February 2, 2021 • 41 mins
Investment app Robinhood comes under fire for blocking GameStop stock purchases. Facebook's challenges in moderating content are pretty big. And we might not be going back to the Moon as early as we hoped.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and a love of all things tech. And this is
the tech Stuff News episode for February second, two thousand,
(00:25):
twenty one, eight cues day as I am led to understand.
Our top story for today's episode goes back to the
ongoing drama with Wall Street hedge funds and a group
of independent investors using platforms like Discord and Reddit to
organize and drive up share prices for companies like game Stop.
(00:49):
So as a quick reminder, the subreddit Wall Street bets
took up the cause of buying shares of game Stop
in an effort to counteract how some hedge fund companies
were attempting to short sell that stock. Short Selling is
when you borrow shares from somebody else, a different investor,
and you sell those shares that are not yours at
(01:11):
market value. Then you hope the price goes down so
that you can swoop in and you know, buy back
those borrowed shares for less than what you sold them for,
and then you return the borrowed shares to the person
you borrowed them from, and you get to pocket the difference.
The Internet crusaders are buying up stocks, which makes the
stock price go higher, and that starts to pressure those
(01:34):
investors and companies that were attempting to short the stock,
because the higher the stock price goes, the more money
those investors will lose when it comes time to buy
back shares and return them to the parties that they
borrow them from. The Motivations for this action among these
independent investors varies and ranges from those who are hoping
(01:56):
they can get rich quick by jumping on a trend
those be kind of like speculators to those who harbor
a grudge against the hedge funds in general, which typically
represent the interests of people who are, let me see,
let me check my notes here, um right, filthy rich,
like really filthy rich. So a short squeeze is a
(02:21):
way to really stick it to these funds, which could
stand to lose billions of dollars as a consequence. In fact,
that has already happened with a couple of these hedge
funds that have tried to cut their losses and get
out before they saw even more money lost because with
a short sell. The higher that market price goes, the
more money the short sellers are going to lose when
(02:43):
it comes time to return that stock. There's no limit
to how much money they can lose, because the stock
price can just keep going up, up, up and up.
There's no there's no bottom there. However, this all hinges
on the investors being able to buy up those shares
of games Op as those shares are hitting the market
in order to keep this trend going, and that's getting
(03:05):
harder to do. Last Thursday, the day of our last
news episode, in fact, the mobile stocks trading app robin
Hood angered users when it put a temporary block on them,
preventing them from buying shares in various companies that the
Internet investors had targeted, including game Stop, but also including
some other companies like AMC Theaters. Uh. They could still
(03:28):
sell stocks, but they couldn't buy them now. At one point,
robin Hood had a buying ban on fifty different companies,
though as of Monday, February one, that list has been
whittled down to eight, and yet game Stop is still
on that list. The move prompted users to point out
the inherent irony that a company naming itself after the
(03:51):
legendary character Robin Hood, who literally robbed from the rich
to give to the poor, was preventing average investors from
you know, doing the equivalent action in the modern day
through the stock market. Investors have filed numerous lawsuits, like
more than thirty of them at the federal level against
(04:12):
the company. At the heart of the issue is what
led robin Hood to level that ban on users. It
doesn't help robin Hood's case that among its sources of
revenue is a hedge fund called Citadel, leading some to
speculate that robin Hood was facing pressure from revenue sources
that stood to lose a lot of money if they
(04:33):
were caught up in a short squeeze. Citadel, for its part,
denies that it played any role in robin Hood's decision making.
This is building into a pretty compelling narrative that may
or may not be realistic, and the narrative goes like this,
hedge funds that are attempting to short sell companies aren't
just betting that those companies shares are going to drop
(04:54):
in price. These hedge funds, according to the narrative, actively
campai Hayne for that to happen. So, in other words,
the independence the investors on the sub credit in Wall
Street bets are saying that these big hedge funds are
using leverage and market forces to help companies fail and
(05:15):
then they reap in rewards through this short selling practice.
These companies may or may not have failed on their own,
but the story that the investors are telling is that
the hedge funds are actively working to cause companies to
fail with only an eye on profit and no care
about the consequences of failed company brings along with it,
including the consequences to that company's employees and its customers.
(05:39):
And so turning a short cell around on these hedge
funds is being portrayed within these communities as an act
of heroism. That buying up the stock isn't meant to
be a way to turn these investors into wealthy people.
You're not supposed to be buying it to make money,
but rather as a way to act as a check
on these hedge funds so they can't set out to
(06:00):
them these companies just for profit. Now, I would suggest
that this narrative, while a good one, isn't necessarily the
whole truth of the matter. I think there's a lot
of it in there. I think a lot of truth
is in that narrative, but I also think there are
a lot of other complicating factors at play. One of
(06:20):
those is that sometimes a short cell is really just
a short sell. It's not an attempt to make a
company fail. Sometimes companies are just in a bad place,
and sometimes the short cell recommendations are kind of an indicator,
a warning flag, and it tells other investors who might
have shares in those companies that maybe they want to
(06:41):
protect their money and they should probably sell off those
shares if in fact that company really is in danger.
It's not manufactured danger, it's something is wrong with that company.
And then there are the ripple effects of these kind
of events, which can cause further market disruption. I think that,
as in most things in life, the situation is actually
(07:03):
really complicated. There are no cut and dried heroes or villains.
But speaking from my own personal standpoint, it is way
easier for me to side with the people who are
not billionaires. I'm just saying. Also a full disclosure, I
don't own any stock in any of these companies. In
(07:24):
related news, that narrative I was just talking about really
must be compelling, because Deadline, that is, the news journal
that covers all things Hollywood, reports that MGM has acquired
rights to a book proposal. Not a book, but our
proposal for a book called The Antisocial Network by Ben Meseric.
(07:47):
The book, as I'm sure you have all guessed, will
be about this game stop share price, saga and Wall
Street bets and hedge funds, and about the story of
independent investors on the and it who are taking aim
at the big entrenched, fat cat hedge fund managers. Meseric
proposed the book and his agent was able to shop
(08:08):
around the proposal, not even a manuscript, and nothing's been
fully written out yet, and boom, MGM options it for
a movie. Now, folks, both of my parents are published authors,
and I just have to say, this is not the
way things typically work. Now that being said, Meseric already
has a track record. He wrote the book that would
(08:30):
become the inspiration for the film The Social Network, you know,
the Academy Award winning movie. So do keep that in
mind that while this means that MGM has the rights
to make a movie about this idea for a book,
it doesn't necessarily guarantee that a movie will ever actually
come out. Now. If it does, it's gonna take some
(08:52):
time for that to happen. I mean, it hasn't even
been written yet, let alone had a director attached or
cast it or gone into pre production or anything. And
between now and whenever all that stuff can happen, a
lot more might evolve, and we might see a lot
more happened during the fallout of this initial story. So
I can't promise you that in a year or two
(09:13):
you'll be watching something like I don't know, Tom Holland
leading a group of upstart investors online against someone like
I don't know, let's say, Richard Dreyfuss representing the head
of a hedge fund. Clearly I should be the casting
director for this movie, is what I'm saying. Now that
I say it all out loud, I kind of want
to see it. Well, let's stick with the Hollywood approach
(09:35):
to the tech world, or at least, in this case,
the tech adjacent world. The Hollywood Reporter says that Apple
TV is producing a series called We Crashed all one word,
big W, big C. We Crashed, based off a podcast
from Wondering about the Real Estate Slash kind of sort
of but not really tech company we Work, or to
(09:58):
be more specific, the A WE Company, which is the
parent company to we Work, along with a couple of
related ventures. You know, that's the company that would get
hold of office space in various markets and then rent
that office space out to various freelancers and companies that
didn't already have a physical space of their own. The
(10:21):
Hollywood Reporter says that Jared Leto has been cast as
Adam Neuman and and Hathaway will be Rebecca Noyman and
the Noyman's are leaders in the Wee Company, or at
least they used to be, with Adam as the former
CEO of the Wee Company, and Rebecca was a and
still is a founding partner fund bit of trivia here.
