Google's software update caused a brief but widespread outage of services. The US government stalls on passing an antitrust bill that would have a massive effect on the tech sector. And the semiconductor shortage continues to disrupt the automotive industry, plus more.
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they shall intelligence is everywhere now algorithm.
Her making more and more the decisions that shape our lives. So let me ask you a question: who should have the power over a I I'm brigitte tat, the new hope
A viral. Yes, those italy's award winning podcast is back. I'm taking a quick break from my own past
There are no girls on the internet to be your house. This season will be talking about health care, gig work, social media and even killer robots, you'll,
a I builders around the world who make a more trustworthy in real life
you will be able to challenge the algorithm technology.
Sold. Some problems are definitely technology can be part of the problem areas
to walk away from it and not contribute to us, and I have the power to try and change law this, even where it happened.
mozilla, is internet health report to learn who should have power
over a that, I r l, unoriginal pod cats, promote Zella the nonprofit behind firefox, don't miss it go to your favorite podcast out right now to find us
hey it's actually romeo from the rising crime morning, so I'm fillest, how a ninety nine- and I absolutely love listening to paragraph but after you put his listening and are ready to get back to the music. I love for you to check out power. Ninety nine fillies legendary all bring about an hour b. We play the biggest songs from the biggest eyes luxury. Chris brown philly, though judgments element, listen, live on fillies power, ninety nine or wherever you are on our eye or radio out. I don't forget to chechnya. Rather grandpa gases, he loved me,
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the hey there and welcome to tech stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland, I'm an executive producer with iheart radio and how the tec aria it's time for the tec, news for tuesday august. Ninth, twenty twenty two first up earlier today, late yesterday, depending on where you were Google, had a bit of a hiccup services became unavailable briefly around the world. Apparently, a software update did not go as planned and took Google offline and that prompted a lot of buzz online. The company restored services Brady quickly
But now the adage was enough to launch a billion jokes about how you're supposed to google why google is down if google is down and I'm sure for people
go to google to type out. You know the full url for a website inside the search field. That was quite distressing. No jokes aside: the outrage
brief, as it was actually served as another reminder of how intrinsic google has become too. The web experience for many of us out there and.
that's kind of another way of saying that, maybe we should be really careful and were putting our eggs in various baskets. We might have put way too many and Google's might of his that's too weak. We have put to many eggs in Google's baskets, see also mehta, but also in Google news. The company is in a patent dispute battle with the speaker company, so knows now. These bad law suits are pretty common in the tech industry. I recently talked about how apple and eriksson
are in a global struggle over patent and that's a five g back in that case, and the two companies are trying to hash how the licensing agreement the apple doesn't want to pay so much and ericsson wants them to pay more. So that's going on well, in this case with google and was so knows, Google is saying that sonar has violated seven patents relating to ghouls, smart speaker technology or smart assistant technology at the heart of the matter is so knows. Launching its own voice activated smart assistant is a google bert with sonar on smart speakers to incorporate the Google assistant feature in the so knows, products and act.
Careful how I say this stuff because actually have one of those speakers in this room. Then if I say one of the activation phrases then it'll start talking to me anyway. Google is essentially saying we worked hard to incorporate our smart assistant with your products and you paid very close attention to that, and then you copied our work to launch your own competing smart assistant product and since we hold battens on the
technology, we're going to sue you now. If, for some reason, you ve been paying really close attention to patent disputes and tat for a couple years, you might actually
number that in twenty twenty we saw kind of the flip of this so knows. Sued. Google, for similar reasons so knows, was saying they. Google had copied saunas technology. When google was developing its own
line of smart speakers know how the terms have tabled
go lost that court case and had to change the design of its speakers, nor to avoid face
potential bans around the world or else a licence, the technology from so knows
as soon as rep by the way has remained somewhat defiant. In the face of this new law suit from google saying that solos has prevailed in every court case so far, but that's largely referring to the cases were so knows: head sued, Google and this case, Google is soon
so knows as though the shoes you see our on other feet now. So what does the others plays out? Also, I knew this is
business and we're talking about millions or billions of dollars at play here, but I can't help it get the feeling that these these
Enormous corporations are essentially angry toddlers on a playground squabbling with one another when we cover these kinds of stories in it,
yup. The government has suspended mobile internet service in two regions of manipur, which is in the northeast of india. Borders me and mar was scheduled to have internet service shut down for five days. The government was doing that because of expectations of quote tribe
protests, in quote the other region where we ve seen internet service interrupted, is cashmere which is in the north of india very far away from manner. Poor cashmere borders, pakistan, Afghanistan,
and china kashmir is also home to a population of of muslims. Kashmiri muslims, though that's relevant because of the observation of maharajah, which is about and by the way my apologies for my pronunciation. Ah, I am sure
I'm butchering it, but that is a time of mourning, and this is
mention of the internet service coincides with a muslim, wholly observation, which seems significant to me. Digital rights and human rights groups have long protested. The indian gum.
