February 9, 2024 • 21 mins
Sam Altman of OpenAI wants to see a huge investment in new semiconductor fabrication plants to support AI implementations. The FTC hopes to reverse the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard merger. And did hackers really take over millions of smart toothbrushes?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
tech are you. It's time for the tech news for
the week ending on February ninth, twenty twenty four So.
(00:25):
The Guardian reports that a Chinese backed hacker group going
by the name volt Typhoon has spent the last five
years at the very least, infiltrating various critical computer systems
here in the United States in our infrastructure, and they
have compromised systems connected to transportation, shipping, and utilities like
(00:46):
water and sewage. The US National Security Agency says that
this hacker group has created footholds within these systems, so
they didn't just infiltrate and spy on stuff and get out.
They made sort of a cozy little nest for themselves
that they could easily return to. Now to me, this
sounds awfully familiar to stories that I've been hearing for
(01:06):
many years now. In fact, I even did a quick
search on Google and I just picked the year twenty
fourteen at random. It was actually my first choice. I mean,
it's ten years ago. I thought, let's see if there's
been any stories in twenty fourteen about Chinese hackers compromising
critical systems within US infrastructure, And sure enough, the top
(01:27):
result was from CNN, and there was an article that
had the headline, the US government thinks China could take
down the power grid because, just as we're hearing now,
Chinese hackers had managed to infiltrate these various computer systems
and to kind of leave for themselves the capacity to
return to it, so that maybe in the future, in
(01:48):
an act of cyber warfare, they could sabotage the system. So,
on one hand, this news story is alarming, but it's
not actually new, right because we've had issues with Chinese
backed hackers compromising systems here in the United States for ages.
But on the other hand, it's still a very alarming
story to read about. I would argue it might be
(02:11):
more alarming to me that we freaking knew about this
problem a decade ago and seem to have learned nothing
since then. That to me is really alarming. It's not
just that Chinese hackers did this, it's that we saw
essentially the same story play out a decade ago, and
yet haven't done the proper steps to protect ourselves against
(02:32):
future attacks. So the Guardian points out that the big
concerning element here, besides the fact that Chinese hackers have
infiltrated all these different computer systems, is that it does
not look like it's an act of espionage at all.
This isn't a case where Chinese hackers are trying to
get secrets and then use those back in China. This
(02:52):
appears to be a preparation for sabotage and cyber warfare.
So really this is preparations for an attack, should that
ever come to pass. Now, it may be that an
attack never would come to pass, but it's more like
the Chinese hackers were setting things up in the event
that there was a cyber attack to be conducted by
(03:14):
China against the United States, they would have already laid
the groundwork. So yeah, it's one thing to steal secrets,
but it's another thing to shut stuff off on a
massive scale. I mean, you can think of how disruptive
that would be. So presumably the affected targets are going
to seek ways to expel the hackers and harden security
against future intrusions. But then you would have figured that
(03:36):
would have been the case a decade ago, and yet
it's still happening. I guess you can argue that no
security system is perfect, and that there are always going
to be vulnerabilities, whether that's in the code or more
likely due to someone failing to practice could security measures,
and that you'll never have a perfect system. So you
could argue that, but at the same time, when you
(03:59):
find out that it's this apparently widespread, it raises some
very serious questions. Anyway, now let's move on to our
traditional glut of AI related news. So first up, the
Verge reports that Google has dropped the names Barred and
Duet from its various AI products. So the new AI
(04:20):
Google strategy is called Gemini, or if you're an astronaut
from the nineteen sixties, maybe Geminy. But Google is streamlining
its approach. So previously, it's aipowered chatbot had the name Barred,
which was a nod to William Shakespeare, a nod that
I appreciated, and it had some AI enhanced components in
(04:43):
the Google Workspace product that had the name Duet. But
now all of that is under the name Gemini. So
on top of that, Google is going to release a
new and larger than ever large language model to the
public soon, the Gemini language model. Android users will get
a chance to test out Gemini and all its glory.