Rebecca is also cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow. And it seems
(10:44):
like some of the more new Agish wacky beliefs run
in that family. Okay, I admit it, that is unfair.
They don't run in the family. They positively gallop to
steal a joke from arsenic and old lace. Adam Neuman
previously made millions of dollars by buying up real estate
(11:06):
and then least those buildings too We Work, you know,
the company he was CEO of when the Weed Company
filed for an i p O in two thousand nineteen.
The filing contained a lot of unusual stuff in it,
like an inscrutable hierarchy diagram that had companies nested inside
other companies and no real useful information inside of it.
(11:29):
There was also a succession plan that seemed more geared
toward making the We Company a Neuman dynasty rather than
you know, an independent company. I would do a full
episode about the We Company and its trials and tribulations,
including how that i p O never actually happened, how
Adam Nouman was pressured by the board of directors to
(11:51):
step down, complete with a nearly two billion dollar exit package,
and how the company's valuation has plummeted by nearly since
that planned i p O. But for one thing, We Work,
despite the way it branded and marketed itself, is not
really a tech company. And for another, if you want
(12:12):
to read an incredible account about that i p O,
you need to go to the Verge and read Elizabeth
Lapado's article We Work isn't a tech company, It's a
soap opera. Because that article is equally informative and wildly entertaining.
I highly recommend it. And I'll conclude this segment of
(12:33):
our news episode with an update on the ongoing story
about employees at Google attempting to unionize. I mentioned last
week that the Alphabet Workers Union or a w U,
which is really hard to say because of that WU combination.
Can I just say triple you just make it easier? Anyway,
(12:55):
the a WU announced it was joining an international alliance
of unions connected to Google called Alpha Global, this being
unions all around the world that are related to Google
or Alphabet. The problem is that the United States members
of this organization said they didn't know about any alliance
until after the announcement of it had been published by
(13:18):
The Verge, and that meant they didn't have a chance
to vote on the matter, or even consider it, or
even be told about it. What's more, the press release
cited by The Verge had comments attributed to a WU leader,
Poole Cool, who says she never actually made the comments
that appear in the press release. What followed was confusion,
(13:39):
and along with confusion came some mistrust, which is, you know,
pretty common and if you can't trust democratically elected leaders
to actually represent those who elected those leaders. Everything falls apart,
which really we're seeing play out in arenas much larger
than the a WU, But we'll leave it at that.
(14:00):
Part of the problem appears to be that the Communications
Workers of America or c w A, pushed out that
press release prematurely and with a false attribution to cool
regarding those comments. Now there are discussions within the a
WU about whether the union should disassociate from the c
(14:21):
w A entirely, and the person responsible for the press
release is no longer working with the a WU teams.
If I were making a bird's eye view observation, I
would say it looks like those organizing the union are
relying heavily on other organizations that have proven to be
a bad match, and that this in turn has actually
(14:41):
threatened the formation of the union itself. I'm sure I'll
be returning to the story again in the future. My
hope is that they are able to continue their efforts
to unionize. But when we see stuff like this happen,
it really can cause a great deal of damage, particularly
in trust. I mean, you're asking impl yease to trust
(15:01):
that the union will take care of them When something
like this happens that trust gets eroded. We've got a
lot more stories to talk about in today's episode, but
first let's take a quick break. We're back. Did you
(15:22):
guys know there was a pandemic going on? Well, it
continues to be a dominating force for news in general,
and one of the stories here in the United States
has been about how badly the country has handled the
process of distributing and administering vaccines. It's a pretty big mess,
with each state in the country largely left to determine
its own processes and there being a general lack of
(15:46):
clarity across the nation. For example, here in Georgia, we
are in what is called Phase one A plus, meaning
the state is currently administering the vaccine to healthcare workers,
long term care facilities, citizens who are sixty five or older,
and their caregivers and first responders. After that will come
(16:08):
Phase one B, which includes essential workers, then one C,
which will include people who have, you know, medical conditions
that increase the risk of them contracting a severe case
of COVID nineteen, and then presumably will come the rest
of us. But there's no actual timeline associated with that plan.
(16:29):
There's just a description of phases, but it doesn't even
have a prediction of when will move from Phase one
A plus to Phase one B. You can search to
see where you could go to get vaccinated, but that
doesn't mean that you would be eligible for a vaccination.
You just know where the locations are that are administering vaccines.
(16:51):
So that's about it. Now, that's just Georgia and every
state in the US is different. But Georgia is also
home for the Centers for Disease Control or c d C,
and the c d C has played a big part
in why the vaccine rollout has not gone so smoothly
for thousands and thousands of people. And this is what
relates it to technology. It's because of a website called
(17:15):
the Vaccine Administration Management System or VAMS v A m S.
So this was developed for the princely sum of forty
four million dollars. According to the m I T Technology Review,
numerous states that had planned to lean on VAMS as
the official way to manage vaccine rollout didn't go so well.
(17:38):
Things have gone pear shaped. A lot of people have
reported various bugs or glitches in the system that have
failed to actually make appointments with facilities. So a patient
goes on VAMS, goes through the process of making an appointment,
appears to be confirmed for that appointment, they go and
show up to the physical location, and that's when are told, hey,
(18:00):
we have no record of you. There's no actual appointment
on our books, so we can't see you. In other cases,
the system appears to cancel appointments without rhyme or reason,
although the c d C says this is due not
to a flaw in VAMS but rather user error. Uh.
There are also reports that it locks people out as
(18:21):
they try to use the system, or it only locks
them in as a patient, not an administrator, and that's
a big problem for those who are trying to actually
administer the system. You know, it's also not just about
creating appointments, but but managing that information and tracking that
information so you know who has received the vaccine, who
(18:41):
needs to come in for a follow up, all that
sort of stuff. So it's really a failure of the
whole system. And the whole point of VAMS was to
take the burden off of individual states so that they
didn't have to build out their own management systems. But
these various issues have led a lot of states to
kind of do that anyway, rather than rely on something
that other states have said has been a pretty big mess.
(19:06):
Some local governments, like counting governments in Florida, have even
repurposed online services like event bright. You know the website
you would use in order to send out invitations to
your kid's birthday party. They're using that in order to
make appointments, which, y'all, that is messed up. Moreover, the
m I T piece, which is titled What Went Wrong
(19:26):
with America's forty four million dollar Vaccine Data System, lays
out more problems. For example, the layout of the vam's site,
even when it's working correctly, doesn't sound like it was
made to be friendly for senior patients, and since seniors
are the early focus of a lot of the vaccine programs,
that's a huge problem. And it also points out the
(19:49):
overall issue of creating systems that are accessible to a
wide audience. This stuff is important. There are companies that
have entire departments dedicated to this kind of stuff, and
as the peace in the m I T Technology Review
points out, there's a real problem with the procurement process
when government offices are selecting companies to carry out these
(20:11):
big projects, and that the process itself can eliminate a
lot of different valid choices from consideration. Even if those
choices are more suitable. They may be more suitable, but
because they don't fit these other criteria that are required
in the procurement process, they aren't even eligible for consideration. Clearly,
(20:32):
managing such a massive effort is a huge challenge, and
they are bound to be big problems along the way,
But it seems like these challenges are made all the
more difficult because of the nature of how the US
government partners with the private sector in general, and the
tech sector in particular. By the way this sort of
thing is nonpartisan. We see messages like this no matter
(20:55):
who happens to be in charge, because the policies themselves
are so restrictive that it almost doesn't make a difference
whether or not you have a conservative administration in power
or a liberal one. The policies themselves persist, and that
ends up being an issue. And speaking of the US government,
(21:17):
one of the effects of an administration changing hands is
that sometimes long term projects get disrupted, and one of
those projects appears to be NASA's planned returned to the
Moon under former President Trump. NASA was to aim to
get astronauts back on the Moon by four, including the
first woman astronaut to go to the Moon. Now, that
(21:40):
timeline was pretty ambitious and aggressive. I wouldn't go so
far as to say it was impossible, but it was
going to be really hard to do and really expensive,
and there is uncertainty about where the plan now stands.