Its practice of shutting down communications at the government defends these decisions. The government says
that this is a measure they take in order to ensure public order to too quiet unrest, in other words, but the rights groups point
that these kinds of moves cut off entire populations from the rest of the world, and it certainly the case that india has very quickly
job on the let's shut it all down course of action, and we ve also
the indian government lay down a lot of pressure on companies to do stuff like crack down.
And on the populations ability to communicate during times of unrest, while Simon
measly allowing government officials unfettered access to platforms, even of those officials, are actively spreading misinformation, so yeah
This is a complicated matter. Last week, amazon announced its intention to purchase
another company, and this one has privacy advocates very much concerned. The company would be I robot, that's the company that brought us the room by you know the robot sucks amused
it's a robot vacuum. Anyway. The deal is valued at one point: seven billion
the dollars, and you might wonder why privacy advocates are worried in the first place, wilds, because the roma in an effort to do the best vacuum job it can effectively man
sell your home, as it moves rounded figures out
where the doors are where the furniture is, where the walls are all that kind of stuff. So
the words amazon already
wants to hear what you have to say by giving you or it commencing you to buy their smart speakers.
they want to know what you're watching musing like an amazon fire device or
amazon, prime video,
nl. I want to know where you put the ottoman in your living room by using your room but to spy on you
got a guy on the inside,
What would amazon do with this kind of information why amazon is constantly making new products that are meant to interact on a smart level?
and if the governing knows how you ve laid out your house, it can market more effectively to you. All
All that information to a third party, that's interested in it again suggest stuff for you to upgrade your home,
in turn, will gather even more data for amazon, and it starts to look dystopian pretty darn quickly.
now I should add, the amazon is simply announced the intention to acquire a robot. The process still has to go through regulatory approval and there's some expectation that the united states, federal trade, commission or f p c is going to push back against this plant deal. The f DC has recently taken a more aggressive stance against big tech act,
positions recently. They have tc indicated its opposing meadows planned purchase of the company supernatural, which makes fitness games for virtual reality set ups, so
He choir quotes a lawyer named Ethan glass, who says he figures, there's a seventy five percent chance that the FDA sea will conduct a cordon quote. Deep investigation of the deal and a twenty five percent chance of the FDA sea will challenge the acquisition of right. As it stands, amazon hopes to have this deal complete by august worth twenty two.
the three at the latest and has committed to paying I robot more than ninety million dollars. If regulators deny the acquisition the wall street,
an has an article pointing out that an anti trust bill that's been taking shape in congress is in danger of being abandoned it. So congress is about to go into recess,
it's kind of like when you went to reassess an elementary school except instead of running outside, go play on the swings congress, ambles outside and
that's numa, a numerous, an enormous contributions from lobbying groups, pardon my cynicism, but it's been a bad here anyway. It seems pretty clear that congress will not speed up work on the anti trust bill before reassessing there
not going to hold a vote, and then congress will reconvene later left in the fall. But
there's a limited number of days left for congress to be in session. So there's this narrowing window of opportunity to get the anti trust bill in motion before it's kind of a dead end.
Water. Now. The reason I'm even talking about anti trust bill on the show is that, if passed,
it would have massive consequences in the tech industry, particularly for the biggest companies in that industry. This is the law that would prevent tech companies from giving their own products and services preferential treatment over competitors. That would force amazon to make some pretty big changes, because the company has frequently been accused of promoting its own broad
over others in search results. Big tech companies have been spending millions of dollars on ads, trashing this bill, and so far the Senate has failed to schedule a vote on the matter. Despite claims that there is by partisan support for the measure,
the tech companies have a list of warnings for anyone who supports the measure claiming it will put the economy endanger. It will open
security vulnerabilities and much more many analysed say that
His warnings are at best weak arguments and at worst outright misinformation, but the bill supporters have felt the need to respond to those arguments in an effort to just keep the whole thing alive. Personally, I hope this does get scheduled for the fall session and that we do see a vote
but are not betting on it. Well, there's been a growing awareness to the influence of big companies in general and big tech companies in particular,
it could be really hard to reverse all the momentum. That's built up over the years. We ve got more news stories to cover, but first, let's take this quick break
Today, with amazon business, jan and stooping, wilburn woodworking helped her team by
sixty three circulars hours at hand,
No, she uses our time to focus on growing something big eyes: martyr, dream, bigger visit, amazon business, your partner for smart business
and hey it's roxy romeo from the rise and grind morning show on philly's tower. Ninety nine and I absolutely love listening to podcasts. But after you finish listening and are ready to get back to the music I'd love for you to check out power, ninety nine philly's, legendary home for hip, hop and rb. We play the biggest songs from the biggest stars like drake chris brown and phillies on Jazmine sullivan, listen, live on phillies row and ninety nine or wherever you are on our radio. App, don't forget to check me out on the rise abroad. Podcast as well, thanks to the internet. Artificial intelligence is everywhere now
algorithms are making more and more the decisions that shape our lives. So let me ask you a question: who should have the power over a I? I'm bridget tat the new hope.