(05:05):
It looks like a lot of different apps are going
to get a Gemini upgrade. iOS will be a little
bit different, but if you're an Android owner, you'll have
access to this pretty soon. And it looks like Gemini
may quietly take the place of the humble Google Assistant
over time. It might be a long, phasing kind of process,
(05:27):
but that's what looks like. So will Jim and I
be able to challenge open a eyes domination with chat,
GPT and the GPT language model. Will I even notice
that it's happened, or by that time will I be
hiding out in an off the grid shack in the woods.
Find out next week at the same BAT time, same
(05:48):
BAT channel. Al Jazeera reports that Sam Altman, the CEO
of open Ai, is looking for cash, like a whole
buttload of it. So how how over much you're thinking?
It's more than that? So, according to the news site,
Altman's goal is to raise quote trillions of dollars from investors,
including the United Arab Emirates government to boost the world's
(06:12):
capacity to produce advanced chips and power artificial intelligence end quote.
And further in the article they specify that they're talking
around seven trillion dollars good gravy. That's a lot of
money that goes beyond a princely sum. Princess don't have
access to seven trillion dollars. Now, we know that AI
(06:34):
requires a lot of computational power to work, and open
AI's business is completely dependent upon customers demanding more AI capabilities.
So in order to deliver those capabilities, you've got to
have the hardware that can run the AI software on
top of it. So it makes sense that open ai
needs all these these investments to go into making the
(06:56):
hardware that powers everything. So this money would ultimately go
toward building more fabrication facilities, and those facilities would be
run by established semiconductor fabrication companies, not open Ai. So
it's not that open ai would get into the semiconductor business.
They're saying, we need this money raised so that we
(07:16):
can build these sorts of fabrication plants all around the
world and have these established companies handle them so that
we have the equipment we need in order to deliver
the AI experiences that we want to, so the argument
is that we're not funneling the money to open AI itself.
I'm not exactly surprised by all this news, but it
does make me wonder if we're going to actually see
(07:37):
AI replace cryptocurrency mining as a computational application that just
demands an insane amount of power. Right? Is it possible
that in a year or two we'll be talking about
how AI as an industry requires more power than most
countries do for a full year the same way we
talk about cryptocurrency. We'll actually circle back to talk about
(08:00):
cryptocurrency and power demands a little bit later in this episode.
But yeah, I just wonder about that. This week, Clint Watts,
the general manager of Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center, published a
blog post that made me take notice. He was focusing
on how Iran's strategy regarding Israel is leaning more and
more on cyber operations, and one of those cyber ops
(08:22):
apparently involved using an AI generated news anchor to deliver
fake news to audiences in different parts of the world.
So apparently this happened late last year in December, and
an Iran aligned hacker group called Cotton Sandstorm interrupted some
streaming TV services in different countries and inserted this AI
(08:44):
generated news program with an AI generated news anchor and
that quote. The disruption reached audiences in the UAE, UK
and Canada end quote. The Guardian further reported that the
AI anchor presented quote unfit verified images that claim to
show Palestinians injured and killed from Israeli military operations in Gaza.
(09:06):
Uote Watts express concern about how this instance is an
indicator of what we should expect moving forward, particularly in
really eventful years like an election year, which hey, here
in the United States we happen to be in an
election year. So keep an eye out for those robots
on your screens and on your phones and really everywhere.
(09:29):
Why that's shack in the middle of the woods is
looking better and better. All right, you know what, We're
going to take a quick break to thank our sponsors.
