hashtags that allow people to easily
share online ideas about protests. Initially, Twitter did block requested profiles,
but then a few hours later they lifted the ban,
and the Indian government says that Twitter is acting like
some sort of social arbiter that's acting like it's above
(13:55):
the law, and so India is threatening legal action against Twitter.
Some internet advocacy groups are pushing back against the Indian government,
such as Rahman Chimah, who works for the advocacy group
Access Now. Chima says that the Indian government needs to
explain how their actions against Twitter are not a violation
(14:16):
of India's own constitution. This is a very big story
that is very much still playing out right now, and
I'm sure I will be following up on this again
in the future. Well, that wraps up our first round
of news. When we come back, we'll talk a little
bit about some other stuff, including an update on the
good old solar Winds hack. But first let's take a
(14:39):
quick break. We're back, and as I said before the break,
we're going to start this segment with some updates on
the solar wind hack. Now, as a quick refresher, solar
wind is a software vendor that makes products for big
companies and government agencies. The software is mostly geared around
(15:01):
stuff like I T resource management, monitoring network systems. Hackers,
likely backed by Russia, compromised a software product called Orion
and inserted some malware that allowed the hackers to get
access to compromise systems, that is, you know, the customers
using Orian software. So when solar Winds pushed out updates
(15:23):
to Orion and customers installed those updates, the malware essentially
went along for the ride. Now we've heard that security
analysts have identified three previously undisclosed vulnerabilities in solar Winds products.
Two of those are also in Orion and one is
in a separate piece of software. These vulnerabilities could allow
hackers to get access to secured credentials in networks or worse,
(15:48):
and Solar Winds has already addressed the vulnerabilities. They have
patched them out, and they've issued a patch. They've sent
it out, which means that analysts are suggesting that network
administrators install these patch is right away. Of course, this
gets to the really insidious nature of the supply chain hack,
as Shannon Morrise pointed out when she was on the
(16:10):
show earlier this week, because you're you're talking about an
attack that takes advantage of a trusted partner that ends
up undermining the trust. So now the analysts are saying, hey,
you know that thing you did that burns you, well,
you kind of want to do it again because this
will solve some problems. But you know a lot of
(16:32):
people have been burned already. It's a scary thing. In
the USA USA section of our news, Bloomberg reports that
the United States has dropped off the top ten list
of the Bloomberg Innovation Index, which quote analyzes dozens of
criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development, spending,
(16:53):
manufacturing capability, and concentration of high tech public companies end quote.
South Korea is at the top of the list, taking
the title away from Germany, which has fallen to fourth place.
In places two and three, you've got Singapore in Switzerland respectively. Now, granted,
this is one index. This is one way of looking
(17:14):
at innovation, and it's from one media outlet. So depending
upon your point of view, you either think, yeah, this
is right on the money, or you might think this
is a load of ludicrous, meaningless analysis. Somewhere in that
is the truth, and I can't tell you where it is.
(17:35):
I'm just reporting it. So before anyone writes to me,
just remember I'm the messenger here. But another news Bibo
is coming back in some form. Do you remember Bibo?
You might not. Uh. It was really popular in the
UK and in a few other places. It came out
of the United States, but it didn't get a whole
(17:55):
lot of traction here compared to some other places. Bibo
was a social network site founded by a husband and
wife team of Michael and show Chee Birch in two
thousand five in San Francisco, California, and it had the
motto blog early blog often you know Bibo. The profiles
(18:16):
were kind of modular in nature. You had a module
where you could add friends. You had one that would
let you receive and send messages with those friends. But
you can also switch things up. You could put in
modules to include photos or videos and other stuff. It
was like a more customizable Facebook or MySpace page. Bibo
also allowed users to link their social accounts from other
(18:38):
services to Bibo, so that Bibo would become a type
of aggregator. So if Bibo were around today in that form,
imagine that instead of having to find out what your
buddy Susan is doing on Instagram and then over on
Twitter and so on, you would just go to Susan's
Bibo page. Then you could see all of her activities
(18:58):
aggregated there, assuming that Susan had set up a profile
that way, of course. And it was a pretty nifty
little site, but a O L must have thought it
was super duper nifty, as a O L shelled out
eight hundred fifty million dollars to acquire it in two
thousand eight. This, by the way, has often been cited
as one of the worst acquisitions of all time, not
(19:20):
because Bibo wasn't good, but because A o L didn't
really have any idea of what to do with it
and they spent way too much money on it. The
CEO who was responsible for that decision wasn't around for
very long, and the Bibo acquisition is one of the
reasons for their hasty departure. But A O L would
unload Bibo in for ten million dollars, which really doesn't
(19:44):
make that hundred fifty million dollar acquisition look pretty dumb
in you know, retrospect. But a couple of years after that,
the company that bought Bibo from A O L itself
had to file for bankruptcy, and that husband and wife
team who started at all were able to acquire Bibo
for one million dollars, so they sold it for fifty million.
(20:05):
They bought it back for one million. Talk about a
short sell. That's amazing. Now, they tried to switch things
up again. They changed it into more of an e
sports streaming service. But then Amazon comes along, and Amazon
owns Twitch, and Amazon says, hey, we want that technology,
so they purchased the tech of Bibo for twenty five
(20:26):
million dollars. So now you've got this husband and wife
team who were able to sell at least the technology
of their company for a big profit twice well. While
the tech went to Amazon, the couple retained the rights
to the name Bibo, and now we know that Bibo
is on the way back. Michael Burch says it will
be a live social networking tool which will tell you
(20:49):
which of your friends are currently online and allow for
more real time interactions between people, as opposed to the
more asynchronous approach of things like Facebook. Michael Birch has
said he's the only one coding the project right now,
which is both cool and bonkers. He hopes to start
sending out invites to a select group of people to
(21:10):
test it out by the end of the month, with
a full launch that would follow later in if things
are going well. So can Bibo make it in a
world dominated by Facebook? Or is it just doomed to
be a curiosity? I really hope it can make it,
assuming Birch is able to do some really important stuff
like make sure he can protect user data and all
(21:31):
that kind of thing. But who knows, maybe he'll get
a chance to sell Bibo for a third time. Our
next story is about gravitational wave detectors. Now gravity is
one of the four fundamental forces of our universe, the
four that we know about anyway, the other three being
the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and the
electromagnetic force. The force of gravity is the attraction between
(21:56):
two objects that have mass or energy. The magnitude of
that attractive force depends upon the relative mass and proximity
of the two objects. The bigger they are and the
closer they are together, the stronger the attraction of gravity
is between them, and it is the weakest of the
fundamental forces. There are gravitational waves moving through the universe
(22:18):
all the time, but detecting them on Earth is hard
because they are very weak, and we're talking about waves
that measure about Adam's nucleus in amplitude, So measuring that
is hard, and it falls into a realm of quantum
physics that gets real whibbly wobbly. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle plays
(22:38):
a role. I think I'm not really sure that was
an uncertainty joke. It it actually does play a part.
