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. Is time for the tech news for Thursday, July twenty one. Let's get to it now. A few times this year I have mentioned the right to repair movement, and this movement seeks to change how you know, some corporations and companies really locked down their products and they require customers to go through you know, authorized channels for maintenance and repair, like the only way you can get something fixed is by going to a licensed vendor that does repairs well. Back in the old days, you know, if you had the tools and the know how you know, and the time and inclination, you could repair stuff yourself after you bought it. But over time this has changed as more companies have made the internal workings of their products difficult or sometimes even impossible for the average person to access. And then you add in proprietary stuff like fasteners like special screws that require specific types of screw drivers to remove, or you have warranty agreements that are void as soon as someone even thinks about trying to do repairs themselves, and you then have this ecosystem that continues to exploit customers long after the initial purchase. It's kind of like that idea of how can we lock someone in so that we can have them be a continual source of revenue, as opposed to someone who buys a product once and then they're gone. Well. U S President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order that doesn't quite fix this, but it might get the ball rolling. The order encourages the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, to draft new rules that would restrict companies from, you know, restricting their customers so much. It's far too early to say what those rules might end up looking like should they get drafted, but presumably they could include stuff like requiring companies to post information about diagnostic and repair tools that you would need to detect and address problems with their products. For people who aren't confident in their ability to fix their own stuff, there will still be the option to go to authorize repair services. It also will open up opportunities for other people to open up repair services without necessarily going through some lengthy and potentially expensive licensing deal with the manufacturer. So in other words, this doesn't mean that it would suddenly be illegal for you know, Apple to continue to run the genius bar. They still could totally do that, but it wouldn't mean that Apple would potentially have to make available the information people would need if they wanted to do their own repairs on Apple products, assuming they had the ability to do that. It will be interesting to see how this develops, as the right to repair a movement has been gaining a lot of ground in many places, as several states in the United States have already kind of past local laws about this, and we're also seeing movement on this issue in Europe. Now, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, you know that I can be a bit critical of cryptocurrencies for a lot of reasons. Uh, the proof of work types of cryptocurrencies where you're using computers to try and solve mathematical problems in order to mine the cryptocurrency. That includes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the current version of ethereum. Those have a massive carbon footprint and obviously that's a problem. They also tend to place a great strain on certain markets like graphics processing cards. You know, and semiconductors. They can really affect those, you know, big time, and that means that other people who need or want those things can't get them. Then you've got organized crime rings that flock to cryptocurrencies for various reasons. You know, they tend to be the currency of choice for black market deals and that sort of thing. Now, this is not to say that I think cryptocurrencies are just playing bad period, but rather that they have a lot of downsides, and I'm not the only one to think so. Jackson Palmer, who actually co founded a cryptocurrency, has recently come out to level a few more criticisms towards cryptocurrency in general, and you know, addition to the ones I just mentioned. Now, to be clear, the currency Palmer co founded was doge coin, which really did start off as a joke, and arguably, depending on your perspective, still is a joke. It's just a joke that some people take weight too seriously. Palmer, who actually had been pretty quiet for the last couple of years, recently tweeted a thread that included some statements like quote, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right wing, hyper capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight, and artificially enforced scarcity end quote. So we can add those to the list of downsides for cryptocurrency, and I happen to agree with Palmer and that from my observations, the crypto community seems to consist of a lot of evangelists who are trying to convince more people to buy into crypto and then telling those who are already into HODDLE or h O d L, which stands for a hold on for Dear life when things go into a slump. Crypto has actually been a slump since mid spring, but the cynical people suggest that this messaging be more about crypto investors trying to stabilize and then drive up the value of crypto for their own personal gain before they switch to something else. In other words, of course, people are going to say you need to buy into this because their own investments hinge on the value of the currency going up, so they will take whatever