Welcome to tex 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 I love all things tech. And this is the tech news for Tuesday, November twenty three, twenty twenty one. And just as a heads up, we will not have a news episode on Thursday because here in America that is Thanksgiving, So we will be playing our history of Cyber Monday episode on Thursday, which I feel is going to become my own annual tradition. Anyway, let's get to the news. One of the biggest stories of and mental note, I should probably remember that when I do an end of the year wrap up episode has been about Facebook internal documents that got leaked to regulators and the press, along with whistleblower Francis Hogan's testimony to various governmental bodies around the world regarding Facebook's policies and it's impact on the world. Well, now, a collection of organizations are committed to releasing those documents so that folks like you or I will be able to see them. Note uh, this presumes that you aren't already a member of one of those regulatory bodies or part of the press that received the documents. People from the American Civil Liberties Union and several universities, as well as the tech news outlet Gizmoto, are partnering to go through the documents and make them available to everyone. They plan on reviewing each document first in order to protect the privacy and security of people who might be named in those documents. They don't want to docks anyone. And also in the case of documents relating to specific countries like besides the United States, they plan on enlisting the aid of people from those countries before they decide to release the documents. So, in other words, it sounds like they are working towards establishing a responsible process when it comes to releasing all those internal documents, as opposed to just you know, dumping them on a cloud server somewhere. Facebook reps have repeatedly argued that these documents that were cited by various media outlets have been misleading and that they only play a small part in a much larger picture. And I'm not saying that the thousands of documents are a definitive repository of all things Facebook, but it might be a harder sell to defend the company should those documents prove to be as damaging as has been indicated over the last couple of months. One document that wasn't in that big leak was one that alleges Facebook executives chose to override researchers suggestions to tweak the Facebook algorithm in an effort to curb the spread of hate speech and racism. Business Insider reports that the document shows researchers had identified issues with this algorithm, pointing out how it would allow for the spread of hateful and harmful speech that predominantly targeted ethnic minorities. But because Facebook has been the target of criticism from white conservatives in the past, including powerful media outlets like Fox News, the executives that Facebook didn't want to make any changes for fear that it would seem as though the company was actively opposing white conservatives. The name of the research project was Project Wow No. Business Insider also refers to it as quote the worst of the worst end quote meaning the worst content and comments. The document apparently also indicates that Facebook's content moderation algorithms are much better at detecting and suppressing content that targets white people, but not so great when it comes to people of color. So not only did the executives nix the idea of adjusting the algorithm to protect vulnerable populations, they were supporting an algorithm that protects a group that you know, arguably really doesn't need protection to start with. The document also includes a passage that says Facebook execs, We're worried about offending conservatives who think quote hate targeted towards trans people is an expression of opinion. End quote. Now, y'all, let me just say that is a wretched, horrible thing to even think, let alone put down in an internal document. A glance at statistics like the suicide rate among trans youth will tell you straight away that targeted hate has a very real, very tragic effect on those who are targeted, and to dismiss it as an expression of opinion is so callous as to be disgusting. Then for Facebook executives to say they're worried about offending people who think that way is stomach churning. All right, I'm gonna hop off my soapbox. I know y'all don't like it, but you know I've got this platform and I feel like i'm going to use it. Another big tech news last week, Reuters reported that Amazon had been behind vigorous lobbying efforts to undermine consumer privacy protection laws in twenty five states. That's that's half of all the states for those of y'all not in the US. Now, several members of Congress are proposing a federal level of consumer privacy legislation that would apply across all fifty states. The report showed that Amazon has been working hard to whittle away, or sometimes hack away, protections that would prevent the company from harvesting vast amounts of personal data of customers and others. On top of that, Reuters has quoted a few people who say Amazon has and pretty hypocritical, paying lips service to the concept and the importance of data privacy and security in public, while simultaneously privately working to remove any barrier that would stand between the company and that precious, precious information. Amazon reps have also essentially said, Hey, we just want a nice unified privacy law so that we can have a set standard and operate that way across the United States. And on the surface you can sort of understand that, I mean each state having a different definition and standard for privacy makes operating across state borders pretty complicated. However, that doesn't explain away all the actual efforts to gut the existing state legislation. Amazon could have instead lobbied for a nationwide