So the uncertainty principle tells us that for certain sets
of measurements, we can't know everything. For example, the classic
one is a particle's momentum and its position. The more
we know about one of those, the less we can
(22:58):
know about the other. So the more we know about
its position, the less we know about its momentum, and
vice versa. Now, because of this fundamental quantum effect that
I frankly do not really understand, there is a sort
of background noise that gravitational waves can get lost in.
So it's only when a wave has enough oo finite
(23:19):
that we can differentiate the wave from sort of background
quantum static. But physicists now say they've developed a method
that is six times more sensitive to gravitational waves while
still obeying the uncertainty principle. The method sacrifices the measure
of brightness of lasers in order to get a more
precise measurement than the researchers say, Well, the brightness of
(23:42):
the lasers is kind of not important to us at all,
so it's okay for us to sacrifice that. Now, I'm
going to be straight with you, All of this goes
way over my head. I just love that scientists can
look at fundamental limitations of our universe, you know, stuff
you cannot escape, and they figure out to do of
an approach that works within those limitations, which is really cool,
(24:04):
and all of this will be put to use so
that extremely smart people can learn more about how our
universe works. And I can't wait to learn more myself,
probably learning that I am incapable of understanding anything, but
I can tell it's really neat And moving from the
cosmological to the extremely terrestrial, TikTok announced that it has
(24:26):
a new warning message to put in front of videos
that could contain misinformation. Now, obviously, misinformation has been a
big topic of discussion recently, from the U S Election
to the pandemic. We've seen people make use of online
platforms to spread lies and misleading information that can have
devastating consequences. And likewise, we've seen companies like Twitter, Facebook,
(24:50):
and Google react to this in different ways and at
different speeds. They haven't necessarily been quick to action. Now,
TikTok will include a warning message saying caution video flagged
for unverified content. These are for videos that contain information
that has not been verified by fact checkers who work
(25:10):
for TikTok. So if a fact checker watches a video
that contains information and that fact checker is not able
to verify the information, they can flag it and this
warning will appear before that video. Now, what we don't
know is how many people TikTok employees to be fact checkers,
or how many videos they look at in an average day,
(25:34):
or what percentage uh those videos represent if you compare
it against all videos uploaded to TikTok. I mean, my
guess is that they're going to be focusing on videos
that have tags that are part of sensitive topics. You know,
like if there's a tag that indicates it something about
an election or or COVID or something like that, that
that's going to be the video that gets tagged in
(25:56):
order for a fact checker to watch it. Because when
your app has more than eight hundred million users, you
just can't keep up with everything. Besides, most of the
stuff on TikTok doesn't really merit fact checking. You don't
really need to watch the video to see if someone's
doing that flossing dance properly or any of the other
you know, seven dances that are done on TikTok. I
(26:18):
I don't have TikTok. I'm throwing a lot of shade
for an old man. I'm just yelling at clouds here.
I apologize However, one thing I hope the fact checkers
can determine is exactly when the weller men will come
to bring us sugar and tea and rum, because I've
been waiting and that guy has not shown up. And
(26:40):
before we go to another break, I've got an update
on the ongoing battle between Epic Games and Apple. Now,
in case you didn't know, Epic Games makes, among other things,
the game Fortnite, which I kind of just referenced, and
Fortnite used to be available on iOS platforms like the
iPhone and iPad, and it's also available on tons of
(27:01):
other platforms. But Epic was not really happy with Apple's
policy of taking a thirty cut off of all in
app purchases made on apps that are on the the
Apple products the Apple platforms. When I say all in
app purchases, that's with an asterisk because it actually depends
(27:23):
upon the nature of the purchase. But if it's an
in app purchase for something that makes a change to
the app itself, like a cosmetic change or anything like that,
Apple gets cut. Well. Epic wasn't too keen on the
idea of Apple taking money from Epics sales. They didn't
know how they could you know, get the full amount
(27:44):
of those purchases. And they weren't really keen on the
idea either of hiking purchases hiking the price up for
iPhone users because they figured that would be a loss
in revenue. So they found kind of a cheeky work
around and they allowed users to buy in app purchases,
but they were able to do it outside the app itself,
thus sidestepping Apple, and Apple said dirty pool old man
(28:09):
and kicked Fortnite off the app store, and they moved
to do more than that, including preventing Epic from doing
any other work within iOS, which was bad news not
just for Epic but many other game developers because one
of the other things that Epic overseas is the Unreal Engine,
which is a game engine used by lots of different
(28:29):
game companies to build their games within Now, with the
ban in place, Epic wouldn't be able to update the
iOS version of Unreal, and there would be a big
ripple effect. Any game that relied on Unreal would be
affected anyway. What followed were various lawsuits and the latest
development is that a judge has ordered that Apple CEO
(28:50):
Tim Cook has to attend a seven hour deposition related
to epics case against Apple. Now, in Apple's favor is
the act that the company has an established policy that
developers agreed to if they want to make products for
Apple platforms. But Apple is also one of the US
(29:10):
companies frequently scrutinized for anti competitive practices, and Epic might
try to make the case that because Apple does not
allow users to download apps anywhere other than on the
official app store, they're running what is essentially a monopoly
because you can't go outside Apple to get an app
to run on your iOS device. So the deposition gives
(29:34):
EPICS legal team the chance to kind of fish around
a bit to see if they can find any pathway
that would be likely to illegal victory. This is still
a pretty early step in the whole litigation process, and
we've got a long way to go, So before we
try and go down that path, let's take another quick
break and we're back. You know, when I was looking
(30:03):
at news items to include in today's episode, one that
caught my eye was from Science Daily and it had
the headline quote load reducing backpack powers electronics by harvesting
energy from walking end quote, which is neat and it
really is neat. I'm not throwing shade on this. I
think it's really cool. I mean the design reduces the
(30:25):
amount of strain a person will feel while carrying a
packed backpack, and it has the ability to send some
power to various bits of electronic gear. It could be
really useful for everyone from hikers to soldiers. So how
does it manage this? Well, first, let's consider the load
bearing part. So imagine that the part of the backpack
(30:47):
that's actually against your back is more like a track,
kind of like a rail track, and the backpack itself
is able to move up and down a little bit
on this track. So the container part of the backpack
is sort of like a train on a rail system,
and it's held in place with elastic like connectors, so
(31:09):
they act like shock absorbers. So the backpack can move
up and down against this track, but it's very gentle
in the way it moves, and it's sort of like
a steadicam where if you've ever used a steadicam or
seen one used, you can move around and the camera
is able to maintain its relative position over a fixed point.