a viral yes, those italy's award winning podcast is back. I'm taking a quick break from my own past,
There are no girls on the internet to be your house. This season will be talking about health care, gig work, social media and even killer robots you'll,
a I builders around the world who make a more trustworthy in real life.
you will be able to challenge the algorithm technology.
Sold some problems are definitely technology can be part of the problem areas.
to walk away from it and not contribute to us, and I have the power to try and change law this, even where it happened,
Mozilla is internet health report to learn who should have power
over a that. I r l, unoriginal pod cats, promote Zella the nonprofit behind firefox, don't miss it, go to your favorite podcast out right now to find us
last friday, nedda introduce the blunder, bought three chat, bought and asked users to have conversations with it. Now
The idea is that, through conversations, blender bought, three will learn how to interact with people more naturally and would be able to employ, or at least appear to employ stuff like empathy and understanding, and it will also very quickly start claiming that trump is still president of the united states and also make anti semitic remarks and promote conspiracy theories, because we can't have nice things so within forty eight hours of it
unleashed upon facebook users. The bought began, saying stuff like mark Zuckerberg is not to be trusted and that he's creepy okay, so not everything it said is wrong, sir birds
funny that met his own bite is saying
things that are very critical of meadow slash, facebook, slash mark Zuckerberg, journalists tested the chat bought and they found the.
They asked about Joe Biden. Sometimes they were informed. That Biden is a former vice president and that he ran for office in for president in two thousand and twenty, but that he ultimately lost. Sometimes how about that huh? Now, when meta first announced the bot last
week, a representative claimed that the team behind the bot had quote conducted at large scale studies, co, organized workshops and developed new techniques to create safeguards, in quote, but it's really a different kettle of fish when the chat bot actually goes live, and I I have some sympathy for.
that team, because creating a tool that designed to learn as the tool
being used,
brings along with it major risks, even folks who does
actually believe conspiracy theories might mess with, but just for funds, zis and others
above juvenile glee that comes along with being sassy to a robot. So yeah it's a bite, but it doesnt have feelings right. You can't hurt its feeling, so you can act like a jerk to this, but in their no consequences right, like you're, not actually
Anyone see you're, not gonna, feel guilty about it or shame about what you ve done, except that the bodies learning and
at these interactions will go on to inform future interactions and that's where things can get really nasty really quickly
I'm not sure what the solution is here, unless it's just to create botz that are not capable of learning through interactions, because there are always going to be people, some of them, obviously horrible and some of them not. Who will corrupt? That kind of thing,
maybe other mischief may be out of malice. Here's. The thing
doesn't really matter whether motivation was because the end result is similar in any case, so the
funny funny ha ha, but also it really points out how kind a nasty we all are online, or at least how nasty we can be yeah. So
on the service level. Funny, as you dig down ugly micro
does issued a warning that windows machines that have the latest supported processors could be susceptible to data damage at this
warning applies to machines. Running windows, eleven or windows, server, twenty twenty, two and again,
those that are running on the latest processors- and
and the damage in this case is a risk of data loss. Now this whole thing gets super technical, so I suggest for those of you who have these kinds of machines or perhaps oversee ity operations in a big organization,
to look into it. Further. Microsoft is urging users to install windows, eleven or windows server. Twenty twenty two preview update, which was released on june twenty third or a security update that was released on July twelve. In order to work around this problem here in the united states, the senate recently voted in favour of the reduction act of twenty twenty two, which now goes to the house for a vote before
but would then go to the president to be signed in law. The act contains a lot of men to tackle inflation, but also other issues like climate change. To that end,
one element in the bill allows for a tax credit for the purchase of new electric vehicles. But there are
and parameters and restrictions involved and as ours technical points out, one of the
restrictions when actually mean that no one will be able to take advantage of that tax credit for a while see that
it has some usual stuff in it, like there's a limit on the price tag for new vehicles that are eligible for this tax cut or the tax credit. I guess I should say so event: electric vehicles.