federal standard, so I would say Amazon's explanation is only partly true. Anyway, We'll have to wait and see what, if any legislation follows from this and show effort. There's no guarantee that anything will actually come about due to this. Let's shift over to Apple, a company that also has had a rough time PR wise in recent months. I should add, by the way, that all of these companies, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have been raking in cash by the truckload. So while it might be rough in the papers when it comes to the amount of money they're bringing in and the amount of of hikes they're seeing in share price, that that doesn't necessarily reflect the you know, the same sort of PR issues in the news. So it's it's like two different worlds. Anyway, Apple recently told the U S Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC that Apple did not use non disclosure agreements or in DA's in order to prevent people from revealing you know, acts of quote harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts in quote. So in other words, Apple was saying, we don't make people sign legal agreements to prevent the dirty laundry from getting out. But then a former Apple employee named share Scarlett filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC and then subsequently she came forward. She had previously been referred to as an anonymous former employee, and in her complaint Scarlett revealed that Apple does indeed issue in DA's at least in some cases. Scarlett worked as an engineered Apple, but she also was you know, working behind the scenes to push for changes in policy, such as a move toward pay equity among Apple employees. And when she left the company, Apple lawyers urged her to sign what if was effectively a gag order that would limit her explanation of why she left as quote, after eighteen months at Apple, I've decided it is time to move on and pursue other opportunities end quote. She shared that in d a with a company called or an organization and called NIA Impact Capital that is an activist investor organization. It holds share of Apple and it has currently been trying to force a vote among other shareholders that would make Apple reveal its use of India's and be more transparent in the future. Uh, something that I suspect the company would not be too keen on, seeing as how they just told the SEC earlier last month that they totally didn't do that. Later today, we expect to hear an announcement that Samsung will establish a new chip making plant in Taylor, Texas. That's about a stone's throw away from Austin if you can throw a stone, you know, thirty miles or so. The facility would likely build chips, not for Samsung products, but more as a business to business that has other corporations as its customers. So you or I wouldn't go out and you know, purchase a chip from this company. These chips would be going into products that other companies make. The plant is not expected to go into production for a couple of years because it's going to take time to build out the facility and attract the talent and all that kind of stuff. Apparently, the city of Taylor, Texas offered up some pretty generous tax benefits. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plant will have a nine reduction in property taxes over its first decade. There's been a recent push to bring more chip manufacturing over to the United States in the wake of the worldwide shortages and supply chain issues we've seen. Of course, the US also has these you know, pesky laws that protect people and thus make it way more expensive to build stuff over here. That's me being snarky. By the way, I am fully in favor of protecting workers, and in fact, I would actually love to see more manufacturing moved places that aren't as egregious when it comes to exploiting workers. Not saying that the United States is perfect on that regard, not by a long shot, but compared to some other countries, it's leagues ahead. Well, there are other efforts around the world to establish new manufact training facilities in order to kind of smooth things out alleviate the supply chain issues, but obviously it's going to take a couple of years for them to come online, and there's still the question of whether or not it actually ends up solving the problem, or if it just becomes another complicated cog in a very complex machine. In the meantime, we should expect more supply chain woes. Speaking of Texas, there's a development in that state that concerns me. Actually, to be fair, there are a lot of developments in Texas that concerned me, but the one I was thinking about was how the state is courting bitcoin mining operations. And this has to do with power consumption. Okay, so last year, or actually this past year, in February of Texas had some pretty massive blackouts during a particularly harsh cold front that brought temperatures way way down. And yeah, I know there are parts of the world that are way colder than what Texas got to, but you gotta remember Texas does not have the infrastructure to deal with super low temperatures. It's not common in that state. And Texas has a power grid authority called ERCOTT e R c OT. Ironically that stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and it's responsible for about nine of the state's electric load. So pretty much everything apart from say like the far west of Texas is under ARCOT. When the cold weather hit, demand for electricity exceeded ercott's capacity and ARCOTT began to implement blackouts. The price for electricity also skyrocketed at that time. It it's hard to even express how high it went. The governor of Texas said that the you know, arcot reform would be a high priority. There would have to be a full investigation, and the the agency would have to put in place preparations for uh, you know, high demand winters in the future. And the reason I bring all that up