The system reduces the amount of strain the where would feel,
(31:32):
and according to the researchers, it makes loads feel about
twenty lighter than what they really are. Now. As for
the energy harvesting part, that comes courtesy of triboelectric nanogenerators
or t e n G devices. Now, essentially these change
kinetic energy into electrical energy, which isn't that unusual. I mean,
(31:55):
think of something like a dynamo which mechanically rotates magnets
to induce current to flow through a conductor. The researchers
include Jeong Lin, Wong Ching and others, and they've been
working on this for a while. They've got a working prototype,
but there's no telling if we will ever see a
consumer product using this technology. However, it's still really interesting stuff.
(32:19):
One news item I missed out in Tuesday's episode is
that Iron Man is trying to save the world again.
That's a really dumb way for me to say that.
Robert Downey Jr. Who you know isn't Iron Man but
who is one cool dude, launched a venture fund with
the intent to provide investments into sustainability startup companies. Now,
this is an extension of the Footprint Coalition that Robert
(32:43):
Downey Jr. Launched a couple of years ago, and it's
classified as a rolling fund, which was a new term
to me, but it's actually pretty simple to understand. These
funds raise money on a quarterly basis and they invest
it as they go, which is why they are called
rolling funds. This one will allow for up to two
thousand investors at a commitment of five thousand dollars per quarter.
(33:06):
Now a twenty grand commitment for a year is still
a huge deal, but it's a much lower threshold than
most investment organizations which are working in the hundreds of
thousands or millions of dollars. Our DJ has said that
it opens up the fund to quote real people end
quote and that and this is my favorite quote. It's
(33:27):
a little bit more slam Dance than sun Dance. I
kind of dig it. The plan is for the fund
to invest in ten companies, with six of those companies
being in early stages of startup and the other four
in later stages of startup, and woven with the investments
will be a sort of narrative building element, a media
savvy element there really aims to bring more attention to
(33:50):
sustainability and ways that people can participate to make it
a collaborative effort. Which sounds pretty neat. I like this
idea of bringing the power to the people. I think
that's cool. Next up, Gearbox Software, known for games like
the Borderlands franchise, has a new owner. The Embracer Group,
which owns several other game companies like th HQ. Nordic
(34:13):
has acquired Gearbox for the princely sum of one point
three billion dollars. Actually it's more like one point three
seven eight billions, almost one point four now. According to
Gearbox Software founder and CEO Randy Pitchford, who I think
it's safe to say is a controversial figure, operations won't
(34:35):
really change at the company of Gearbox. There are still
plans on further Borderlands games being developed in partnership would
take two take two as a company that publishes the
Borderlands games that Gearbox develops. So now Borderlands and other
games like Duke Nukem and Homeland will join stuff that
Embracer already owns, like the Saints Row franchise, or Dead
(34:58):
Island or Time Splitters even and Pitchford says that this
really means that Gearbox will be able to expand and
hire more talent and develop new games on top of
continuing popular franchises. The Global Wealth company Morgan Stanley published
a report that says the United States is likely to
move away from coal fired power plants by twenty thirty three,
(35:21):
with most power generation coming from renewable energy sources instead
of coal. Among those sources, wind would make up the
largest percentage. Morgan Stanley predicts it will get up to
as much as of all power sources for the US
by But for all that to work, we're going to
need to see a lot of faster growth in wind
(35:43):
and solar power infrastructures. And we can't forget the challenge
of job creation. We need to offset the job losses
from mining operations, for example, so those jobs will exist,
but we'll also need to invest in training and opportunities
to make sure people aren't left him That's one of
the biggest concerns about moving away from fossil fuels. I mean, yes,
(36:06):
you've got the fossil fuel companies that lobby like crazy
and pour a lot of money into politics in order
to try and shape policy. But you also have very
real people who have jobs in those industries, and unless
we give them a way to segue into a new career,
they get left behind and that is. That's a tough
(36:30):
thing to really wrap your head around. And finally, in
the rumors that just will not die department, we've got
Apple cars, and I think the two things people predict
Apple will eventually get around to making will be a
car and a television. And as it stands, Apple has
partnered with other companies to incorporate some Apple technology into
(36:53):
stuff like car infotainment systems, but we haven't actually seen
a real, honest to goodness Apple mobile yet. Well. A
recent report states that Apple is investing around three point
six billion dollars in Kia Motors as quote part of
a planned manufacturing partnership between the two companies end quote. Now,
(37:16):
that could mean that Apple might rely on Kia's manufacturing
facility here in Georgia to build what I can only
assume will eventually be called the I Car. Even if
all of this is on track and we are going
to get an Apple branded car, we're gonna have to
wait a few years to see a car roll off
the production line. So don't you know, hold your breath
(37:38):
for it. We're talking probably at the earliest my guests
would be probably closer to but it would be kind
of interesting for Tim Cook to be on a stage
at a keynote and say one more thing and then
you see the Apple car and then he gets it
and drives off. That would be a pretty cool mic
drop moment. And that set for this episode of tech
(38:02):
Stuff and the news of the week. Make sure you
check out our other episodes of tech Stuff because I
do episodes on Mondays and Wednesdays where I cover specific
topics in depth, and then on Friday's we get to
listen to a classic episode from the archives. I've got
more than episodes. Chances are you have not heard all
of them, and most of them are worth listening to.