I'm going to gather myself and try to get rid
of this sort of luddite tendency that's overtaking me, and
we'll be back right after this. We're back. So, the
(09:56):
US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent out a
memo to all insurers that offer Medicare Advantage with a
very clear message those insurers are not allowed to use
AI to determine if someone on a Medicare advantage plan
merits coverage or should be denied coverage. This is really
(10:17):
good news because we've already seen some insurance companies do
that very thing, use AI to determine if they should
grant or deny coverage to a patient. In fact, right now,
there are a couple of massive lawsuits against Humana and
United Health about that very thing. Patients claim that these
companies used an AI tool to decide whether or not
(10:37):
those patients should receive coverage for various medical processes, procedures,
and prescriptions, typically things like whether or not they should
be allowed to stay in a medical facility or if
they should be told to leave, even if it's before
the doctors said that they should leave because otherwise insurance
was going to cut off the support and they'd have
(10:59):
to cover everything out of pocket. So, according to the claim,
many of those decisions that were made for these patients
via AI were wrong. The AI reportedly had a dismal
accuracy rating, but the insurance companies were still depending upon it,
and the argument is that the companies were following an
incentive to use this AI tool because by denying claims,
(11:23):
they didn't have to pay out to the insured. So yeah,
the tool's broken. But the tool also says I get
to keep more of my money if I listen to it,
So I'm listening to the tool. In other words, Anyway, now,
the CMS is telling insurers that while they can use
AI assisted tools to do something like predictive person's length
of stay in a medical facility, any decisions on actual
(11:45):
coverage have to be done solely by taking that individual
patient's circumstances into account, which means you can't just use
aggregated data from a larger population and then make a
determination for that patient, which is good news for people
who are part of these programs. To learn more about this,
(12:05):
I recommend Beth Mole's article in Ours Technica. It's titled
AI cannot be used to deny health coverage FEDS clarify
to insurers. It's a good read. So a bit earlier,
I mentioned that AI is placing an increasingly large demand
on resources, similar to what we're seeing in crypto mining. Well,
according to Tom's Hardware, which is a great website by
(12:25):
the way, the US Energy Information Administration released an analysis
that says one hundred and thirty seven crypto mining operations
in the US demand two point three percent of the
US's power demands overall, which is astounding, Right, You're talking
about fewer than one hundred and fifty organizations that require
that much of the nation's power that we generate. We've
(12:51):
heard in the past about how crypto mining, specifically proof
of work systems like Bitcoin, have created this sort of
runaway demand on power, but boy howdy, I mean, this
is just a lot anyway. The implication here is that
the US government is starting to get a little concerned
about how much power these organizations demand, and that maybe
(13:13):
we should expect US agencies to take a bit of
a closer look at crypto mining, perhaps with regard to
stuff like I don't know, environmental impact, and this in
turn could eventually have a big effect on the crypto space,
at least here in the United States. Like it's possible
that we could see some regulations and restrictions that really
(13:33):
hamper crypto mining efforts in the US, which would just
open them up in other nations. Obviously. The article in
Tom's Hardware includes a map that shows where the administration
says these organizations are located. I was surprised to see
that a whole bunch of them are in my home
state of Georgia. Fun times. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard completed
their acquisition deal last year where the two companies merged,
(13:56):
But that doesn't mean the US Federal Trade Commission is
real happy about it. You know. If you might remember,
the FTC opposed that merger, and their concerns were largely
dismissed in various courts. But the FTC is still interested
in perhaps reversing that deal, and Microsoft is not actually
making it easy on themselves to avoid that because one
(14:19):
thing Microsoft agreed to when it was trying to convince
the US government that it should be allowed to acquire
Activision Blizzard was that the company wasn't going to hold
massive layoffs in the wake of these two companies coming together,
because the intention was Activision Blizzard would still operate kind
of as an independent entity, it would not be fully
(14:40):
integrated into Microsoft. But after the merger happened, Microsoft laid
off nearly two thousand employees I think oney nine hundred
or so, and we don't know exactly how many of
those were Activision Blizzard employees, but it could have been
as many as half of them, and the FTC says
that this could be a violation of the agreement Microsoft
(15:03):
presented when they were first trying to acquire Activision Blizzard. Furthermore,
Phil Spencer, the CEO of the Gaming division at Microsoft,
said that the companies have quote set priorities, identified areas
of overlap, and ensured that we're all aligned on the
best opportunities for growth end quote. But then the FTC says, well,
why are you worried about overlap? Because again, you had
(15:27):
said that the intention was Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming
would more or less operate independently, that they would be
their own things. So overlap shouldn't be an issue because
you didn't. You said you weren't going to combine these two,
and yet now it sounds like you are combining them
and creating a more integrated division between the two. In fact,
(15:50):
you had said that you were going to keep them
separate so that you could potentially divest some or all
of Activision Blizzard if you wanted to. But now it
sounds like it's all getting mixed up together. So what's
the deal here? So the FTC is now asking courts
to force Microsoft and an activision Blizzard to temporarily pause
the merger process, like put a pause on any more
(16:12):
restructuring or anything like that, so that the FTC can
actually litigate the merger with the potential ultimate goal of
undoing the deal. So could we see one of the
biggest mergers in gaming hit the rewind button. It's possible.