is because bitcoin mining require there's a lot of electricity. And that's because bitcoin works on a proof of work concept, uh that is, one in which computers compete against each other. They are the mining operations, and they rush to try and solve what is essentially a very hard math problem. I mean, it's kind of similar to guessing a truly huge number. Anyway, bitcoin miners, at least the successful ones, use vast networks of powerful machines in order to get to that solution first, and those machines require a lot of electricity in order to operate. So the concern is that Texas has power grid, which is already a little bit you know weak, is not up to the task of supporting those mining operations, that the state is actively trying to attract, and that this could potentially lead to similar situations like what we saw this past February. Now, the expectation is that Urcott will offer up some sort of incentive that would essentially pay bitcoin miners to not use electricity during times of peak demand. But critics point out that most bitcoin mining operations would likely be more inclined to just keep mining because the profits for mining would be way more than any incentive the state could offer, unless the price of electricity for bitcoin miners goes way way up. Like if Urcott said, all right, but if you want to use electricity at this peak time, it's going to cost you, you know, a thousand times more, that would pretty much drive away the very people that the state is trying to attract. So the fear is that the bitcoin miners would just keep gobbling up electricity even in high demand times and thus contribute to a situation that could result in more blackouts. We've got some more news to cover, but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. We're back over in the UK. The government has created a mandate that will require all new buildings and looting homes to include electric vehicle charge points starting next year. The UK is the first country to issue such a mandate, but it really does make a lot of sense. As we see more countries commit to switching to an electric vehicle fleet over the next decade, it becomes imperative that those countries also make sure that there's an infrastructure there to support the move. I mean, after all, like the the gasoline or petrol for those in the UK, UH, that infrastructure has been around for more than a century and so you know, there's been plenty of time for it to be built up. We're now talking about switching over to something that has a bit of infrastructure there. You know, some places are have a more dense uh population of of charging stations than others, but this is a real move to make sure that it becomes common throughout the entire nation. There's also plans that if you're making any large renovations, if you have parking space is for ten or more vehicles or I guess more than ten vehicles in your you know that building, you are also required to install some electric vehicle charging points. The UK currently plans to end the sale of new gas powered or diesel powered vehicles by people will still be allowed to buy and sell used cars that run on petrol or diesel, but all new cars starting that year will be electric vehicles. Okay, we all know that Facebook. The company changed its name to Meta and that Meta plans to launch a Metaverse product in the not too distant future. But it is not the only company itchen to get meta. Another one is Niantic. That's the company that originally started as a project at Google and then spun off to be a very successful game company. It's best known as the company behind the game Pokemon Go, but it also makes or made a few other games that incorporate augmented reality features. So at the heart of Niantics games is this kind of general philosophy that centers on getting people out into the real world to interact with the game in the virtual space. So they use technology to enhance rather than replace, our physical surroundings. So, for example, in Pokemon Go, the site of various Pokemon gems tends to correspond with interesting real world locations. So the ideas you travel to that location to play the game, and in theory, you also enjoy the physical space itself, you know, might be of some cultural significance or otherwise interesting. So the ideas you get out and about and you see stuff around that you might not otherwise ever look at. That's the idea, well, Niantics metaverse plans sound like it's an extension of that philosophy that the company will offer up an expanded a r d K that stands for Augmented Reality Developer Kit. So this will let other company needs build a R based experiences, including games, using Niantics tools. So the Niantic metaverse is a very different take than the you know, put on VR goggles and replace the real world with a digital one approach. In pursuit of that goal, Niantic has raised three hundred million dollars in funding, and that brings the valuation of the company up to nine billion bucks. When it comes to existential threats, a collision between the Earth and a large asteroid or comet or some other celestial debris is a big one. I mean, it's happened before, and statistically speaking, it will happen again. The question is really just when will it happen? Well, NASA plans to test a system called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART with a launched this scheduled for today. The launch vehicle will push a spacecraft called the DART that will use what NASA describes as a kinetic impact or technique to change the path of an asteroid traveling through space. Now, first, just to calm some nerves, the target asteroid that NASA has chosen is not one that is on any sort of collision course with Earth, so this is literally just a test to see if this method is viable. The particular asteroid Dart will aim for has the name Dimorphous, and it circles around another larger