In the wake of Joe Biden winning the US presidency.
With a new ends stration in charge, there are questions
(22:01):
about whether NASA will get the funding needed to stay
on target, particularly for that goal. We're already seeing some
results of this, with NASA pushing back when it will
announce lunar lander contracts. Originally, NASA was to announce which
two of the three companies that had been under consideration
would be awarded a pair of contracts for lunar landers,
(22:25):
so one contract per company. We don't know which of
which two of the three we're going to get these.
We were supposed to find out later this month in February.
Now NASA has told the contractors that the announcement has
been pushed back to April. This was probably a necessary step.
The agency had requested a budget of three point two
(22:45):
billion dollars in order to stay the course. But in
December twenty twenty, Congress approved a much more modest budget
of eight hundred fifty million dollars. And yeah, it feels
weird to call eight hundred fifty million dollars honest, but
then we are also talking about trying to keep people
alive and safe as we shoot them off to the Moon,
(23:06):
and that ain't cheap. We're still waiting to hear who
the Biden administration will choose to head up the agency
and what priorities the administration will stress. It's all but
certain that the Artemis project of returning to the Moon
is going to get pushed back beyond if it sticks
around as an official project in the first place. And
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand,
(23:29):
I feel like the initial timeline was probably unrealistic and
you really have to define what are your goals besides
just going there. Going there's great, it's really a fantastic achievement.
I don't want to downplay that, but is that the
best use of resources? Uh? But on the other hand,
I also think that a Moon mission does have a
(23:51):
lot of potential. You can find ways to perhaps harvest
resources from the moon, though that's a very delicate matter.
You have to figure out a way of doing that.
It isn't too damaging or dangerous or we'll have long
lasting consequences. But then you can also pursue a challenge
that would undoubtedly inspire countless others to really dream big
(24:15):
and become the next generation of pilots and engineers and scientists.
That's a that's a big thing in itself. So, like
I said, I do feel uh complicated about this. Moving on, Microsoft,
which has managed to dodge a bullet in the United
States as the US government has discussed the fate of
big companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple, is going
(24:38):
under the magnifying glass. Over in the EU, antitrust regulators
have until March five to decide if Microsoft's proposed acquisition
of ZeniMax Media is acceptable or if the EU regulators
will prevent it or require concessions before the acquisition can
move forward. As it stands, the deal is valued at
(24:59):
seven and a half billion dollars. Holy cow, makes that
forty four million dollar website really look like small potatoes, right,
So what is it that zenni Max does? I mean,
it's got to be important for that kind of money, right, Well,
Zenny Max is the parent company of Bethesda, the video
game studio responsible for things like the older Scrolls games,
(25:20):
the Fallout titles, and the Doom titles. Though the story
is behind Fallout and Doom stretch back to other studios
before Bethesda. But that's that's a matter for a different episode.
And yeah, video games are a huge business, and I
don't want to downplay that. It's just one of those
weird facts of life that I really find bizarre that
we're talking about money for a video game company acquisition
(25:44):
that is orders of magnitude larger than the money that's
put forward as part of an effort to administer vaccines
against a deadly pandemic. But that's enough of me on
my soapbox. I get it, you all don't need to
hear it. If Microsoft's acquisition can move forward, it will
put the company on more equal footing with Sony and
(26:06):
the PlayStation platform. For a long time, one of the
big strengths PlayStation has had against the Xbox platform is
a list of really good exclusive titles. Now there's a
chance Microsoft would be able to create new titles with
Bethesda's work that tie in with those those big popular
franchises and have them be exclusive to Xbox in the
(26:28):
Windows platform, as long as they don't end up like
Fallout seventy six, which the Gaming World at Largest categorized
as a let's see here says here a total disaster. Now,
it's more likely that the games will still be available
for Sony's console, but that Microsoft will then include them
with their Xbox Game Pass service. That's one of the
(26:50):
big selling points for the Xbox series of consoles. Essentially,
you subscribe to that and you get access to dozens
of different video games idols that are included in the
subscription price, so you don't have to pay extra to
get access to them. So that's probably where this is going.
And and and honestly, that's kind of the best of
all worlds because Microsoft can still make money selling games
(27:13):
that are going for a competitor's console while they also
build up the library of games in their own exclusive
subscription service. It's kind of a no brainer, really. And
we have a couple of short Facebook stories to mention.
Three of them actually. First up is the newly appointed
Oversight Board at Facebook. This is an independent group that
(27:36):
is reviewing Facebook's moderation policies. Ours Technica reports that this
group recently ruled against four of the five substantive rulings
that Facebook provided them, and reading over these rulings, I'm
kind of floored. It's five different cases in which Facebook
chose to remove a post for the interpretation of the
(27:56):
post violating Facebook's rules, and the board agreed with four
of those five decisions. But I'm not sure that I
fully agree with the board in every case. Though to
be fair, I'm working from summaries of what these cases were.
I don't have the full context, but it really illustrates
how complicated moderation actually is and why it requires a
(28:17):
lot of work and it's not something you can just
hand over to an algorithm. And by creating this independent
oversight board, Facebook also kind of has an excuse when
someone gets mad at a post that Facebook didn't take down,
because the oversight board is sort of setting the precedent
and Facebook and say, hey, we got an independent board
of experts who make these decisions, so go blame those people. Now.
(28:40):
Related to that story is another one that Facebook is
kind of navigating some super tricky territory when it comes
to anti Semitism and use of the term Zionist. This
issue shows how difficult things can be due to context
and language. For example, some Jewish people who criticize the
Israeli government's polo sees use the term Zionist when talking
(29:02):
about specific policies that they don't agree with. But there
are others who use the term interchangeably with other terms,
and they all end up being part of expressions of
hate speech. And so this is a really challenging situation
in which some uses of a word might fall into
the category of hate speech, something that clearly violates Facebook's
(29:22):
policies and should be removed. But in other cases it's
being used in a way where it's a part of
a legitimate criticism of Israeli government actions. When I say
legitimate criticism, I mean sincere as opposed to whether or
not you agree with the point of that criticism. The
Jewish Voices for Peace organization circulated a petition calling for
(29:45):
Facebook to avoid classifying zionist as hate speech outright. Facebook
reps have said that the company allows the term when
it comes to political discussions, but then removes it in
cases where it's quote used as a proxy for Jews
or Israeli's in a dehumanizing or violent way. End quote.
And as I said, this is a really complicated matter,
(30:08):
and I feel we're seeing the beginning of a lot
of very difficult conversations within Facebook and between Facebook and
its critics, as more people demand that social networks take
a firmer stance when it comes to moderating user content.
And finally, the Wall Street Journal reports that internal memos
within Facebook revealed that researchers had pointed out to executives
(30:30):
that there was a rise of hate groups and misinformation
campaigns in the summer of twenty twenty, including calls to violence.