It is not likely, but it is possible. Sony has
decided to sunset the anime streaming service Fundimation, merging it
(16:37):
with crunchy Roll, which Sony acquired in twenty twenty one. However,
this also means that some properties aren't necessarily going to
make the jump, So Sony's going to wipe those films
in series off the digital libraries. But worse than that,
which it's already bad, but worse than that. Fundamation offered
customers the chance to buy physical media versions of some
(16:58):
of the anime properties, and they would include a digital
code so that the customer could access a streaming version
of that through their Fundamation account. So they had the
physical media, but they also had a code for digital
streaming version. But this part of their service is not
going to make the transition to crunchy role. So those
digital codes aren't going to work anymore for folks who
(17:20):
purchased the physical media but who subsequently lost access to
that physical media for whatever reason, Like maybe they bought
it but then they realized they didn't have the space
to hold this kind of stuff, so maybe they traded
in the physical versions, but they kept the digital code. Well,
now their digital copy is going to be inaccessible, and
(17:41):
this stings quite a bit. Fundamation at one point claimed
that customers would have access to these digital streaming versions
quote unquote forever. So I guess forever ain't what it
used to be. But it turns out that the terms
of service indicated that customers never actually owned the digital
streaming copy. This is pretty typical for streaming services. You
don't own something. Even if you buy the title, like
(18:03):
on Amazon Prime or something, you don't actually own that copy.
You actually own access to that copy, and that access
at some time can be revoked. It could go bye bye.
This is one of the many reasons I have found
myself going back to buying physical media for some shows
and films, because at least then I will still have
(18:24):
access to that media, assuming I still have a machine
that can play whatever the format is. Finally, the last
story I want to cover is one that has gone
back and forth and up and down, kind of like
brushing your teeth. And hey, it involves electric toothbrushes, all right,
so this story has some weird elements to it. A
Swiss German newspaper called argaler Zeitung and I know I
(18:46):
butchered the pronunciation. It published an article that apparently claimed
that hackers had managed to compromise around three million smart toothbrushes.
And you might be thinking, what the heck do you
do with a compromise smart toothbrush? Make it brush someone's
teeth badly? But no, you can use those compromised toothbrushes
as a kind of botnet to send a distributed denial
(19:07):
of service attack to a target. So each of those
toothbrushes can start pinging a target server in an effort
to overwhelm it and shut it down. And because the
security on these Internet connected toothbrushes was really poor, it
was not hard to accumulate a big old army of them.
This is one of the major concerns about the Internet
of things. You know, sometimes those Internet connected sensors can
(19:29):
really be a threat if the company that makes them
doesn't implement good security measures. Anyway, some outlets reported on this,
and then the American branch of the cybersecurity company called
Fordinet ended up saying, oh, the original article was quoting
a Swiss branch of Fordinet, but there was a problem
(19:49):
with translation, and that in actuality, what the Swiss cybersecurity
experts were saying was this is a hypothetical example, not
something that actually happened, so you should really correct the article.
So then several outlets reported, oh, wasn't it funny This
mistranslation made people think that these electric toothbrushes were being
used in attacks. But then the newspaper our Gower Zitong
(20:14):
said no, no, no, no, no, this really did happen
because we asked about it. The Fortnet branch in Switzerland
indicated this was an actual case, not just a hypothetical example,
and when we submitted our article to them for their review,
they approved it. So clearly this isn't just a mistranslation.
So our toothbrush is out to get you, I don't know,
(20:36):
but you should still brush your teeth in any case,
just you know, maybe go with a toothbrush that doesn't
connect to your home network, just to be on the
safe side. All right, that's it for the news for
the week inning on February ninth, twenty twenty four. I
hope you are all well and I'll talk to you
again really soon. Text is an iHeartRadio production. For more
(21:02):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
tech are you. It's time for the tech news for
the week ending on February ninth, twenty twenty four So.