(38:25):
I admit in a couple of them my puns get
out of hand. If you have any suggestions for future
topics I should cover in episodes of tech Stuff, let
me know. The best way to reach me is over
on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff
H S W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
(38:48):
Text 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.
Eight
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 a lot of all things tech. And it is
time for the news for Thursday, February four, twenty twenty one.
(00:26):
Let's get to it, and I think our top story
should be pretty obvious, and that's that Jeff Bezos is
stepping down as CEO of Amazon later this year. The
announcement came out on Tuesday, which I think was pretty rude,
as I had already recorded and published the news episode
(00:46):
for that day by the time the press release came out.
Not a lot of consideration there for me. Jeff. This
comes after a banner year for Amazon, at least the
corporate coffer part of it. While millions of folks were
struggling to find out how to work and parent and
all that stuff during a pandemic. Amazon passed the one
(01:09):
trillion dollar market cap, and it's well in its way
to to trillion at this point. Heck, Amazon made one
hundred billion dollars in one quarter. That means three months.
Bezos will not be leaving the company entirely he'll actually
be playing a pretty firm hand with Amazon as the
(01:31):
executive chairman of the board of directors. As for his replacement,
that will be Andy Jesse, who heads up the Amazon
Web Services Division a k a a w S. And
while I think most folks probably think of Amazon as
an online retail company, you know where you go to
buy everything from books to boats, more than half of
(01:53):
Amazon's operating income actually comes from a WS. The division
is responsible for enormous server farms that provide hosting services
for cloud based applications web companies. You might remember a
recent news item that AWS booted the social network Parlor
(02:13):
or parlay from its servers for failing to moderate content
on the platform, which was a violation of Amazon's policies.
Jesse will take over for Bezos later this year. According
to Bezos, he will quote focus my energies and attention
on new products and early initiatives end quote. In addition
(02:34):
to that work, Bezos also will spend more time with
several of his other companies, such as his private space
company Blue Origin, and I guess maybe figuring out what
he's gonna do with that more than five billion dollars
he has in wealth. Now, based on this reporting, you
might think that I envy Jeff Bezos, and you would
(02:57):
be right. But he's a business genius and I'm not.
So I also understand that I'm just not the type
of person to a mass that kind of wealth. Also,
as we'll be talking about in a little bit, I
probably don't have the stomach to do some of the
things that billionaires do in order to become billionaires. And
(03:19):
now for a few more Amazon stories, we could think
of this as being lost in the Amazon. So next
up our plans that Amazon has for a new glass
tower high rise building in Arlington, Virginia. This would be
part of Amazon's HQ two headquarters project. You might remember
that several years ago all of the United States was
(03:42):
in a bidding war to become the place for Amazon's headquarters,
and a lot of people, myself included, assumed that Amazon
was just playing the long game, trying to you know,
put some leverage on the choices that were already at
the top of its list to get them to give them,
you know, much better tax and syntoms and stuff. This
(04:04):
is the outcome of that. So the design of this
tower calls for it to be three fifty feet or
around a hundred six meters tall, and around this tower
will be three twenty two story buildings that will also
be part of the HQ two campus now. According to
a press release, the tower is meant to connect people
with nature and have a vertical forest arranged in a
(04:27):
couple of spiraling walkways that go from the base all
the way to the top of the tower. There will
be some public spaces incorporated, though not throughout the whole structure,
and Amazon plans to offer public tours of the building,
which will be called the Helix. Now. That sounds like
a setting in an Assassin's Creed game to me, but
(04:49):
Amazon says the inspiration for the design comes from the
helix shape found and everything from conk shells to DNA.
Inside the space will be a massive meeting area capable
of holding people, and there will be an artist in
residence program there. And spiraling around that exterior is that
green space allowing people to kind of stroll up a
(05:12):
wooded spiral walkway. Looks like it might be stairs all
the way up, so it might be a little rough
if you aren't like used to climbing a lot of steps,
and you can go all the way to the tippy top. Apparently,
my favorite description of the artist rendering for the helix
comes courtesy of Jacob Krastanaki's of The Verge, who calls
(05:34):
it a quote glass poop emoji covered in trees end quote. Also,
I should point out that as of this recording, this
whole thing is just a proposal for Amazon to move forward.