So that doesn't look great considering how extremists use platforms
like Facebook to organize ahead of the assault on the
US capital. And it also doesn't look great for organizations
like the FBI that at least initially stated that there
(30:53):
just wasn't any real heads up of any issues, when
in fact, it appears that there were a lot of
warning signs months in advance. We have some more tech
stories to cover in just a moment, but before we
get to those, let's take another quick break. We're back.
(31:18):
Ford has announced that starting in twenty three, the company's
vehicles will incorporate Android Auto, and this is a six
year partnership Ford has made with Google. Android Auto is
a platform for well, I mean, it's kind of obvious
car systems, and it means that Ford vehicles will have
certain Google apps like Maps and even Assistant incorporated into
(31:41):
their entertainment systems. And I have to admit that could
be kind of neat being able to talk to your
car to have it do things like give you directions,
or play your favorite station, or give you an update
on whether or make schedule changes to your calendar. All
of that seems like a decent way to keep your
eyes on the road instead of on your phone or
on the dashboard of the car. The two companies also
(32:03):
announced that they were forming a new R and D
group called Team Up Shift, which would explore all sorts
of of uses of technology in the car world, like
improving the experience of buying a car. Hey, you know,
if I think if this means that a salesperson doesn't
get up and leave you waiting for half an hour
to try and you know, kind of put the screws
(32:25):
to you, that's a good start. Anyone out there who
has had the experience of buying a new car from
a dealership likely has their share of really bad stories.
But the partnership is also going to look at stuff
that happens behind the scenes with the aim to improve
processes and manage supply chains and all sorts of stuff
that customers rarely think about, but they really have a
(32:46):
real impact on the bottom line of a business. And
according to reps, with the companies, there will be no
harvesting of personal information, so you don't have to worry
about forward and Google logging every time you go to
that greasy spoon or you like, or if you haven't
hit the comic book store every week, or you know,
whatever it is other people do. Don't judge me. I
(33:08):
like greasy food and I like comic books. Anyway, this
could be an interesting partnership, But I do think it's
good for people to ask tough questions about data management
and privacy because we have seen how that information can
be misused or even just collected and bartered without our
knowledge or consent. And hey, that leads me well into
(33:29):
the next story, which is that sixty Minutes reported that
China may have stolen the personal data of around eighty
percent of all adults in America. That is staggering. Imagine
you're with a group of four friends and for this
hypothetical situation, we're saying that everyone's been vaccinated. It's all safe, yea,
(33:51):
except you look around at your friends and you think, hey,
only one of us has not had their personal data
stolen by China. That I mean, yikes, guys. And the
information stolen is personal information that apparently includes bio data
like DNA and stuff, which is truly wild. According to
(34:14):
the International Business Times, the purpose of doing that kind
of thing might be to feed that information into China's
medical industry in an effort for that industry to dominate
the global medical treatments and technologies markets, essentially giving China
a scientific edge on all things medical. But you know,
(34:35):
without going through that whole nasty business of asking people
for permission to harvest and use their personal and biological information. See,
that's the kind of thing we have to be on
the lookout for. And guys, if you were looking forward
to going to Coachella, have some bad news. For the
third time since the pandemic started, Coachella is canceled. Coachella
(35:01):
was supposed to happen in April of but by that
point the pandemic was in full bloom in the United States,
and so the organizers postponed it to October twenty. That
turned out to be a bit too ambitious as well,
as we were sliding toward another terrible surge in COVID cases,
and so twenty twenty was called a loss, and the
plan was to hold Coachella one in April, but seeing
(35:25):
as the vaccine rollout it's likely to still be in
the early stages for most of the population even by
that point in time, April isn't a guarantee either, and
now the show has been canceled. There are rumors that
it might get pushed to October again, but as I
record this, there's been no official word on that. Obviously,
(35:45):
the live events industry has been absolutely hammered by COVID,
and it appears that the vaccination rollout this year will
really determine when we can expect some of those big
events to return. So in the meantime, stay home if
you can, key social distancing, wash your hands, and be safe.
Our last couple of stories are about Vigia Games. First
(36:07):
up is the game everyone loves to dunk on for
some pretty legitimate reasons cyberpunk. The latest is that PC
gamers should take some precautions before installing any mods. Now,
for those not up on gaming lingo, mods are modifications,
and in this case, it refers to stuff that's been
(36:29):
programmed by other people who don't work for the video
game company, with the purpose of creating different effects or
opening up new features once you download it and install
it into the code of your game. Some games natively
support mods, and even have marketplaces where users can shop
around for different types of mods. And a mod might
(36:51):
make a game look better, or it might create weird
and silly effects, or it might allow you to do
stuff like make edits to the game while you're playing
it so that you know you don't have to do
that irritating thing where you play a game to progress.
I mean, come on, right, who has time for that anyway?
Forbes reported a subreddit post that indicated that there were
some vulnerabilities in the PC version of the game that
(37:14):
could allow for malicious mods to integrate with the game
and then compromise the PC running the game. So you
might think you're getting, you know, a cool mod that's
gonna make Keanu Reeves your best Friend Forever BFFs, but
in fact it ends up creating a back door for
a hacker to take over your computer. Apparently there are
(37:35):
some workarounds to protect your PC to patch those vulnerabilities
on your own, but as of this recording, there's no
official patch from the video game company CD project to
fix things. And finally, we have some good news, at
least for Nintendo. The company had projected it would sell
twenty four million Nintendo Switch consoles in the current fiscal year,
(37:59):
which lasts through March, so Nintendo's fiscal year doesn't follow
the calendar year. However, the company has already sold twenty
four point one million units, and looking at the calendar,
we still have a little bit to go before March
is over, so that's prompted Nintendo to adjust its projection
upward to twenty six and a half million units. Now,
(38:21):
clearly the pandemic has had a big effect with this,
with lots of people buying a Switch console during lockdown.
In fact, I'm one of those people because I bought
one for my wife, and honestly, I should probably get
one of my own because it looks like a lot
of fun and she won't let me play it. Also
the fact that the company has exceeded its projected sales
(38:42):
also helps explain why sometimes it can still be a
challenge to find a switch console in stock depending on
where you live. Um, it's hard to find those in
inventories at times. But good news for Nintendo and there's
some big titles that are coming up in the in
the months ahead. That's what's really got them excited about
(39:02):
the potential of hitting that tway six and a half
billion unit benchmark. So that's good for them. Bee beep,
beep beep, breaking news. I had already finished recording this
episode and just as I was about to jump into
sending it off to super producer Torii, I saw the
(39:23):
news today. Oh boy, and it's more of a a video
games So we're just tagging this onto the very end.
Apparently Google is now shuttering. It's in house Stadia Games
Development studio. That headline comes straight from c NET and
Shelby Brown. So Shelby, big thanks to you for getting
that out there. Just before I was going to send
(39:46):
this off. It's awesome that I get to talk about
this only in the sense that it is breaking news.
It is said I'm also a Google Stadia user, I
got a chance to get hold of a Stadio system,
and it's kind of interesting. I haven't really played with
that much, to be honest, but I thought it was
an interesting idea. However, Google has now decided that they're
(40:06):
not going to really get into the business of developing
video games. They will instead continue to act as a
platform supporting video games, So you can still have video
games on the Stadio platform, just that Google won't be
making any of those itself. So I thought I would
update that before this episode goes out because I had
(40:27):
the chance to do so. Back to Jonathan. Thanks Jonathan.
All Right, guys, that wraps up this episode of tech
Stuff News. We will be back on Thursday with more
news episodes. Tomorrow you will get a brand new episode
of tech Stuff Proper. That one's going to be all
about Discord, So if you're curious about the platform I
(40:49):
talk all about history and tomorrow's episode, be sure to
tune into that. If you have any suggestions for topics
I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, let
me know. Discord was a user suggestion. Maybe you can
make one of your own. The best way to get
in touch with me is over On Twitter, the handle
is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to
(41:09):
you again really soon. 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.