dan cost fifty five thousand dollars or less. Then that would qualify, but if
so you're out there to buy an electric vehicle, but you want to buy the luxury one that tax credits not going to apply because the price tag is going to be
two high they're gonna say like well: yeah you'll need the tax credit you're buying a luxury vehicle. This is where people were buying. You know
a a meant to get the family around. That kind of thing. Beyond that, the bill says that the tax credit will only apply if the battery
is in the electric vehicle were mostly made in north America. That includes a requirement that
we presented, the materials that were extracted and process to make the batteries were done. So
north America or in a country that has a free trade agreement with the united states. So that's where the hurdle is
now China's serves as the world's source for stuff like lithium, so it's possible that every electric view
I called that is available in the united states. This year will not meet the criteria necessary to qualify for that tax credit. Now, on the other hand,
the. U s: government is pushing really hard to encourage more domestic production and that's good. For a lot of reasons
places like China have heard this human rights records. They have practised mining in processing techniques that have caused massive environmental damage,
trade with. China also represents a vulnerability in the event of a trade dispute like we saw with the trade war under president trump moving production to the united states, where there are more strict protection in place both for employees and the environment, has clear benefits and increase costs.
the economically, but in all other aspects it is kind of like a boost. It also improves national security because you no longer dependent upon a foreign source for that
cereal, but we are not there yet, like
the are nowhere close to being able to produce stuff at scale. So
citizens, are gonna, potentially find it really frost
we know that there is a law that theoretically would reward them for making the switch from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric ones, but technically they can't take advantage of it because of supply chain and production issues fun times on the subject of a letter,
vehicles. Let's talk about tesla for a second, the department of motor vehicles in the state of California has a bone, typically tesla, the dmz.
says that tesla has misrepresented features like auto pilot and full self driving mode. The deal
The asean teslas systems, which are
Really under the category of automated driver, assist features come across in tests was now
wording as being more of a fully automated solution and that the cut
He has made what amounts to deceitful claims as to what the vehicles are actually capable
doing. The dmv has four complaints:
with them are just the names, autopilot and full self driving and those of y'all who have been listening to my show for awhile know. I also take issue with those terms, because I feel that they set an expectation, that's unrealistic and in some cases incredibly dangerous
you almost by the way, has dismissed the sort of concern he says what's worth eddie it just takes a name for we all
saying what it does and I guess like ok, but your marketing in that, like that,
the whole marketing polish, your ear, you're, trying to send a concept and a message to people.
you cannot have it both ways. I mean I get the whole shakespeare. What's in a name that arose by any other name, would smell of sweet? I understand, but I don't know if you have a system,
that's not really auto pilot and you call it autopilot. I think I think there's a complaint there. That's that's me is not a court maybe occur,
I find it differently anyway. The dmz has to other complaints, not just the names of these things and those
Let us have more to do with how tesla markets its full self driving capability feature
one of the two complaints is about how there's a statement on teslas website that
driver essentially has to quote get in, and
while the car, where to go end, quote the deal
He's claim is that that's inaccurate and it further represents a deceptive practice under california law.
now the dmz does acknowledged something that I have also pointed out in the past. If you bother to read teslas pages about these features
ass. He read you will find disclaimers that these be
there's, are not fully autonomous systems and that a driver supervision is always necessary that language is in there. However, the dmz says the fact that tussling
pollutes those disclaimers, does it a race? These other statements that seem to be to the contrary, so instead
at the dmv saying, is that tesla is just contradicting itself, which creates confusion and ultimately is a deceptive practice and potentially dangerous.
though the envious saying teslas trying to have its cake and eat it too right
is trying to use wording that in one way, seems like real
We are appealing marketing to customers and then also include a disclaimer
this has now, but for reels. It's not what you just said it was in
effort to avoid accountability in the event of something going wrong? What to see how this develops? Ok, we ve got
couple more stories in just a moment. But first, let's take another quick break. I I I I if it's happening in the pocono mountains, it's on p, t n, the pocono television network, pts, showcases, insider tips, things to do and great local stories about the people of the poconos find live, webcams weather forecasts on the half hour and spotlights of our historic small towns outdoor activities attractions.