They will need to get clearance from Arlington City government
before they can break any ground on the structure. In
a previous news update, I talked about how workers at
(05:56):
an Amazon warehouse and Bessemer, Alabama, which I just want
to call Bessame, was that they were attempting to unionize
and if they manage that, they will be the first
of Amazon's US based warehouses to do it. The company
isn't exactly backing down from this development, however. The Seattle
(06:17):
Times reports that Amazon has funded a pr campaign against
the unionization efforts that employees are pursuing with the retail,
wholesale and department store union. According to the papers sources,
Amazon employees have been ordered to attend mandatory meetings in
which managers present quote anti union propaganda thinly veiled as
(06:39):
factual information end quote. These meetings are pretty small. There
are about fifteen employees per meeting and they last about
half an hour. While I'm sure the meetings aren't much fun,
I also imagine managers must have a pretty tough message
to sell. After all, if you work for a company
that makes one hundred billion dollars in just three months,
(07:02):
I figure you might start asking yourself questions like, Hey,
couldn't you afford better compensation and benefits for us? According
to the Seattle Times piece, Amazon hasn't had to worry
about unions a lot due to the fact that the
company pays a little bit better than most competing retail
and warehouse based jobs, and to the employee turnover is
(07:24):
so high that there aren't a lot of people who
are in a position for long enough for any real
momentum to build. But the pandemic really change things. Not
only did it spur on more consumer activity well a
lot more folks buying stuff online, and also more cloud
based activity, with more businesses having to move to the
(07:45):
cloud to conduct business, but it also brought to light
work conditions in these warehouses that included a higher risk
of spreading COVID nineteen. In addition, the black Lives Matter
movement has played a part. Many of the employees at
Amazon's Bessemer where house are black. Employees, will vote on
whether to unionize later this month. That voting process actually
(08:06):
extends all the way through March, and employees should expect
to see a lot more anti union rhetoric from Amazon
in the meantime. And we're not quite out of the
Amazon yet. The company will pay a settlement of sixty
one point seven million dollars over allegations brought against it
by the US Federal Trade Commission, or f TC. The
(08:29):
reason well, according to the FTC, Amazon didn't pay its
Flex delivery driver force the full amount of tips that
were received from customers. Flex drivers, by the way, our
delivery personnel who pick up shifts on demand to deliver
stuff like Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods orders, as well
as help with particularly heavy delivery days. And who boy,
(08:52):
this thing, I mean, it really makes my blood boil.
I'm in a position in which I can afford to
tip delivery personnel, and because I did penn upon them
so much, and because these workers are in a much
more risky position than I am, I feel like tipping
is away from me to support them and to thank
them for doing a tough and demanding job. So to
(09:13):
hear about companies pocketing money from tips from customers, money
that customers expect will go to the delivery employee, not
you know, the machine that is profiting from that employee's work, Well,
that just burns my biscuits, y'all. Now, granted, I'm talking
about kind of the situation that we're in right now,
but these allegations are actually from before the pandemic. In sixteen,
(09:37):
the FTC says that Amazon made a policy change. Drivers
had been earning between eighteen to twenty an hour plus tips.
Amazon pushed them to a lower hourly rate, and, according
to the FTC, quote intentionally failed end quote to tell
drivers about the change and then use the tips from
(09:58):
customers to pad out the difference between the new lower
hourly rate and the old higher hourly rate, the one
that people were promised. So, in other words, Amazon, according
to the FTC, was using tips to subsidize what had
been the promised hourly rate before they changed it, which
(10:19):
is pretty dang scummy. Amazon of course, disagrees with the
FDC's conclusions, stating that there was never any intentional miscommunication
and then the company added quote additional clarity in two
thousand nineteen end quote and just to be clear, while
I am dunking on Amazon right now. Other companies have
(10:40):
similarly used tips to subsidize worker wages in the past.
Door Dash did that up to two thousand nineteen, at
which point the CEO of the company said that door
Dash would stop doing that. Instacart also had a similar
approach until the company was called out on it. So
if you are someone who tips still have refolks, and
(11:01):
if you use delivery folks and you can afford to tip,
you probably should be doing that. It's good to also
do a bit of research on the various companies to
make sure that those tips are actually going to the
people who are doing the work, not subsidizing a company's payroll.
Let's move over to Google. For the first time, Google
revealed how much revenue it generated through its cloud services business.
(11:24):
The division brought in thirteen point oh six billion dollars
in twenty twenty. However, it also reported an operating loss
of five point six one billion dollars, so it costs
more than they made that those losses don't indicate a
floundering business. Rather Google has been pouring a lot of
(11:45):
money into expanding its cloud services division, including hiring on
more sales personnel. As I mentioned earlier, cloud services are
a big business. I mean, they represent more than half
of Amazon's revenue for twenty twenty, and Google is pressure
to diversify as its chief source of revenue is through
online advertising. That's a sector that was hit very hard
(12:08):
in twenty twenty as companies across various industries began to
scale back marketing efforts during the pandemic. I'm sure we'll
see a lot more about Google being a cloud services
company moving forward. And rounding out this first segment of
our news episode is the story of India issuing a
warning to Twitter. Now, the heart of the matter is
(12:29):
the issue of ongoing protests among farmers in India. That
whole political situation is incredibly complicated, and I am no
expert on Indian politics or agricultural policies, but basically, if
I'm interpreting it correctly, I believe the main concern is
that a trio of farm acts that were passed by
(12:53):
the Indian government in September twenty twenty might set the
stage for big corporations to dominate the farming into street
in India and muscle out all the independent farmers. That
appears to be the interpretation now. While the majority Indian
government has kind of dismissed such concerns, calling this misinformation
(13:14):
or a misunderstanding, members of the opposition have voiced concerns
and farmers in India have organized some pretty massive and
sometimes violent protests. Part of the government's response to the
protests has been to pressure Twitter to block high profile
accounts in India that support the protests, as well as
(13:35):
you know, restrict certain hashtags that allow people to easily
share online ideas about protests. Initially, Twitter did block requested profiles,
but then a few hours later they lifted the ban,
and the Indian government says that Twitter is acting like
some sort of social arbiter that's acting like it's above
(13:55):
the law, and so India is threatening legal action against Twitter.
Some internet advocacy groups are pushing back against the Indian government,
such as Rahman Chimah, who works for the advocacy group
Access Now. Chima says that the Indian government needs to
explain how their actions against Twitter are not a violation
(14:16):
of India's own constitution. This is a very big story
that is very much still playing out right now, and
I'm sure I will be following up on this again
in the future. Well, that wraps up our first round
of news. When we come back, we'll talk a little
bit about some other stuff, including an update on the
good old solar Winds hack. But first let's take a
(14:39):
quick break. We're back, and as I said before the break,
we're going to start this segment with some updates on
the solar wind hack. Now, as a quick refresher, solar
wind is a software vendor that makes products for big
companies and government agencies. The software is mostly geared around
(15:01):
stuff like I T resource management, monitoring network systems. Hackers,
likely backed by Russia, compromised a software product called Orion
and inserted some malware that allowed the hackers to get
access to compromise systems, that is, you know, the customers
using Orian software. So when solar Winds pushed out updates
(15:23):
to Orion and customers installed those updates, the malware essentially
went along for the ride. Now we've heard that security
analysts have identified three previously undisclosed vulnerabilities in solar Winds products.