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and a love of all things tech. And this is
the tech Stuff News episode for February second, two thousand,
(00:25):
twenty one, eight cues day as I am led to understand.
Our top story for today's episode goes back to the
ongoing drama with Wall Street hedge funds and a group
of independent investors using platforms like Discord and Reddit to
organize and drive up share prices for companies like game Stop.
(00:49):
So as a quick reminder, the subreddit Wall Street bets
took up the cause of buying shares of game Stop
in an effort to counteract how some hedge fund companies
were attempting to short sell that stock. Short Selling is
when you borrow shares from somebody else, a different investor,
and you sell those shares that are not yours at
(01:11):
market value. Then you hope the price goes down so
that you can swoop in and you know, buy back
those borrowed shares for less than what you sold them for,
and then you return the borrowed shares to the person
you borrowed them from, and you get to pocket the difference.
The Internet crusaders are buying up stocks, which makes the
stock price go higher, and that starts to pressure those
(01:34):
investors and companies that were attempting to short the stock,
because the higher the stock price goes, the more money
those investors will lose when it comes time to buy
back shares and return them to the parties that they
borrow them from. The Motivations for this action among these
independent investors varies and ranges from those who are hoping
(01:56):
they can get rich quick by jumping on a trend
those be kind of like speculators to those who harbor
a grudge against the hedge funds in general, which typically
represent the interests of people who are, let me see,
let me check my notes here, um right, filthy rich,
like really filthy rich. So a short squeeze is a
(02:21):
way to really stick it to these funds, which could
stand to lose billions of dollars as a consequence. In fact,
that has already happened with a couple of these hedge
funds that have tried to cut their losses and get
out before they saw even more money lost because with
a short sell. The higher that market price goes, the
more money the short sellers are going to lose when
(02:43):
it comes time to return that stock. There's no limit
to how much money they can lose, because the stock
price can just keep going up, up, up and up.
There's no there's no bottom there. However, this all hinges
on the investors being able to buy up those shares
of games Op as those shares are hitting the market
in order to keep this trend going, and that's getting
(03:05):
harder to do. Last Thursday, the day of our last
news episode, in fact, the mobile stocks trading app robin
Hood angered users when it put a temporary block on them,
preventing them from buying shares in various companies that the
Internet investors had targeted, including game Stop, but also including
some other companies like AMC Theaters. Uh. They could still
(03:28):
sell stocks, but they couldn't buy them now. At one point,
robin Hood had a buying ban on fifty different companies,
though as of Monday, February one, that list has been
whittled down to eight, and yet game Stop is still
on that list. The move prompted users to point out
the inherent irony that a company naming itself after the
(03:51):
legendary character Robin Hood, who literally robbed from the rich
to give to the poor, was preventing average investors from
you know, doing the equivalent action in the modern day
through the stock market. Investors have filed numerous lawsuits, like
more than thirty of them at the federal level against
(04:12):
the company. At the heart of the issue is what
led robin Hood to level that ban on users. It
doesn't help robin Hood's case that among its sources of
revenue is a hedge fund called Citadel, leading some to
speculate that robin Hood was facing pressure from revenue sources
that stood to lose a lot of money if they
(04:33):
were caught up in a short squeeze. Citadel, for its part,
denies that it played any role in robin Hood's decision making.
This is building into a pretty compelling narrative that may
or may not be realistic, and the narrative goes like this,
hedge funds that are attempting to short sell companies aren't
just betting that those companies shares are going to drop
(04:54):
in price. These hedge funds, according to the narrative, actively
campai Hayne for that to happen. So, in other words,
the independence the investors on the sub credit in Wall
Street bets are saying that these big hedge funds are
using leverage and market forces to help companies fail and
(05:15):
then they reap in rewards through this short selling practice.
These companies may or may not have failed on their own,
but the story that the investors are telling is that
the hedge funds are actively working to cause companies to
fail with only an eye on profit and no care
about the consequences of failed company brings along with it,
including the consequences to that company's employees and its customers.
(05:39):
And so turning a short cell around on these hedge
funds is being portrayed within these communities as an act
of heroism. That buying up the stock isn't meant to
be a way to turn these investors into wealthy people.
You're not supposed to be buying it to make money,
but rather as a way to act as a check
on these hedge funds so they can't set out to
(06:00):
them these companies just for profit. Now, I would suggest
that this narrative, while a good one, isn't necessarily the
whole truth of the matter. I think there's a lot
of it in there. I think a lot of truth
is in that narrative, but I also think there are
a lot of other complicating factors at play. One of
(06:20):
those is that sometimes a short cell is really just
a short sell. It's not an attempt to make a
company fail. Sometimes companies are just in a bad place,
and sometimes the short cell recommendations are kind of an indicator,
a warning flag, and it tells other investors who might
have shares in those companies that maybe they want to
(06:41):
protect their money and they should probably sell off those
shares if in fact that company really is in danger.
It's not manufactured danger, it's something is wrong with that company.
And then there are the ripple effects of these kind
of events, which can cause further market disruption. I think that,
as in most things in life, the situation is actually
(07:03):
really complicated. There are no cut and dried heroes or villains.
But speaking from my own personal standpoint, it is way
easier for me to side with the people who are
not billionaires. I'm just saying. Also a full disclosure, I
don't own any stock in any of these companies. In
(07:24):
related news, that narrative I was just talking about really
must be compelling, because Deadline, that is, the news journal
that covers all things Hollywood, reports that MGM has acquired
rights to a book proposal. Not a book, but our
proposal for a book called The Antisocial Network by Ben Meseric.
(07:47):
The book, as I'm sure you have all guessed, will
be about this game stop share price, saga and Wall
Street bets and hedge funds, and about the story of
independent investors on the and it who are taking aim
at the big entrenched, fat cat hedge fund managers. Meseric
proposed the book and his agent was able to shop
(08:08):
around the proposal, not even a manuscript, and nothing's been
fully written out yet, and boom, MGM options it for
a movie. Now, folks, both of my parents are published authors,
and I just have to say, this is not the
way things typically work. Now that being said, Meseric already
has a track record. He wrote the book that would
(08:30):
become the inspiration for the film The Social Network, you know,
the Academy Award winning movie. So do keep that in
mind that while this means that MGM has the rights
to make a movie about this idea for a book,
it doesn't necessarily guarantee that a movie will ever actually
come out. Now. If it does, it's gonna take some
(08:52):
time for that to happen. I mean, it hasn't even
been written yet, let alone had a director attached or
cast it or gone into pre production or anything. And
between now and whenever all that stuff can happen, a
lot more might evolve, and we might see a lot
more happened during the fallout of this initial story. So
I can't promise you that in a year or two
(09:13):
you'll be watching something like I don't know, Tom Holland
leading a group of upstart investors online against someone like
I don't know, let's say, Richard Dreyfuss representing the head
of a hedge fund. Clearly I should be the casting
director for this movie, is what I'm saying. Now that
I say it all out loud, I kind of want
to see it. Well, let's stick with the Hollywood approach
(09:35):
to the tech world, or at least, in this case,
the tech adjacent world. The Hollywood Reporter says that Apple
TV is producing a series called We Crashed all one word,
big W, big C. We Crashed, based off a podcast
from Wondering about the Real Estate Slash kind of sort
of but not really tech company we Work, or to
(09:58):
be more specific, the A WE Company, which is the
parent company to we Work, along with a couple of
related ventures. You know, that's the company that would get
hold of office space in various markets and then rent
that office space out to various freelancers and companies that
didn't already have a physical space of their own. The
(10:21):
Hollywood Reporter says that Jared Leto has been cast as
Adam Neuman and and Hathaway will be Rebecca Noyman and
the Noyman's are leaders in the Wee Company, or at
least they used to be, with Adam as the former
CEO of the Wee Company, and Rebecca was a and
still is a founding partner fund bit of trivia here.
