Paul Stenhouse: Google's product announcement, developer jailed for kill switch sabotage

Google's big product announcement was... unique?  

It was more like a talk show crossed with the shopping channel. US Late Night host Jimmy Fallon hosted it, and it had celebrity cameos from athletes like Stephen Curry, podcaster Alex Cooper, and the Jonas Brothers even made an appearance. Reddit users dubbed it as “unwatchable".

They launched new phones, enhanced their folding phones, but of course AI was everywhere:  

• Gemini Live will gain a new audio model that will detect your tone — like whether you’re excited or concerned  
• The Pixel phone camera will have a photo coach built in to help with composition. 

They're trying to make these AI suggestions more contextual and push relevant things to you rather than you needing to seek them out, e.g. you're at the airport, here's your boarding pass. Or you're in a car, here's the directions to your next appointment, etc. 

 

A software developer has been sent to prison sabotaging his former employer  

This wasn't a hack of systems after he was fired, or a mass deletion of data before he was walked out the door, this was pre-planned. The 55 year old developer had created a "kill switch" designed to be used if he was ever fired, and he designed it in such a way it was smart enough to know when he was fired. The software was tracking to see if his work email account was active, and then when it was deactivated the "kill switch" was automatically triggered, crashing the servers.  

The incident locked out thousands of employees from accessing the company’s systems and cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.  

He was discovered in part because of his search history, looking up things like “methods to escalate privileges, hide processes, and rapidly delete files”. He's been sentenced to four years behind bars. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks a't be well.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It was kind of like a talk show crossed with
the shopping channel. It was all a bit weird Google
announcing its big new products. They had Jimmy Fallon, the
late night host from the US running the show. They
had some big names, the likes of the Jonas Brothers,
Stephen Curry, the NBA star, and watching all of the
products get announced was our Textbert Paul Stenhouse Paul. It
was a bit of a weird kind of launch, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah. I feel like maybe the time is up for
these types of things, you know, yeah, do we really
need Like especially when you think about pre covid, Apple
used to have an auditorium. It was like this whole
big thing. Google often used to have their big conferences
as kind of festivals outside, and then COVID happened and
all kind of went pre recorded, and this was just

(00:57):
like it had a studio audience.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
And I think too that the technology isn't like massage different. Yeah, yeah,
it's kind of just like little yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah. You know when you think of the first iPad
or iPhone, it's like, let's explain what it can do
and actually show you when people were wild and yes,
hearing the crowd with something awesome. It's like we've got
another megapixel added to the camera, Like do your clap?
Do you not? I don't know, but look, AI was
everywhere at this big Google thing. Gemini is Google's AI model,

(01:30):
and Gemini Live is going to when you use the
audio feature when you talk to it, it will now
be able to detect if you're excited or concerned. Hopefully
it also knows some things about sarcasm too, which will
maybe give it some more context when it's trying to
give you a response. Their new pixel phone Jack, the
camera app is going to have a photo coach built

(01:50):
in to help you with composition. People in my life
who I think could probably use that tool, and like
really still trying to make all of these AI magic
suggestions and things more contextual. They don't want you having
to hunt and go searching. Search is old, right, Yeah,
So if you're at the airport, can it pull up
your boarding pass on your lock screen? If you're in

(02:12):
the car and it thinks you're headed to your next appointment,
can it give you the directions automatically? These kinds of things.
But I just need to say, if you haven't seen
the Google pixel fold, you've got to see this phone,
Like Apple, what are you doing? Like?

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Where are you?

Speaker 3 (02:27):
What plane do you want? This phone is like an
iPhone with a screen on the front, and then you
can literally open it like a book and inside is
another screen that's almost a big square. It's cool, and
my gosh, it's expensive jackets almost I think, eighteen hundred
US dollars. Cool but cool.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I mean, why do you need it? What's the point
in having a bigger screen?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
They mean, they say, so you can, you know, watch Netflix,
or you can have two apps open side by side
on your screen. I will say. The funny feature is
you can have it open like a book. Yeah, but
almost like a stand. Think of it right in the
back of the rock and then the thing coming up
and then you can use the front face and camera
so you can then use it almost like a eighteen
hundred dollars for a phone that has a built in stand.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Because I've got a friend who maybe it's just because
I'm used to just having a normal shaped smartphone, but
I've got a friend who's got a folding one and
it like I got over the novelty very quickly after
a while. It just kind of looked weird and slightly ungainly,
you know, because because so much of the stuff that
we use isn't set for that square interface. It's set
for it's set for the oblong and so correct.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
I don't know, baby, this one's different because I don't
know if your friends one has the screen on both
the apps inside. Yeah, so you can actually just use
it like a normal phone and then when you want
to watch Netflix or you.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Can open it up until the big version.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
And it only costs you, you know, three and a
half thousand New Zealand dollars.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
What a steal.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Hey, thank you so much, Paul, appreciate your time. That's
our textbot, Paul's stenhouse here. It was Google's turn. I
think it's going to be Apple's turn to do the
same thing in a couple of weeks. But I tend
to agree with Paul. I reckon the days of having
these big tech bosses dancing on a stage might be
in the past. I reckon, unless they've got something truly
innovative and new and exciting.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
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