Two of those are also in Orion and one is
in a separate piece of software. These vulnerabilities could allow
hackers to get access to secured credentials in networks or worse,
(15:48):
and Solar Winds has already addressed the vulnerabilities. They have
patched them out, and they've issued a patch. They've sent
it out, which means that analysts are suggesting that network
administrators install these patch is right away. Of course, this
gets to the really insidious nature of the supply chain hack,
as Shannon Morrise pointed out when she was on the
(16:10):
show earlier this week, because you're you're talking about an
attack that takes advantage of a trusted partner that ends
up undermining the trust. So now the analysts are saying, hey,
you know that thing you did that burns you, well,
you kind of want to do it again because this
will solve some problems. But you know a lot of
(16:32):
people have been burned already. It's a scary thing. In
the USA USA section of our news, Bloomberg reports that
the United States has dropped off the top ten list
of the Bloomberg Innovation Index, which quote analyzes dozens of
criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development, spending,
(16:53):
manufacturing capability, and concentration of high tech public companies end quote.
South Korea is at the top of the list, taking
the title away from Germany, which has fallen to fourth place.
In places two and three, you've got Singapore in Switzerland respectively. Now, granted,
this is one index. This is one way of looking
(17:14):
at innovation, and it's from one media outlet. So depending
upon your point of view, you either think, yeah, this
is right on the money, or you might think this
is a load of ludicrous, meaningless analysis. Somewhere in that
is the truth, and I can't tell you where it is.
(17:35):
I'm just reporting it. So before anyone writes to me,
just remember I'm the messenger here. But another news Bibo
is coming back in some form. Do you remember Bibo?
You might not. Uh. It was really popular in the
UK and in a few other places. It came out
of the United States, but it didn't get a whole
(17:55):
lot of traction here compared to some other places. Bibo
was a social network site founded by a husband and
wife team of Michael and show Chee Birch in two
thousand five in San Francisco, California, and it had the
motto blog early blog often you know Bibo. The profiles
(18:16):
were kind of modular in nature. You had a module
where you could add friends. You had one that would
let you receive and send messages with those friends. But
you can also switch things up. You could put in
modules to include photos or videos and other stuff. It
was like a more customizable Facebook or MySpace page. Bibo
also allowed users to link their social accounts from other
(18:38):
services to Bibo, so that Bibo would become a type
of aggregator. So if Bibo were around today in that form,
imagine that instead of having to find out what your
buddy Susan is doing on Instagram and then over on
Twitter and so on, you would just go to Susan's
Bibo page. Then you could see all of her activities
(18:58):
aggregated there, assuming that Susan had set up a profile
that way, of course. And it was a pretty nifty
little site, but a O L must have thought it
was super duper nifty, as a O L shelled out
eight hundred fifty million dollars to acquire it in two
thousand eight. This, by the way, has often been cited
as one of the worst acquisitions of all time, not
(19:20):
because Bibo wasn't good, but because A o L didn't
really have any idea of what to do with it
and they spent way too much money on it. The
CEO who was responsible for that decision wasn't around for
very long, and the Bibo acquisition is one of the
reasons for their hasty departure. But A O L would
unload Bibo in for ten million dollars, which really doesn't
(19:44):
make that hundred fifty million dollar acquisition look pretty dumb
in you know, retrospect. But a couple of years after that,
the company that bought Bibo from A O L itself
had to file for bankruptcy, and that husband and wife
team who started at all were able to acquire Bibo
for one million dollars, so they sold it for fifty million.
(20:05):
They bought it back for one million. Talk about a
short sell. That's amazing. Now, they tried to switch things
up again. They changed it into more of an e
sports streaming service. But then Amazon comes along, and Amazon
owns Twitch, and Amazon says, hey, we want that technology,
so they purchased the tech of Bibo for twenty five
(20:26):
million dollars. So now you've got this husband and wife
team who were able to sell at least the technology
of their company for a big profit twice well. While
the tech went to Amazon, the couple retained the rights
to the name Bibo, and now we know that Bibo
is on the way back. Michael Burch says it will
be a live social networking tool which will tell you
(20:49):
which of your friends are currently online and allow for
more real time interactions between people, as opposed to the
more asynchronous approach of things like Facebook. Michael Birch has
said he's the only one coding the project right now,
which is both cool and bonkers. He hopes to start
sending out invites to a select group of people to
(21:10):
test it out by the end of the month, with
a full launch that would follow later in if things
are going well. So can Bibo make it in a
world dominated by Facebook? Or is it just doomed to
be a curiosity? I really hope it can make it,
assuming Birch is able to do some really important stuff
like make sure he can protect user data and all
(21:31):
that kind of thing. But who knows, maybe he'll get
a chance to sell Bibo for a third time. Our
next story is about gravitational wave detectors. Now gravity is
one of the four fundamental forces of our universe, the
four that we know about anyway, the other three being
the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and the
electromagnetic force. The force of gravity is the attraction between
(21:56):
two objects that have mass or energy. The magnitude of
that attractive force depends upon the relative mass and proximity
of the two objects. The bigger they are and the
closer they are together, the stronger the attraction of gravity
is between them, and it is the weakest of the
fundamental forces. There are gravitational waves moving through the universe
(22:18):
all the time, but detecting them on Earth is hard
because they are very weak, and we're talking about waves
that measure about Adam's nucleus in amplitude, So measuring that
is hard, and it falls into a realm of quantum
physics that gets real whibbly wobbly. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle plays
(22:38):
a role. I think I'm not really sure that was
an uncertainty joke. It it actually does play a part.