(00:25):
The Guardian reports that a Chinese backed hacker group going
by the name volt Typhoon has spent the last five
years at the very least, infiltrating various critical computer systems
here in the United States in our infrastructure, and they
have compromised systems connected to transportation, shipping, and utilities like
(00:46):
water and sewage. The US National Security Agency says that
this hacker group has created footholds within these systems, so
they didn't just infiltrate and spy on stuff and get out.
They made sort of a cozy little nest for themselves
that they could easily return to. Now to me, this
sounds awfully familiar to stories that I've been hearing for
(01:06):
many years now. In fact, I even did a quick
search on Google and I just picked the year twenty
fourteen at random. It was actually my first choice. I mean,
it's ten years ago. I thought, let's see if there's
been any stories in twenty fourteen about Chinese hackers compromising
critical systems within US infrastructure, And sure enough, the top
(01:27):
result was from CNN, and there was an article that
had the headline, the US government thinks China could take
down the power grid because, just as we're hearing now,
Chinese hackers had managed to infiltrate these various computer systems
and to kind of leave for themselves the capacity to
return to it, so that maybe in the future, in
(01:48):
an act of cyber warfare, they could sabotage the system. So,
on one hand, this news story is alarming, but it's
not actually new, right because we've had issues with Chinese
backed hackers compromising systems here in the United States for ages.
But on the other hand, it's still a very alarming
story to read about. I would argue it might be
(02:11):
more alarming to me that we freaking knew about this
problem a decade ago and seem to have learned nothing
since then. That to me is really alarming. It's not
just that Chinese hackers did this, it's that we saw
essentially the same story play out a decade ago, and
yet haven't done the proper steps to protect ourselves against
(02:32):
future attacks. So the Guardian points out that the big
concerning element here, besides the fact that Chinese hackers have
infiltrated all these different computer systems, is that it does
not look like it's an act of espionage at all.
This isn't a case where Chinese hackers are trying to
get secrets and then use those back in China. This
(02:52):
appears to be a preparation for sabotage and cyber warfare.
So really this is preparations for an attack, should that
ever come to pass. Now, it may be that an
attack never would come to pass, but it's more like
the Chinese hackers were setting things up in the event
that there was a cyber attack to be conducted by
(03:14):
China against the United States, they would have already laid
the groundwork. So yeah, it's one thing to steal secrets,
but it's another thing to shut stuff off on a
massive scale. I mean, you can think of how disruptive
that would be. So presumably the affected targets are going
to seek ways to expel the hackers and harden security
against future intrusions. But then you would have figured that
(03:36):
would have been the case a decade ago, and yet
it's still happening. I guess you can argue that no
security system is perfect, and that there are always going
to be vulnerabilities, whether that's in the code or more
likely due to someone failing to practice could security measures,
and that you'll never have a perfect system. So you
could argue that, but at the same time, when you
(03:59):
find out that it's this apparently widespread, it raises some
very serious questions. Anyway, now let's move on to our
traditional glut of AI related news. So first up, the
Verge reports that Google has dropped the names Barred and
Duet from its various AI products. So the new AI
(04:20):
Google strategy is called Gemini, or if you're an astronaut
from the nineteen sixties, maybe Geminy. But Google is streamlining
its approach. So previously, it's aipowered chatbot had the name Barred,
which was a nod to William Shakespeare, a nod that
I appreciated, and it had some AI enhanced components in
(04:43):
the Google Workspace product that had the name Duet. But
now all of that is under the name Gemini. So
on top of that, Google is going to release a
new and larger than ever large language model to the
public soon, the Gemini language model. Android users will get
a chance to test out Gemini and all its glory.