steps they can to drive up the value, and then potentially they'll bail once they reach a certain threshold, and that could end up making the value plummet again and affect everybody who came in buying and after it. It's because of this that some people point to cryptocurrency and say that it's similar to a pyramid scheme. It's not a pyramid scheme, you know, not strictly speaking, but depending on people's behaviors and how the market behaves, it can have a similar effect to a pyramid scheme. Palmer went on to say that crypto has its own cabal of wealthy investors, who in effect are just as manipulative and controlling as you know, currencies that are based around centralized financial institutions. It's not a good look. In other words. Palmer also said that crypto gives opportunities to the wealthy to exploit the less wealthy, or, as he said, quote, cryptocurrency is almost purpose built to make the funnel of profiteering more efficient for those at the top and less safeguarded for the vulnerable, like taking the worst parts of today's capitalist system e g. Corruption, fraud, inequality, and using software to technically limit the use of interventions e g. Audits, regulation, taxation, which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person. End quote. Pretty you know, tough stands there. Over on Twitter, Fleets is nearing the end of its fleeting moment. In the spotlight water fleets, you might ask, well, if you are asking that, I think that's probably a good indicator of e they're going away. Fleets currently are, and soon we will say. We're a Twitter feature that lets users post tweets that expire so very much, kind of like you know snapchat or those Instagram posts that are gone after twenty four hours. This idea of the momentary message. Fleets similarly had a twenty four hour lifespan. After that they would get deleted. Twitter's message about this was a bit cheeky. They tweeted on the four that quote, we're removing fleets on August three, working on some new stuff. We're sorry or you're welcome Twitter end quote. Cute. Twitter first introduced fleets eight whole months ago, so it really did not take long for the company to say, yeah, this just isn't working out because ain't no one using it. Twitter has plateaued in user engagement, which is not a great thing in a world that values revenue growth year over year. It's you know, just not good enough to do well. You have to actually do better than you did before. Anyway, fleets will be gone on August three, and by August four, I predict no one will have even remembered it, because it will be twenty four hours later. If you're an Android user, and if you have volunteered to be part of the Android twelve beta program, you might notice that your phone is handling auto rotate better than it had before. So Android twelve will be coming out of beta a little later this year, but for the time people who want to run the risk of having an incomplete operating system build on their phones can elect to be part of the beta test. I'm one of those suckers. Um one of those people, actually, and one of the most recent updates to the beta involves auto rotate. Now. Traditionally Android has relied solely on accelerometers. These detect a change in orientation and speed. I've done episodes about accelerometers. They are super interesting things. They technically detect a change in velocity. However, this approach doesn't always yield perfect results. There have been times where I've tried to watch, say a YouTube video on my phone, particularly if I'm like lounging, laying down or something, and I want to watch maybe like an A S M R video, so that I can go into a coma and I'll turn my phone into landscape orientation, and yet my screen refuses to make the switch. It's still in portrait mode. Well, this new update leans a bit on the device's front facing camera, so, in other words, and Android twelve smartphone will rely not just on the accelerometer, but the front facing camera that will then try to detect the orientation of your face. So if your face is sideways, well that's a pretty good signal for the phone to rotate the screen into its other mode. And for those of you who are concerned with privacy, and honestly all of us should be, Google reps say that this feature is kept strictly local to your phone and that no images, video, or anything like that will be recorded or sent off of the device. It will just happen in the background on the hardware itself, So while the camera will briefly become active, it won't be recording or streaming or anything like that. Google has actually built out something called the Android Private Computer Core or a p c C, which will handle processes like this. That is, processes that might be super invasive or creepy if they were not restricted to the hardware of the phone or handset or tablet or whatever itself. Now, I think that's a pretty wise move. It gives Google the opportunity to play with technologies that could really give some cool features to our phones. But if they were, say, connected to the cloud or to the outside world, they would represent uh, potentially catastrophic privacy or security risk. I think it's a wise decision to go this direction. Facebook has just added a new feature today called sound Emoji's, and as the name suggests, it adds sounds to certain emoji. For example, there's a ghost emoji, and you might think it would say something like woo. When you activate it now it gives a cartoonish evil laugh. Um, there's a smoochy emoji that's making kissy sounds. There's a cricket emoji. The