So the uncertainty principle tells us that for certain sets
of measurements, we can't know everything. For example, the classic
one is a particle's momentum and its position. The more
we know about one of those, the less we can
(22:58):
know about the other. So the more we know about
its position, the less we know about its momentum, and
vice versa. Now, because of this fundamental quantum effect that
I frankly do not really understand, there is a sort
of background noise that gravitational waves can get lost in.
So it's only when a wave has enough oo finite
(23:19):
that we can differentiate the wave from sort of background
quantum static. But physicists now say they've developed a method
that is six times more sensitive to gravitational waves while
still obeying the uncertainty principle. The method sacrifices the measure
of brightness of lasers in order to get a more
precise measurement than the researchers say, Well, the brightness of
(23:42):
the lasers is kind of not important to us at all,
so it's okay for us to sacrifice that. Now, I'm
going to be straight with you, All of this goes
way over my head. I just love that scientists can
look at fundamental limitations of our universe, you know, stuff
you cannot escape, and they figure out to do of
an approach that works within those limitations, which is really cool,
(24:04):
and all of this will be put to use so
that extremely smart people can learn more about how our
universe works. And I can't wait to learn more myself,
probably learning that I am incapable of understanding anything, but
I can tell it's really neat And moving from the
cosmological to the extremely terrestrial, TikTok announced that it has
(24:26):
a new warning message to put in front of videos
that could contain misinformation. Now, obviously, misinformation has been a
big topic of discussion recently, from the U S Election
to the pandemic. We've seen people make use of online
platforms to spread lies and misleading information that can have
devastating consequences. And likewise, we've seen companies like Twitter, Facebook,
(24:50):
and Google react to this in different ways and at
different speeds. They haven't necessarily been quick to action. Now,
TikTok will include a warning message saying caution video flagged
for unverified content. These are for videos that contain information
that has not been verified by fact checkers who work
(25:10):
for TikTok. So if a fact checker watches a video
that contains information and that fact checker is not able
to verify the information, they can flag it and this
warning will appear before that video. Now, what we don't
know is how many people TikTok employees to be fact checkers,
or how many videos they look at in an average day,
(25:34):
or what percentage uh those videos represent if you compare
it against all videos uploaded to TikTok. I mean, my
guess is that they're going to be focusing on videos
that have tags that are part of sensitive topics. You know,
like if there's a tag that indicates it something about
an election or or COVID or something like that, that
that's going to be the video that gets tagged in
(25:56):
order for a fact checker to watch it. Because when
your app has more than eight hundred million users, you
just can't keep up with everything. Besides, most of the
stuff on TikTok doesn't really merit fact checking. You don't
really need to watch the video to see if someone's
doing that flossing dance properly or any of the other
you know, seven dances that are done on TikTok. I
(26:18):
I don't have TikTok. I'm throwing a lot of shade
for an old man. I'm just yelling at clouds here.
I apologize However, one thing I hope the fact checkers
can determine is exactly when the weller men will come
to bring us sugar and tea and rum, because I've
been waiting and that guy has not shown up. And
(26:40):
before we go to another break, I've got an update
on the ongoing battle between Epic Games and Apple. Now,
in case you didn't know, Epic Games makes, among other things,
the game Fortnite, which I kind of just referenced, and
Fortnite used to be available on iOS platforms like the
iPhone and iPad, and it's also available on tons of
(27:01):
other platforms. But Epic was not really happy with Apple's
policy of taking a thirty cut off of all in
app purchases made on apps that are on the the
Apple products the Apple platforms. When I say all in
app purchases, that's with an asterisk because it actually depends
(27:23):
upon the nature of the purchase. But if it's an
in app purchase for something that makes a change to
the app itself, like a cosmetic change or anything like that,
Apple gets cut. Well. Epic wasn't too keen on the
idea of Apple taking money from Epics sales. They didn't
know how they could you know, get the full amount
(27:44):
of those purchases. And they weren't really keen on the
idea either of hiking purchases hiking the price up for
iPhone users because they figured that would be a loss
in revenue. So they found kind of a cheeky work
around and they allowed users to buy in app purchases,
but they were able to do it outside the app itself,
thus sidestepping Apple, and Apple said dirty pool old man
(28:09):
and kicked Fortnite off the app store, and they moved
to do more than that, including preventing Epic from doing
any other work within iOS, which was bad news not
just for Epic but many other game developers because one
of the other things that Epic overseas is the Unreal Engine,
which is a game engine used by lots of different
(28:29):
game companies to build their games within Now, with the
ban in place, Epic wouldn't be able to update the
iOS version of Unreal, and there would be a big
ripple effect. Any game that relied on Unreal would be
affected anyway. What followed were various lawsuits and the latest
development is that a judge has ordered that Apple CEO
(28:50):
Tim Cook has to attend a seven hour deposition related
to epics case against Apple. Now, in Apple's favor is
the act that the company has an established policy that
developers agreed to if they want to make products for
Apple platforms. But Apple is also one of the US
(29:10):
companies frequently scrutinized for anti competitive practices, and Epic might
try to make the case that because Apple does not
allow users to download apps anywhere other than on the
official app store, they're running what is essentially a monopoly
because you can't go outside Apple to get an app
to run on your iOS device. So the deposition gives
(29:34):
EPICS legal team the chance to kind of fish around
a bit to see if they can find any pathway
that would be likely to illegal victory. This is still
a pretty early step in the whole litigation process, and
we've got a long way to go, So before we
try and go down that path, let's take another quick
break and we're back. You know, when I was looking
(30:03):
at news items to include in today's episode, one that
caught my eye was from Science Daily and it had
the headline quote load reducing backpack powers electronics by harvesting
energy from walking end quote, which is neat and it
really is neat. I'm not throwing shade on this. I
think it's really cool. I mean the design reduces the
(30:25):
amount of strain a person will feel while carrying a
packed backpack, and it has the ability to send some
power to various bits of electronic gear. It could be
really useful for everyone from hikers to soldiers. So how
does it manage this? Well, first, let's consider the load
bearing part. So imagine that the part of the backpack
(30:47):
that's actually against your back is more like a track,
kind of like a rail track, and the backpack itself
is able to move up and down a little bit
on this track. So the container part of the backpack
is sort of like a train on a rail system,
and it's held in place with elastic like connectors, so
(31:09):
they act like shock absorbers. So the backpack can move
up and down against this track, but it's very gentle
in the way it moves, and it's sort of like
a steadicam where if you've ever used a steadicam or
seen one used, you can move around and the camera
is able to maintain its relative position over a fixed point.