(05:05):
It looks like a lot of different apps are going
to get a Gemini upgrade. iOS will be a little
bit different, but if you're an Android owner, you'll have
access to this pretty soon. And it looks like Gemini
may quietly take the place of the humble Google Assistant
over time. It might be a long, phasing kind of process,
(05:27):
but that's what looks like. So will Jim and I
be able to challenge open a eyes domination with chat,
GPT and the GPT language model. Will I even notice
that it's happened, or by that time will I be
hiding out in an off the grid shack in the woods.
Find out next week at the same BAT time, same
(05:48):
BAT channel. Al Jazeera reports that Sam Altman, the CEO
of open Ai, is looking for cash, like a whole
buttload of it. So how how over much you're thinking?
It's more than that? So, according to the news site,
Altman's goal is to raise quote trillions of dollars from investors,
including the United Arab Emirates government to boost the world's
(06:12):
capacity to produce advanced chips and power artificial intelligence end quote.
And further in the article they specify that they're talking
around seven trillion dollars good gravy. That's a lot of
money that goes beyond a princely sum. Princess don't have
access to seven trillion dollars. Now, we know that AI
(06:34):
requires a lot of computational power to work, and open
AI's business is completely dependent upon customers demanding more AI capabilities.
So in order to deliver those capabilities, you've got to
have the hardware that can run the AI software on
top of it. So it makes sense that open ai
needs all these these investments to go into making the
(06:56):
hardware that powers everything. So this money would ultimately go
toward building more fabrication facilities, and those facilities would be
run by established semiconductor fabrication companies, not open Ai. So
it's not that open ai would get into the semiconductor business.
They're saying, we need this money raised so that we
(07:16):
can build these sorts of fabrication plants all around the
world and have these established companies handle them so that
we have the equipment we need in order to deliver
the AI experiences that we want to, so the argument
is that we're not funneling the money to open AI itself.
I'm not exactly surprised by all this news, but it
does make me wonder if we're going to actually see
(07:37):
AI replace cryptocurrency mining as a computational application that just
demands an insane amount of power. Right? Is it possible
that in a year or two we'll be talking about
how AI as an industry requires more power than most
countries do for a full year the same way we
talk about cryptocurrency. We'll actually circle back to talk about
(08:00):
cryptocurrency and power demands a little bit later in this episode.
But yeah, I just wonder about that. This week, Clint Watts,
the general manager of Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center, published a
blog post that made me take notice. He was focusing
on how Iran's strategy regarding Israel is leaning more and
more on cyber operations, and one of those cyber ops
(08:22):
apparently involved using an AI generated news anchor to deliver
fake news to audiences in different parts of the world.
So apparently this happened late last year in December, and
an Iran aligned hacker group called Cotton Sandstorm interrupted some
streaming TV services in different countries and inserted this AI
(08:44):
generated news program with an AI generated news anchor and
that quote. The disruption reached audiences in the UAE, UK
and Canada end quote. The Guardian further reported that the
AI anchor presented quote unfit verified images that claim to
show Palestinians injured and killed from Israeli military operations in Gaza.
(09:06):
Uote Watts express concern about how this instance is an
indicator of what we should expect moving forward, particularly in
really eventful years like an election year, which hey, here
in the United States we happen to be in an
election year. So keep an eye out for those robots
on your screens and on your phones and really everywhere.
(09:29):
Why that's shack in the middle of the woods is
looking better and better. All right, you know what, We're
going to take a quick break to thank our sponsors.