cricket is extremely realistic looking to me. I mean, it's a cartoon, but it's crickets are funky looking critters. Anyway, it makes cricket noises so that when someone makes that clunker of a joke. You know, someone like me who just rattles off puns and dad jokes incessantly, you can respond with that and they'll get the message. I know, I do. Uh. When I checked just before recording, there were twenty eight emoji total that have sound capability added to them. Some of them it's not necessarily a sound you would immediately suspect when you push it, like some of them end up prompting a little musical sting as opposed to a you know, sound effect. But it's just a small sample of the massive number of available emoji in messengers, so it's not every single emoji. Thankfully, a few have specifically not made the cut so far. I'm looking at you, poop emoji. No one needs to know what you sound like. Now. Apparently, Facebook plans to update the list and occasionally include, like, you know, topical or culturally relevant sound clips from stuff like TV shows and musical artists. So in a way, this is kind of continuing down the pathway of stuff like animated gifts and the like. It's another way to include little, playful, interactive elements in messaging. UM. I have only sent one. I have not yet received one, so I don't even know how it works when you receive it. I know that from sending it. When you're choosing the emoji. Um it plays back whatever sound it's going to play for the person you send it to. But the person I sent it to has not yet responded to that that sound emoji, which might be an indicator that I need a new friend. We will see, but I don't know what it's like to receive one yet. I'll let you know, or maybe you'll know by the time we have another episode. Moving on, Bloomberg reports that Netflix will be adding in streaming video games as part of its service sometime within the next year, and apparently at no extra cost to subscribers. The company has actually hired Mike verdu who worked in the games industry at places like Oculus and Electronic Arts, and Verduo is going to serve as the VP of Games Development. Now. I wonder if that means we're gonna see some original titles for Netflix games. Maybe. Personally, I'm hoping that they do some tie ins with some Netflix original series because I really want my Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt adventure game. Gosh darn it. And that's it for the news for Thursday, July one. We'll be back next week with some more news. If you have suggestions for topics, I should cover in episodes of tech Stuff. Please reach out. You can leave me a message over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff H. S W and I'll talk to 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. H

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. Is time for the tech news for Thursday, July twenty one. Let's get to it now. A few times this year I have mentioned the right to repair movement, and this movement seeks to change how you know, some corporations and companies really locked down their products and they require customers to go through you know, authorized channels for maintenance and repair, like the only way you can get something fixed is by going to a licensed vendor that does repairs well. Back in the old days, you know, if you had the tools and the know how you know, and the time and inclination, you could repair stuff yourself after you bought it. But over time this has changed as more companies have made the internal workings of their products difficult or sometimes even impossible for the average person to access. And then you add in proprietary stuff like fasteners like special screws that require specific types of screw drivers to remove, or you have warranty agreements that are void as soon as someone even thinks about trying to do repairs themselves, and you then have this ecosystem that continues to exploit customers long after the initial purchase. It's kind of like that idea of how can we lock someone in so that we can have them be a continual source of revenue, as opposed to someone who buys a product once and then they're gone. Well. U S President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order that doesn't quite fix this, but it might get the ball rolling. The order encourages the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, to draft new rules that would restrict companies from, you know, restricting their customers so much. It's far too early to say what those rules might end up looking like should they get drafted, but presumably they could include stuff like requiring companies to post information about diagnostic and repair tools that you would need to detect and address problems with their products. For people who aren't confident in their ability to fix their own stuff, there will still be the option to go to authorize repair services. It also will open up opportunities for other people to open up repair services without necessarily going through some lengthy and potentially expensive licensing deal with the manufacturer. So in other words, this doesn't mean that it would suddenly be illegal for you know, Apple to continue to run the genius bar. They still could totally do that, but it wouldn't mean that Apple would potentially have to make available the information people would need if they wanted to do their own repairs on Apple products, assuming they had the ability to do that. It will be interesting to see how this develops, as the right to repair a movement has been gaining a lot