And delicious restaurants pity and streaming on poconos television, doc arm or local amazon fire tv. It's like cable channels tune into pdf.
it's everywhere. You are, and war
it's roxy, romeo from the rise and grind morning show on philly's tower ninety nine and I absolutely love listening to podcasts. But after you finish listening and are ready to get back to the music I'd love for you to check out power. Ninety nine philly's, legendary home for hip, hop and rb. We play the biggest songs from the biggest stars like drake chris brown and phillies on Jazmine sullivan, listen, live on philly's row, ninety nine or wherever you are on our radio app, don't forget to check me out on the rise abroad. Podcast as well, thanks to the internet, artificial intelligence is everywhere. Now
algorithms are making more and more the decisions that shape our lives. So let me ask you a question: who should have the power over a I? I'm brigitte tat the new hope
of I yes, mozilla is award, winning podcast is back. I'm taking a quick break from my own past
There are no girls on the internet to be your host. This season will be talking about health care, gig work, social media and even killer robots. You'll
a I builders around the world who make a more trustworthy in real life,
you will be able to challenge the algorithm technology
insult some problems, a definite eating those you can be part of the problem. I have heard
to walk away from it and not contribute to us, and I have the power to try and change law. Fifty then we're happy
mozilla is internet health report to learn who should have passed
moreover, I that's, I r l international pockets for mozilla the nonprofit behind firefox, don't miss it go to your favorite podcast out right now to find us
Ok, we're gonna close out with just a couple of quick stories. One is to stick with vehicles. Again
the automotive news reports that more than a hundred eighty thousand vehicles will be dropped from production.
Schedules around the world
who do the ongoing semi conductor chip shortage,
and more than one hundred thousand of those will be cut from manufacturing facilities here and north America. We just don't have enough microchips to build modern cars, or at least as many as we
the planned your typical modern vehicle can have a few thousand microchips in it. I think the.
average is somewhere around three thousand they consume
everything from your entertainment system to fuel injection and beyond what
the computerization of vehicles, has provided a lot of new functionality and safety features and really good stuff. The semi conduct
shortage has highlighted just how dependent we have become on microchip technology. Otto forecast solutions,
as that already in north america, facilities
the cut more than one million vehicles from production this year, so that one hundred thousand plus is for the rest of the year.
I mean here. What's another hundred thousand, if you weren't
and the cut a million, but yeah this continue,
to be an enormous challenge for the automotive industry and for customers as from
Then we will actually emerge from this semi conductor shortage crisis. That is hard to say there have been some-
Alice. Who thought that we would be out of it already that we would be well past it. Others say that it'll happen some time next year, and there are quite a few that say they don't expected to improve
twenty twenty, four or later in the meantime, expect to see more shortages at dealerships and high prices for the limited supply of vehicles that are already out there, and I don't think we're going to be able to see a sustainable market for used vehicles right now. You can occasionally find
used vehicles marked at a price that higher than they were when you drove
off the light that never happens. It's
easy because yo. I think everyone knows that when you get into a brand new car and you drive off the lot devalue depression
it's by an enormous enormous percent, like it's ridiculous. How many thousands of dollars are marked off the value of the car just because you ve owned it for a deal? A second now we're seeing
change quite a bit because of the semiconductor shortage where you can have a used vehicle
worth more than what it was when you purchased it.
in every case, but it has happened and it's kind of crazy. Finally, we ve talked quite a bit this year about netflix and the companies attempts to find ways to grow in the wake of subscriber losses or at least to stem subscriber losses. We ve seen some
I burst: leave the the service for the first time like more people leaving than new people coming in and
has really rocked the company,
Well, one area that netflix has experimented with is with games and I'm sure
of you are out, there are aware of this, but some of you might not be. If you are a netflix subject
labour and you have an eye- a west or android device, the has the netflix up on it. You have access to twenty four games right now, there's another twenty six planned to be added to the service, and you can play them if you're a subscriber to Netflix, you can use your their phone and access these games and their supposed release premium games, but
according to act to less than one percent of all netflix. Subscribers have actually done that. So if the company was hoping that games would convince users to stick with netflix
It looks like there's some bad news out there, at least as far as,
the games ability to retain customers is concerned. They, if you weren't, aware that netflix has games now you are maybe,
nope up your netflix app on your. I o s her android device and check it out and see, if maybe there's a game there. Would you like to play who knows? I
What does that mean that, like subscribers, so maybe
After this episode out of curiosity check it out, maybe
the game that will finally put me away from marvel puzzle quest because, as the only game I play on my phone gotta catch him all. Alright, that's dad said for this episode for the techniques
for tuesday august nineteen, twenty twenty two hope you are all well. If you would like to get in touch with me about a topic you'd like me to cover in a future episode of tat stuff.
Do that one of a couple ways one is to download the eye her radio abbots free to download. You can navigate over the text of that
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Transcript generated on 2022-08-11.