I'm going to gather myself and try to get rid
of this sort of luddite tendency that's overtaking me, and
we'll be back right after this. We're back. So, the
(09:56):
US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent out a
memo to all insurers that offer Medicare Advantage with a
very clear message those insurers are not allowed to use
AI to determine if someone on a Medicare advantage plan
merits coverage or should be denied coverage. This is really
(10:17):
good news because we've already seen some insurance companies do
that very thing, use AI to determine if they should
grant or deny coverage to a patient. In fact, right now,
there are a couple of massive lawsuits against Humana and
United Health about that very thing. Patients claim that these
companies used an AI tool to decide whether or not
(10:37):
those patients should receive coverage for various medical processes, procedures,
and prescriptions, typically things like whether or not they should
be allowed to stay in a medical facility or if
they should be told to leave, even if it's before
the doctors said that they should leave because otherwise insurance
was going to cut off the support and they'd have
(10:59):
to cover everything out of pocket. So, according to the claim,
many of those decisions that were made for these patients
via AI were wrong. The AI reportedly had a dismal
accuracy rating, but the insurance companies were still depending upon it,
and the argument is that the companies were following an
incentive to use this AI tool because by denying claims,
(11:23):
they didn't have to pay out to the insured. So yeah,
the tool's broken. But the tool also says I get
to keep more of my money if I listen to it,
So I'm listening to the tool. In other words, Anyway, now,
the CMS is telling insurers that while they can use
AI assisted tools to do something like predictive person's length
of stay in a medical facility, any decisions on actual
(11:45):
coverage have to be done solely by taking that individual
patient's circumstances into account, which means you can't just use
aggregated data from a larger population and then make a
determination for that patient, which is good news for people
who are part of these programs. To learn more about this,
(12:05):
I recommend Beth Mole's article in Ours Technica. It's titled
AI cannot be used to deny health coverage FEDS clarify
to insurers. It's a good read. So a bit earlier,
I mentioned that AI is placing an increasingly large demand
on resources, similar to what we're seeing in crypto mining. Well,
according to Tom's Hardware, which is a great website by
(12:25):
the way, the US Energy Information Administration released an analysis
that says one hundred and thirty seven crypto mining operations
in the US demand two point three percent of the
US's power demands overall, which is astounding, Right, You're talking
about fewer than one hundred and fifty organizations that require
that much of the nation's power that we generate. We've
(12:51):
heard in the past about how crypto mining, specifically proof
of work systems like Bitcoin, have created this sort of
runaway demand on power, but boy howdy, I mean, this
is just a lot anyway. The implication here is that
the US government is starting to get a little concerned
about how much power these organizations demand, and that maybe
(13:13):
we should expect US agencies to take a bit of
a closer look at crypto mining, perhaps with regard to
stuff like I don't know, environmental impact, and this in
turn could eventually have a big effect on the crypto space,
at least here in the United States. Like it's possible
that we could see some regulations and restrictions that really
(13:33):
hamper crypto mining efforts in the US, which would just
open them up in other nations. Obviously. The article in
Tom's Hardware includes a map that shows where the administration
says these organizations are located. I was surprised to see
that a whole bunch of them are in my home
state of Georgia. Fun times. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard completed
their acquisition deal last year where the two companies merged,
(13:56):
But that doesn't mean the US Federal Trade Commission is
real happy about it. You know. If you might remember,
the FTC opposed that merger, and their concerns were largely
dismissed in various courts. But the FTC is still interested
in perhaps reversing that deal, and Microsoft is not actually
making it easy on themselves to avoid that because one
(14:19):
thing Microsoft agreed to when it was trying to convince
the US government that it should be allowed to acquire
Activision Blizzard was that the company wasn't going to hold
massive layoffs in the wake of these two companies coming together,
because the intention was Activision Blizzard would still operate kind
of as an independent entity, it would not be fully
(14:40):
integrated into Microsoft. But after the merger happened, Microsoft laid
off nearly two thousand employees I think oney nine hundred
or so, and we don't know exactly how many of
those were Activision Blizzard employees, but it could have been
as many as half of them, and the FTC says
that this could be a violation of the agreement Microsoft
(15:03):
presented when they were first trying to acquire Activision Blizzard. Furthermore,
Phil Spencer, the CEO of the Gaming division at Microsoft,
said that the companies have quote set priorities, identified areas
of overlap, and ensured that we're all aligned on the
best opportunities for growth end quote. But then the FTC says, well,
why are you worried about overlap? Because again, you had
(15:27):
said that the intention was Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming
would more or less operate independently, that they would be
their own things. So overlap shouldn't be an issue because
you didn't. You said you weren't going to combine these two,
and yet now it sounds like you are combining them
and creating a more integrated division between the two. In fact,
(15:50):
you had said that you were going to keep them
separate so that you could potentially divest some or all
of Activision Blizzard if you wanted to. But now it
sounds like it's all getting mixed up together. So what's
the deal here? So the FTC is now asking courts
to force Microsoft and an activision Blizzard to temporarily pause
the merger process, like put a pause on any more
(16:12):
restructuring or anything like that, so that the FTC can
actually litigate the merger with the potential ultimate goal of
undoing the deal. So could we see one of the
biggest mergers in gaming hit the rewind button. It's possible.