of ground in many places, as several states in the United States have already kind of past local laws about this, and we're also seeing movement on this issue in Europe. Now, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, you know that I can be a bit critical of cryptocurrencies for a lot of reasons. Uh, the proof of work types of cryptocurrencies where you're using computers to try and solve mathematical problems in order to mine the cryptocurrency. That includes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the current version of ethereum. Those have a massive carbon footprint and obviously that's a problem. They also tend to place a great strain on certain markets like graphics processing cards. You know, and semiconductors. They can really affect those, you know, big time, and that means that other people who need or want those things can't get them. Then you've got organized crime rings that flock to cryptocurrencies for various reasons. You know, they tend to be the currency of choice for black market deals and that sort of thing. Now, this is not to say that I think cryptocurrencies are just playing bad period, but rather that they have a lot of downsides, and I'm not the only one to think so. Jackson Palmer, who actually co founded a cryptocurrency, has recently come out to level a few more criticisms towards cryptocurrency in general, and you know, addition to the ones I just mentioned. Now, to be clear, the currency Palmer co founded was doge coin, which really did start off as a joke, and arguably, depending on your perspective, still is a joke. It's just a joke that some people take weight too seriously. Palmer, who actually had been pretty quiet for the last couple of years, recently tweeted a thread that included some statements like quote, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right wing, hyper capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight, and artificially enforced scarcity end quote. So we can add those to the list of downsides for cryptocurrency, and I happen to agree with Palmer and that from my observations, the crypto community seems to consist of a lot of evangelists who are trying to convince more people to buy into crypto and then telling those who are already into HODDLE or h O d L, which stands for a hold on for Dear life when things go into a slump. Crypto has actually been a slump since mid spring, but the cynical people suggest that this messaging be more about crypto investors trying to stabilize and then drive up the value of crypto for their own personal gain before they switch to something else. In other words, of course, people are going to say you need to buy into this because their own investments hinge on the value of the currency going up, so they will take whatever steps they can to drive up the value, and then potentially they'll bail once they reach a certain threshold, and that could end up making the value plummet again and affect everybody who came in buying and after it. It's because of this that some people point to cryptocurrency and say that it's similar to a pyramid scheme. It's not a pyramid scheme, you know, not strictly speaking, but depending on people's behaviors and how the market behaves, it can have a similar effect to a pyramid scheme. Palmer went on to say that crypto has its own cabal of wealthy investors, who in effect are just as manipulative and controlling as you know, currencies that are based around centralized financial institutions. It's not a good look. In other words. Palmer also said that crypto gives opportunities to the wealthy to exploit the less wealthy, or, as he said, quote, cryptocurrency is almost purpose built to make the funnel of profiteering more efficient for those at the top and less safeguarded for the vulnerable, like taking the worst parts of today's capitalist system e g. Corruption, fraud, inequality, and using software to technically limit the use of interventions e g. Audits, regulation, taxation, which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person. End quote. Pretty you know, tough stands there. Over on Twitter, Fleets is nearing the end of its fleeting moment. In the spotlight water fleets, you might ask, well, if you are asking that, I think that's probably a good indicator of e they're going away. Fleets currently are, and soon we will say. We're a Twitter feature that lets users post tweets that expire so very much, kind of like you know snapchat or those Instagram posts that are gone after twenty four hours. This idea of the momentary message. Fleets similarly had a twenty four hour lifespan. After that they would get deleted. Twitter's message about this was a bit cheeky. They tweeted on the four that quote, we're removing fleets on August three, working on some new stuff. We're sorry or you're welcome Twitter end quote. Cute. Twitter first introduced fleets eight whole months ago, so it really did not take long for the company to say, yeah, this just isn't working out because ain't no one using it. Twitter has plateaued in user engagement, which is not a great thing in a world that values revenue growth year over year. It's you know, just not good enough to do well. You have to actually do better than you did before. Anyway, fleets will be gone on August three, and by August four, I predict no one will have even remembered it, because it will be twenty four hours later. If you're an Android user, and if you have volunteered to be part of the Android twelve beta program, you might notice that your phone is handling auto rotate better than