Rebecca is also cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow. And it seems
(10:44):
like some of the more new Agish wacky beliefs run
in that family. Okay, I admit it, that is unfair.
They don't run in the family. They positively gallop to
steal a joke from arsenic and old lace. Adam Neuman
previously made millions of dollars by buying up real estate
(11:06):
and then least those buildings too We Work, you know,
the company he was CEO of when the Weed Company
filed for an i p O in two thousand nineteen.
The filing contained a lot of unusual stuff in it,
like an inscrutable hierarchy diagram that had companies nested inside
other companies and no real useful information inside of it.
(11:29):
There was also a succession plan that seemed more geared
toward making the We Company a Neuman dynasty rather than
you know, an independent company. I would do a full
episode about the We Company and its trials and tribulations,
including how that i p O never actually happened, how
Adam Nouman was pressured by the board of directors to
(11:51):
step down, complete with a nearly two billion dollar exit package,
and how the company's valuation has plummeted by nearly since
that planned i p O. But for one thing, We Work,
despite the way it branded and marketed itself, is not
really a tech company. And for another, if you want
(12:12):
to read an incredible account about that i p O,
you need to go to the Verge and read Elizabeth
Lapado's article We Work isn't a tech company, It's a
soap opera. Because that article is equally informative and wildly entertaining.
I highly recommend it. And I'll conclude this segment of
(12:33):
our news episode with an update on the ongoing story
about employees at Google attempting to unionize. I mentioned last
week that the Alphabet Workers Union or a w U,
which is really hard to say because of that WU combination.
Can I just say triple you just make it easier? Anyway,
(12:55):
the a WU announced it was joining an international alliance
of unions connected to Google called Alpha Global, this being
unions all around the world that are related to Google
or Alphabet. The problem is that the United States members
of this organization said they didn't know about any alliance
until after the announcement of it had been published by
(13:18):
The Verge, and that meant they didn't have a chance
to vote on the matter, or even consider it, or
even be told about it. What's more, the press release
cited by The Verge had comments attributed to a WU leader,
Poole Cool, who says she never actually made the comments
that appear in the press release. What followed was confusion,
(13:39):
and along with confusion came some mistrust, which is, you know,
pretty common and if you can't trust democratically elected leaders
to actually represent those who elected those leaders. Everything falls apart,
which really we're seeing play out in arenas much larger
than the a WU, But we'll leave it at that.
(14:00):
Part of the problem appears to be that the Communications
Workers of America or c w A, pushed out that
press release prematurely and with a false attribution to cool
regarding those comments. Now there are discussions within the a
WU about whether the union should disassociate from the c
(14:21):
w A entirely, and the person responsible for the press
release is no longer working with the a WU teams.
If I were making a bird's eye view observation, I
would say it looks like those organizing the union are
relying heavily on other organizations that have proven to be
a bad match, and that this in turn has actually
(14:41):
threatened the formation of the union itself. I'm sure I'll
be returning to the story again in the future. My
hope is that they are able to continue their efforts
to unionize. But when we see stuff like this happen,
it really can cause a great deal of damage, particularly
in trust. I mean, you're asking impl yease to trust
(15:01):
that the union will take care of them When something
like this happens that trust gets eroded. We've got a
lot more stories to talk about in today's episode, but
first let's take a quick break. We're back. Did you
(15:22):
guys know there was a pandemic going on? Well, it
continues to be a dominating force for news in general,
and one of the stories here in the United States
has been about how badly the country has handled the
process of distributing and administering vaccines. It's a pretty big mess,
with each state in the country largely left to determine
its own processes and there being a general lack of
(15:46):
clarity across the nation. For example, here in Georgia, we
are in what is called Phase one A plus, meaning
the state is currently administering the vaccine to healthcare workers,
long term care facilities, citizens who are sixty five or older,
and their caregivers and first responders. After that will come
(16:08):
Phase one B, which includes essential workers, then one C,
which will include people who have, you know, medical conditions
that increase the risk of them contracting a severe case
of COVID nineteen, and then presumably will come the rest
of us. But there's no actual timeline associated with that plan.
(16:29):
There's just a description of phases, but it doesn't even
have a prediction of when will move from Phase one
A plus to Phase one B. You can search to
see where you could go to get vaccinated, but that
doesn't mean that you would be eligible for a vaccination.
You just know where the locations are that are administering vaccines.
(16:51):
So that's about it. Now, that's just Georgia and every
state in the US is different. But Georgia is also
home for the Centers for Disease Control or c d C,
and the c d C has played a big part
in why the vaccine rollout has not gone so smoothly
for thousands and thousands of people. And this is what
relates it to technology. It's because of a website called
(17:15):
the Vaccine Administration Management System or VAMS v A m S.
So this was developed for the princely sum of forty
four million dollars. According to the m I T Technology Review,
numerous states that had planned to lean on VAMS as
the official way to manage vaccine rollout didn't go so well.
(17:38):
Things have gone pear shaped. A lot of people have
reported various bugs or glitches in the system that have
failed to actually make appointments with facilities. So a patient
goes on VAMS, goes through the process of making an appointment,
appears to be confirmed for that appointment, they go and
show up to the physical location, and that's when are told, hey,
(18:00):
we have no record of you. There's no actual appointment
on our books, so we can't see you. In other cases,
the system appears to cancel appointments without rhyme or reason,
although the c d C says this is due not
to a flaw in VAMS but rather user error. Uh.
There are also reports that it locks people out as
(18:21):
they try to use the system, or it only locks
them in as a patient, not an administrator, and that's
a big problem for those who are trying to actually
administer the system. You know, it's also not just about
creating appointments, but but managing that information and tracking that
information so you know who has received the vaccine, who
(18:41):
needs to come in for a follow up, all that
sort of stuff. So it's really a failure of the
whole system. And the whole point of VAMS was to
take the burden off of individual states so that they
didn't have to build out their own management systems. But
these various issues have led a lot of states to
kind of do that anyway, rather than rely on something
that other states have said has been a pretty big mess.
(19:06):
Some local governments, like counting governments in Florida, have even
repurposed online services like event bright. You know the website
you would use in order to send out invitations to
your kid's birthday party. They're using that in order to
make appointments, which, y'all, that is messed up. Moreover, the
m I T piece, which is titled What Went Wrong
(19:26):
with America's forty four million dollar Vaccine Data System, lays
out more problems. For example, the layout of the vam's site,
even when it's working correctly, doesn't sound like it was
made to be friendly for senior patients, and since seniors
are the early focus of a lot of the vaccine programs,
that's a huge problem. And it also points out the
(19:49):
overall issue of creating systems that are accessible to a
wide audience. This stuff is important. There are companies that
have entire departments dedicated to this kind of stuff, and
as the peace in the m I T Technology Review
points out, there's a real problem with the procurement process
when government offices are selecting companies to carry out these
(20:11):
big projects, and that the process itself can eliminate a
lot of different valid choices from consideration. Even if those
choices are more suitable. They may be more suitable, but
because they don't fit these other criteria that are required
in the procurement process, they aren't even eligible for consideration. Clearly,
(20:32):
managing such a massive effort is a huge challenge, and
they are bound to be big problems along the way,
But it seems like these challenges are made all the
more difficult because of the nature of how the US
government partners with the private sector in general, and the
tech sector in particular. By the way this sort of
thing is nonpartisan. We see messages like this no matter
(20:55):
who happens to be in charge, because the policies themselves
are so restrictive that it almost doesn't make a difference
whether or not you have a conservative administration in power
or a liberal one. The policies themselves persist, and that
ends up being an issue. And speaking of the US government,
(21:17):
one of the effects of an administration changing hands is
that sometimes long term projects get disrupted, and one of
those projects appears to be NASA's planned returned to the
Moon under former President Trump. NASA was to aim to
get astronauts back on the Moon by four, including the
first woman astronaut to go to the Moon. Now, that
(21:40):
timeline was pretty ambitious and aggressive. I wouldn't go so
far as to say it was impossible, but it was
going to be really hard to do and really expensive,
and there is uncertainty about where the plan now stands.