It is not likely, but it is possible. Sony has
decided to sunset the anime streaming service Fundimation, merging it
(16:37):
with crunchy Roll, which Sony acquired in twenty twenty one. However,
this also means that some properties aren't necessarily going to
make the jump, So Sony's going to wipe those films
in series off the digital libraries. But worse than that,
which it's already bad, but worse than that. Fundamation offered
customers the chance to buy physical media versions of some
(16:58):
of the anime properties, and they would include a digital
code so that the customer could access a streaming version
of that through their Fundamation account. So they had the
physical media, but they also had a code for digital
streaming version. But this part of their service is not
going to make the transition to crunchy role. So those
digital codes aren't going to work anymore for folks who
(17:20):
purchased the physical media but who subsequently lost access to
that physical media for whatever reason, Like maybe they bought
it but then they realized they didn't have the space
to hold this kind of stuff, so maybe they traded
in the physical versions, but they kept the digital code. Well,
now their digital copy is going to be inaccessible, and
(17:41):
this stings quite a bit. Fundamation at one point claimed
that customers would have access to these digital streaming versions
quote unquote forever. So I guess forever ain't what it
used to be. But it turns out that the terms
of service indicated that customers never actually owned the digital
streaming copy. This is pretty typical for streaming services. You
don't own something. Even if you buy the title, like
(18:03):
on Amazon Prime or something, you don't actually own that copy.
You actually own access to that copy, and that access
at some time can be revoked. It could go bye bye.
This is one of the many reasons I have found
myself going back to buying physical media for some shows
and films, because at least then I will still have
(18:24):
access to that media, assuming I still have a machine
that can play whatever the format is. Finally, the last
story I want to cover is one that has gone
back and forth and up and down, kind of like
brushing your teeth. And hey, it involves electric toothbrushes, all right,
so this story has some weird elements to it. A
Swiss German newspaper called argaler Zeitung and I know I
(18:46):
butchered the pronunciation. It published an article that apparently claimed
that hackers had managed to compromise around three million smart toothbrushes.
And you might be thinking, what the heck do you
do with a compromise smart toothbrush? Make it brush someone's
teeth badly? But no, you can use those compromised toothbrushes
as a kind of botnet to send a distributed denial
(19:07):
of service attack to a target. So each of those
toothbrushes can start pinging a target server in an effort
to overwhelm it and shut it down. And because the
security on these Internet connected toothbrushes was really poor, it
was not hard to accumulate a big old army of them.
This is one of the major concerns about the Internet
of things. You know, sometimes those Internet connected sensors can
(19:29):
really be a threat if the company that makes them
doesn't implement good security measures. Anyway, some outlets reported on this,
and then the American branch of the cybersecurity company called
Fordinet ended up saying, oh, the original article was quoting
a Swiss branch of Fordinet, but there was a problem
(19:49):
with translation, and that in actuality, what the Swiss cybersecurity
experts were saying was this is a hypothetical example, not
something that actually happened, so you should really correct the article.
So then several outlets reported, oh, wasn't it funny This
mistranslation made people think that these electric toothbrushes were being
used in attacks. But then the newspaper our Gower Zitong
(20:14):
said no, no, no, no, no, this really did happen
because we asked about it. The Fortnet branch in Switzerland
indicated this was an actual case, not just a hypothetical example,
and when we submitted our article to them for their review,
they approved it. So clearly this isn't just a mistranslation.
So our toothbrush is out to get you, I don't know,
(20:36):
but you should still brush your teeth in any case,
just you know, maybe go with a toothbrush that doesn't
connect to your home network, just to be on the
safe side. All right, that's it for the news for
the week inning on February ninth, twenty twenty four. I
hope you are all well and I'll talk to you
again really soon. Text is an iHeartRadio production. For more
(21:02):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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