The system reduces the amount of strain the where would feel,
(31:32):
and according to the researchers, it makes loads feel about
twenty lighter than what they really are. Now. As for
the energy harvesting part, that comes courtesy of triboelectric nanogenerators
or t e n G devices. Now, essentially these change
kinetic energy into electrical energy, which isn't that unusual. I mean,
(31:55):
think of something like a dynamo which mechanically rotates magnets
to induce current to flow through a conductor. The researchers
include Jeong Lin, Wong Ching and others, and they've been
working on this for a while. They've got a working prototype,
but there's no telling if we will ever see a
consumer product using this technology. However, it's still really interesting stuff.
(32:19):
One news item I missed out in Tuesday's episode is
that Iron Man is trying to save the world again.
That's a really dumb way for me to say that.
Robert Downey Jr. Who you know isn't Iron Man but
who is one cool dude, launched a venture fund with
the intent to provide investments into sustainability startup companies. Now,
this is an extension of the Footprint Coalition that Robert
(32:43):
Downey Jr. Launched a couple of years ago, and it's
classified as a rolling fund, which was a new term
to me, but it's actually pretty simple to understand. These
funds raise money on a quarterly basis and they invest
it as they go, which is why they are called
rolling funds. This one will allow for up to two
thousand investors at a commitment of five thousand dollars per quarter.
(33:06):
Now a twenty grand commitment for a year is still
a huge deal, but it's a much lower threshold than
most investment organizations which are working in the hundreds of
thousands or millions of dollars. Our DJ has said that
it opens up the fund to quote real people end
quote and that and this is my favorite quote. It's
(33:27):
a little bit more slam Dance than sun Dance. I
kind of dig it. The plan is for the fund
to invest in ten companies, with six of those companies
being in early stages of startup and the other four
in later stages of startup, and woven with the investments
will be a sort of narrative building element, a media
savvy element there really aims to bring more attention to
(33:50):
sustainability and ways that people can participate to make it
a collaborative effort. Which sounds pretty neat. I like this
idea of bringing the power to the people. I think
that's cool. Next up, Gearbox Software, known for games like
the Borderlands franchise, has a new owner. The Embracer Group,
which owns several other game companies like th HQ. Nordic
(34:13):
has acquired Gearbox for the princely sum of one point
three billion dollars. Actually it's more like one point three
seven eight billions, almost one point four now. According to
Gearbox Software founder and CEO Randy Pitchford, who I think
it's safe to say is a controversial figure, operations won't
(34:35):
really change at the company of Gearbox. There are still
plans on further Borderlands games being developed in partnership would
take two take two as a company that publishes the
Borderlands games that Gearbox develops. So now Borderlands and other
games like Duke Nukem and Homeland will join stuff that
Embracer already owns, like the Saints Row franchise, or Dead
(34:58):
Island or Time Splitters even and Pitchford says that this
really means that Gearbox will be able to expand and
hire more talent and develop new games on top of
continuing popular franchises. The Global Wealth company Morgan Stanley published
a report that says the United States is likely to
move away from coal fired power plants by twenty thirty three,
(35:21):
with most power generation coming from renewable energy sources instead
of coal. Among those sources, wind would make up the
largest percentage. Morgan Stanley predicts it will get up to
as much as of all power sources for the US
by But for all that to work, we're going to
need to see a lot of faster growth in wind
(35:43):
and solar power infrastructures. And we can't forget the challenge
of job creation. We need to offset the job losses
from mining operations, for example, so those jobs will exist,
but we'll also need to invest in training and opportunities
to make sure people aren't left him That's one of
the biggest concerns about moving away from fossil fuels. I mean, yes,
(36:06):
you've got the fossil fuel companies that lobby like crazy
and pour a lot of money into politics in order
to try and shape policy. But you also have very
real people who have jobs in those industries, and unless
we give them a way to segue into a new career,
they get left behind and that is. That's a tough
(36:30):
thing to really wrap your head around. And finally, in
the rumors that just will not die department, we've got
Apple cars, and I think the two things people predict
Apple will eventually get around to making will be a
car and a television. And as it stands, Apple has
partnered with other companies to incorporate some Apple technology into
(36:53):
stuff like car infotainment systems, but we haven't actually seen
a real, honest to goodness Apple mobile yet. Well. A
recent report states that Apple is investing around three point
six billion dollars in Kia Motors as quote part of
a planned manufacturing partnership between the two companies end quote. Now,
(37:16):
that could mean that Apple might rely on Kia's manufacturing
facility here in Georgia to build what I can only
assume will eventually be called the I Car. Even if
all of this is on track and we are going
to get an Apple branded car, we're gonna have to
wait a few years to see a car roll off
the production line. So don't you know, hold your breath
(37:38):
for it. We're talking probably at the earliest my guests
would be probably closer to but it would be kind
of interesting for Tim Cook to be on a stage
at a keynote and say one more thing and then
you see the Apple car and then he gets it
and drives off. That would be a pretty cool mic
drop moment. And that set for this episode of tech
(38:02):
Stuff and the news of the week. Make sure you
check out our other episodes of tech Stuff because I
do episodes on Mondays and Wednesdays where I cover specific
topics in depth, and then on Friday's we get to
listen to a classic episode from the archives. I've got
more than episodes. Chances are you have not heard all
of them, and most of them are worth listening to.
(38:25):
I admit in a couple of them my puns get
out of hand. If you have any suggestions for future
topics I should cover in episodes of tech Stuff, let
me know. The best way to reach me is over
on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff
H S W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
(38:48):
Text 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.
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