In the wake of Joe Biden winning the US presidency.
With a new ends stration in charge, there are questions
(22:01):
about whether NASA will get the funding needed to stay
on target, particularly for that goal. We're already seeing some
results of this, with NASA pushing back when it will
announce lunar lander contracts. Originally, NASA was to announce which
two of the three companies that had been under consideration
would be awarded a pair of contracts for lunar landers,
(22:25):
so one contract per company. We don't know which of
which two of the three we're going to get these.
We were supposed to find out later this month in February.
Now NASA has told the contractors that the announcement has
been pushed back to April. This was probably a necessary step.
The agency had requested a budget of three point two
(22:45):
billion dollars in order to stay the course. But in
December twenty twenty, Congress approved a much more modest budget
of eight hundred fifty million dollars. And yeah, it feels
weird to call eight hundred fifty million dollars honest, but
then we are also talking about trying to keep people
alive and safe as we shoot them off to the Moon,
(23:06):
and that ain't cheap. We're still waiting to hear who
the Biden administration will choose to head up the agency
and what priorities the administration will stress. It's all but
certain that the Artemis project of returning to the Moon
is going to get pushed back beyond if it sticks
around as an official project in the first place. And
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand,
(23:29):
I feel like the initial timeline was probably unrealistic and
you really have to define what are your goals besides
just going there. Going there's great, it's really a fantastic achievement.
I don't want to downplay that, but is that the
best use of resources? Uh? But on the other hand,
I also think that a Moon mission does have a
(23:51):
lot of potential. You can find ways to perhaps harvest
resources from the moon, though that's a very delicate matter.
You have to figure out a way of doing that.
It isn't too damaging or dangerous or we'll have long
lasting consequences. But then you can also pursue a challenge
that would undoubtedly inspire countless others to really dream big
(24:15):
and become the next generation of pilots and engineers and scientists.
That's a that's a big thing in itself. So, like
I said, I do feel uh complicated about this. Moving on, Microsoft,
which has managed to dodge a bullet in the United
States as the US government has discussed the fate of
big companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple, is going
(24:38):
under the magnifying glass. Over in the EU, antitrust regulators
have until March five to decide if Microsoft's proposed acquisition
of ZeniMax Media is acceptable or if the EU regulators
will prevent it or require concessions before the acquisition can
move forward. As it stands, the deal is valued at
(24:59):
seven and a half billion dollars. Holy cow, makes that
forty four million dollar website really look like small potatoes, right,
So what is it that zenni Max does? I mean,
it's got to be important for that kind of money, right, Well,
Zenny Max is the parent company of Bethesda, the video
game studio responsible for things like the older Scrolls games,
(25:20):
the Fallout titles, and the Doom titles. Though the story
is behind Fallout and Doom stretch back to other studios
before Bethesda. But that's that's a matter for a different episode.
And yeah, video games are a huge business, and I
don't want to downplay that. It's just one of those
weird facts of life that I really find bizarre that
we're talking about money for a video game company acquisition
(25:44):
that is orders of magnitude larger than the money that's
put forward as part of an effort to administer vaccines
against a deadly pandemic. But that's enough of me on
my soapbox. I get it, you all don't need to
hear it. If Microsoft's acquisition can move forward, it will
put the company on more equal footing with Sony and
(26:06):
the PlayStation platform. For a long time, one of the
big strengths PlayStation has had against the Xbox platform is
a list of really good exclusive titles. Now there's a
chance Microsoft would be able to create new titles with
Bethesda's work that tie in with those those big popular
franchises and have them be exclusive to Xbox in the
(26:28):
Windows platform, as long as they don't end up like
Fallout seventy six, which the Gaming World at Largest categorized
as a let's see here says here a total disaster. Now,
it's more likely that the games will still be available
for Sony's console, but that Microsoft will then include them
with their Xbox Game Pass service. That's one of the
(26:50):
big selling points for the Xbox series of consoles. Essentially,
you subscribe to that and you get access to dozens
of different video games idols that are included in the
subscription price, so you don't have to pay extra to
get access to them. So that's probably where this is going.
And and and honestly, that's kind of the best of
all worlds because Microsoft can still make money selling games
(27:13):
that are going for a competitor's console while they also
build up the library of games in their own exclusive
subscription service. It's kind of a no brainer, really. And
we have a couple of short Facebook stories to mention.
Three of them actually. First up is the newly appointed
Oversight Board at Facebook. This is an independent group that
(27:36):
is reviewing Facebook's moderation policies. Ours Technica reports that this
group recently ruled against four of the five substantive rulings
that Facebook provided them, and reading over these rulings, I'm
kind of floored. It's five different cases in which Facebook
chose to remove a post for the interpretation of the
(27:56):
post violating Facebook's rules, and the board agreed with four
of those five decisions. But I'm not sure that I
fully agree with the board in every case. Though to
be fair, I'm working from summaries of what these cases were.
I don't have the full context, but it really illustrates
how complicated moderation actually is and why it requires a
(28:17):
lot of work and it's not something you can just
hand over to an algorithm. And by creating this independent
oversight board, Facebook also kind of has an excuse when
someone gets mad at a post that Facebook didn't take down,
because the oversight board is sort of setting the precedent
and Facebook and say, hey, we got an independent board
of experts who make these decisions, so go blame those people. Now.
(28:40):
Related to that story is another one that Facebook is
kind of navigating some super tricky territory when it comes
to anti Semitism and use of the term Zionist. This
issue shows how difficult things can be due to context
and language. For example, some Jewish people who criticize the
Israeli government's polo sees use the term Zionist when talking
(29:02):
about specific policies that they don't agree with. But there
are others who use the term interchangeably with other terms,
and they all end up being part of expressions of
hate speech. And so this is a really challenging situation
in which some uses of a word might fall into
the category of hate speech, something that clearly violates Facebook's
(29:22):
policies and should be removed. But in other cases it's
being used in a way where it's a part of
a legitimate criticism of Israeli government actions. When I say
legitimate criticism, I mean sincere as opposed to whether or
not you agree with the point of that criticism. The
Jewish Voices for Peace organization circulated a petition calling for
(29:45):
Facebook to avoid classifying zionist as hate speech outright. Facebook
reps have said that the company allows the term when
it comes to political discussions, but then removes it in
cases where it's quote used as a proxy for Jews
or Israeli's in a dehumanizing or violent way. End quote.
And as I said, this is a really complicated matter,
(30:08):
and I feel we're seeing the beginning of a lot
of very difficult conversations within Facebook and between Facebook and
its critics, as more people demand that social networks take
a firmer stance when it comes to moderating user content.
And finally, the Wall Street Journal reports that internal memos
within Facebook revealed that researchers had pointed out to executives
(30:30):
that there was a rise of hate groups and misinformation
campaigns in the summer of twenty twenty, including calls to violence.
So that doesn't look great considering how extremists use platforms
like Facebook to organize ahead of the assault on the
US capital. And it also doesn't look great for organizations
like the FBI that at least initially stated that there
(30:53):
just wasn't any real heads up of any issues, when
in fact, it appears that there were a lot of
warning signs months in advance. We have some more tech
stories to cover in just a moment, but before we
get to those, let's take another quick break. We're back.