it had before. So Android twelve will be coming out of beta a little later this year, but for the time people who want to run the risk of having an incomplete operating system build on their phones can elect to be part of the beta test. I'm one of those suckers. Um one of those people, actually, and one of the most recent updates to the beta involves auto rotate. Now. Traditionally Android has relied solely on accelerometers. These detect a change in orientation and speed. I've done episodes about accelerometers. They are super interesting things. They technically detect a change in velocity. However, this approach doesn't always yield perfect results. There have been times where I've tried to watch, say a YouTube video on my phone, particularly if I'm like lounging, laying down or something, and I want to watch maybe like an A S M R video, so that I can go into a coma and I'll turn my phone into landscape orientation, and yet my screen refuses to make the switch. It's still in portrait mode. Well, this new update leans a bit on the device's front facing camera, so, in other words, and Android twelve smartphone will rely not just on the accelerometer, but the front facing camera that will then try to detect the orientation of your face. So if your face is sideways, well that's a pretty good signal for the phone to rotate the screen into its other mode. And for those of you who are concerned with privacy, and honestly all of us should be, Google reps say that this feature is kept strictly local to your phone and that no images, video, or anything like that will be recorded or sent off of the device. It will just happen in the background on the hardware itself, So while the camera will briefly become active, it won't be recording or streaming or anything like that. Google has actually built out something called the Android Private Computer Core or a p c C, which will handle processes like this. That is, processes that might be super invasive or creepy if they were not restricted to the hardware of the phone or handset or tablet or whatever itself. Now, I think that's a pretty wise move. It gives Google the opportunity to play with technologies that could really give some cool features to our phones. But if they were, say, connected to the cloud or to the outside world, they would represent uh, potentially catastrophic privacy or security risk. I think it's a wise decision to go this direction. Facebook has just added a new feature today called sound Emoji's, and as the name suggests, it adds sounds to certain emoji. For example, there's a ghost emoji, and you might think it would say something like woo. When you activate it now it gives a cartoonish evil laugh. Um, there's a smoochy emoji that's making kissy sounds. There's a cricket emoji. The cricket is extremely realistic looking to me. I mean, it's a cartoon, but it's crickets are funky looking critters. Anyway, it makes cricket noises so that when someone makes that clunker of a joke. You know, someone like me who just rattles off puns and dad jokes incessantly, you can respond with that and they'll get the message. I know, I do. Uh. When I checked just before recording, there were twenty eight emoji total that have sound capability added to them. Some of them it's not necessarily a sound you would immediately suspect when you push it, like some of them end up prompting a little musical sting as opposed to a you know, sound effect. But it's just a small sample of the massive number of available emoji in messengers, so it's not every single emoji. Thankfully, a few have specifically not made the cut so far. I'm looking at you, poop emoji. No one needs to know what you sound like. Now. Apparently, Facebook plans to update the list and occasionally include, like, you know, topical or culturally relevant sound clips from stuff like TV shows and musical artists. So in a way, this is kind of continuing down the pathway of stuff like animated gifts and the like. It's another way to include little, playful, interactive elements in messaging. UM. I have only sent one. I have not yet received one, so I don't even know how it works when you receive it. I know that from sending it. When you're choosing the emoji. Um it plays back whatever sound it's going to play for the person you send it to. But the person I sent it to has not yet responded to that that sound emoji, which might be an indicator that I need a new friend. We will see, but I don't know what it's like to receive one yet. I'll let you know, or maybe you'll know by the time we have another episode. Moving on, Bloomberg reports that Netflix will be adding in streaming video games as part of its service sometime within the next year, and apparently at no extra cost to subscribers. The company has actually hired Mike verdu who worked in the games industry at places like Oculus and Electronic Arts, and Verduo is going to serve as the VP of Games Development. Now. I wonder if that means we're gonna see some original titles for Netflix games. Maybe. Personally, I'm hoping that they do some tie ins with some Netflix original series because I really want my Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt adventure game. Gosh darn it. And that's it for the news for Thursday, July one. We'll be back next week with some more news. If you have suggestions for topics, I should cover in episodes of tech Stuff. Please reach out. You can leave me a message over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff H. S W and I'll talk to 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. H