(31:18):
Ford has announced that starting in twenty three, the company's
vehicles will incorporate Android Auto, and this is a six
year partnership Ford has made with Google. Android Auto is
a platform for well, I mean, it's kind of obvious
car systems, and it means that Ford vehicles will have
certain Google apps like Maps and even Assistant incorporated into
(31:41):
their entertainment systems. And I have to admit that could
be kind of neat being able to talk to your
car to have it do things like give you directions,
or play your favorite station, or give you an update
on whether or make schedule changes to your calendar. All
of that seems like a decent way to keep your
eyes on the road instead of on your phone or
on the dashboard of the car. The two companies also
(32:03):
announced that they were forming a new R and D
group called Team Up Shift, which would explore all sorts
of of uses of technology in the car world, like
improving the experience of buying a car. Hey, you know,
if I think if this means that a salesperson doesn't
get up and leave you waiting for half an hour
to try and you know, kind of put the screws
(32:25):
to you, that's a good start. Anyone out there who
has had the experience of buying a new car from
a dealership likely has their share of really bad stories.
But the partnership is also going to look at stuff
that happens behind the scenes with the aim to improve
processes and manage supply chains and all sorts of stuff
that customers rarely think about, but they really have a
(32:46):
real impact on the bottom line of a business. And
according to reps, with the companies, there will be no
harvesting of personal information, so you don't have to worry
about forward and Google logging every time you go to
that greasy spoon or you like, or if you haven't
hit the comic book store every week, or you know,
whatever it is other people do. Don't judge me. I
(33:08):
like greasy food and I like comic books. Anyway, this
could be an interesting partnership, But I do think it's
good for people to ask tough questions about data management
and privacy because we have seen how that information can
be misused or even just collected and bartered without our
knowledge or consent. And hey, that leads me well into
(33:29):
the next story, which is that sixty Minutes reported that
China may have stolen the personal data of around eighty
percent of all adults in America. That is staggering. Imagine
you're with a group of four friends and for this
hypothetical situation, we're saying that everyone's been vaccinated. It's all safe, yea,
(33:51):
except you look around at your friends and you think, hey,
only one of us has not had their personal data
stolen by China. That I mean, yikes, guys. And the
information stolen is personal information that apparently includes bio data
like DNA and stuff, which is truly wild. According to
(34:14):
the International Business Times, the purpose of doing that kind
of thing might be to feed that information into China's
medical industry in an effort for that industry to dominate
the global medical treatments and technologies markets, essentially giving China
a scientific edge on all things medical. But you know,
(34:35):
without going through that whole nasty business of asking people
for permission to harvest and use their personal and biological information. See,
that's the kind of thing we have to be on
the lookout for. And guys, if you were looking forward
to going to Coachella, have some bad news. For the
third time since the pandemic started, Coachella is canceled. Coachella
(35:01):
was supposed to happen in April of but by that
point the pandemic was in full bloom in the United States,
and so the organizers postponed it to October twenty. That
turned out to be a bit too ambitious as well,
as we were sliding toward another terrible surge in COVID cases,
and so twenty twenty was called a loss, and the
plan was to hold Coachella one in April, but seeing
(35:25):
as the vaccine rollout it's likely to still be in
the early stages for most of the population even by
that point in time, April isn't a guarantee either, and
now the show has been canceled. There are rumors that
it might get pushed to October again, but as I
record this, there's been no official word on that. Obviously,
(35:45):
the live events industry has been absolutely hammered by COVID,
and it appears that the vaccination rollout this year will
really determine when we can expect some of those big
events to return. So in the meantime, stay home if
you can, key social distancing, wash your hands, and be safe.
Our last couple of stories are about Vigia Games. First
(36:07):
up is the game everyone loves to dunk on for
some pretty legitimate reasons cyberpunk. The latest is that PC
gamers should take some precautions before installing any mods. Now,
for those not up on gaming lingo, mods are modifications,
and in this case, it refers to stuff that's been
(36:29):
programmed by other people who don't work for the video
game company, with the purpose of creating different effects or
opening up new features once you download it and install
it into the code of your game. Some games natively
support mods, and even have marketplaces where users can shop
around for different types of mods. And a mod might
(36:51):
make a game look better, or it might create weird
and silly effects, or it might allow you to do
stuff like make edits to the game while you're playing
it so that you know you don't have to do
that irritating thing where you play a game to progress.
I mean, come on, right, who has time for that anyway?
Forbes reported a subreddit post that indicated that there were
some vulnerabilities in the PC version of the game that
(37:14):
could allow for malicious mods to integrate with the game
and then compromise the PC running the game. So you
might think you're getting, you know, a cool mod that's
gonna make Keanu Reeves your best Friend Forever BFFs, but
in fact it ends up creating a back door for
a hacker to take over your computer. Apparently there are
(37:35):
some workarounds to protect your PC to patch those vulnerabilities
on your own, but as of this recording, there's no
official patch from the video game company CD project to
fix things. And finally, we have some good news, at
least for Nintendo. The company had projected it would sell
twenty four million Nintendo Switch consoles in the current fiscal year,
(37:59):
which lasts through March, so Nintendo's fiscal year doesn't follow
the calendar year. However, the company has already sold twenty
four point one million units, and looking at the calendar,
we still have a little bit to go before March
is over, so that's prompted Nintendo to adjust its projection
upward to twenty six and a half million units. Now,
(38:21):
clearly the pandemic has had a big effect with this,
with lots of people buying a Switch console during lockdown.
In fact, I'm one of those people because I bought
one for my wife, and honestly, I should probably get
one of my own because it looks like a lot
of fun and she won't let me play it. Also
the fact that the company has exceeded its projected sales
(38:42):
also helps explain why sometimes it can still be a
challenge to find a switch console in stock depending on
where you live. Um, it's hard to find those in
inventories at times. But good news for Nintendo and there's
some big titles that are coming up in the in
the months ahead. That's what's really got them excited about
(39:02):
the potential of hitting that tway six and a half
billion unit benchmark. So that's good for them. Bee beep,
beep beep, breaking news. I had already finished recording this
episode and just as I was about to jump into
sending it off to super producer Torii, I saw the
(39:23):
news today. Oh boy, and it's more of a a video
games So we're just tagging this onto the very end.
Apparently Google is now shuttering. It's in house Stadia Games
Development studio. That headline comes straight from c NET and
Shelby Brown. So Shelby, big thanks to you for getting
that out there. Just before I was going to send
(39:46):
this off. It's awesome that I get to talk about
this only in the sense that it is breaking news.
It is said I'm also a Google Stadia user, I
got a chance to get hold of a Stadio system,
and it's kind of interesting. I haven't really played with
that much, to be honest, but I thought it was
an interesting idea. However, Google has now decided that they're
(40:06):
not going to really get into the business of developing
video games. They will instead continue to act as a
platform supporting video games, So you can still have video
games on the Stadio platform, just that Google won't be
making any of those itself. So I thought I would
update that before this episode goes out because I had
(40:27):
the chance to do so. Back to Jonathan. Thanks Jonathan.
All Right, guys, that wraps up this episode of tech
Stuff News. We will be back on Thursday with more
news episodes. Tomorrow you will get a brand new episode
of tech Stuff Proper. That one's going to be all
about Discord, So if you're curious about the platform I
(40:49):
talk all about history and tomorrow's episode, be sure to
tune into that. If you have any suggestions for topics
I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, let
me know. Discord was a user suggestion. Maybe you can
make one of your own. The best way to get
in touch with me is over On Twitter, the handle
is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to
(41:09):
you again really soon. 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.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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