asteroid called Didimus. The Dart spacecraft will essentially slam into Dimorphous in an effort to change its path and bring it into a tighter orbit around Didimus. And you can think of this as kind of like a game of galactic billiards. The cub ball hits the target ball and that moves it out the way. There are other proposed methods of diverting the path of asteroids. Some of them require us to identify the threat very early on and then rapidly respond to it. So, for example, there's a proposal of using a spacecraft to fly by an asteroid and alter its path through gravitational attraction. So it would be kind of like towing the asteroid out of its collision course with the Earth. The gravitational attraction would be slight, but it would be enough to affect the asteroids pathway, and if you catch the asteroid far enough out from the Earth, well you only have to change its path a tiny little bit for it to completely miss the planet and you remove the threat. However, the approach that Dart takes is a more let's say, direct method to change an asteroid's path. Also, if you're wondering about the science fiction film Armageddon, in which a group of space miners and plant and explosive to destroy and incoming threat, that would not work. At best, the exploded bits would just reform in space due to that gravitational attraction I was just talking about, so they would effectively be one big thing again. But at worst you would turn what was originally kind of a bullet into a cloud of shotgun pellets. Either way, it is not a solution. Motherboard reports that NASA is looking for proposals for nuclear power plant designs. This power plant would not be located on Earth, however, but on the Moon. I find that really interesting because it raises some big questions. I mean, if we are to establish any sort of lunar base, clearly we're gonna need electrical power. So this is a problem we have to solve. But nuclear fission is a tricky solution. I mean, you do have the issue of nuclear waste and what to do with it. I assume that the Space Treaty would make it a bit tricky to justify storing nuclear waste on the Moon itself. That seems to kind of fly in the face of the spirit, if not the actual word of the treaty. But let's say that we somehow solve the waste issue. Nuclear power plants don't just magically use atoms to generate electricity. The way they were work is that you have a system of water. Typically you actually have a couple of different closed and independent systems of water. And what you do is you use the energy given off by the nuclear fission reactions to heat the water up, which then turns into steam, and that steam turns turbines that generate electricity. So, in other words, nuclear power plants are really steam generators on steroids. But that would mean that we would have to transport not just the nuclear power generator to the Moon, we also have to bring up enough water to make it work. Now there is ice on the Moon. I don't know of any proposal that would involve harvesting the ice from the Moon in order to serve a purpose in a nuclear power plant. And the reason why I say this is a big deal is that water is actually pretty darn heavy stuff to send up to space, and every pound or kilogram costs a lot of money. So that's one of the reasons that facilities like the International Space Station have such extensive risk ecling and reclamation systems in place so that no drop of water is wasted. Anyway, we're just at the request for proposal stage right now, and since the entire Artemis project has been hit with some delays due to other issues, I expect it will give us some time to debate the merits of a nuclear power plant on the Moon before it becomes a reality. Rounding out our NASA news is a somewhat discouraging story. The James Webb Space Telescope, which has had a long and arduous journey towards launch, has hit another delay. The original plan was to launch it as early as two thousand seven, but for many reasons that never happened. The plan was to finally launch the telescope on December eighteenth of this year, but now there's been another setback. While preparing to attach the telescope to the Ariana five launch vehicle, a clamp band released unexpectedly and the telescope fortunately did not tumble to the ground that would have been the end of a multidecade, multibillion dollar project, but it did vibrate like there was a shutter that went through the telescope. And because this telescope has so many delicate moving parts and potential points of failure, the fear is that that vibration could have moved something out of alignment and put the mission in jeopardy. So NASA has formed an anomaly review Board that will investigate and test the telescope to look for any damage. That should be done by the end of this week, and assuming that the board finds no evidence of damage, the plan is to launch the telescope no earlier than December twenty two. So hopefully, fingers crossed, this is not going to turn into another chapter in the long story of the telescope's difficult journey from idea to reality. Finally, the Rolls Royce Aviation Company unofficially broke some speed and altitude records for electric airplanes. Now I say unofficially because as of my recording. Those records have yet to be certified, but the electric airplane prototype named the Spirit of Innovation hit a top eat of three eighty seven point four miles per hour and a sustained speed of five point four miles per hour. That beats out the previous record, which was held by an aircraft called the Extra three three zero l E that had a top speed of two miles per hour. And you have these planes run on electric engines. They rely upon arrays of batteries to supply the juice needed to generate the force necessary to create lift and flight. But batteries are significantly less energy dense than say, jet fuel, so don't expect to see the world's airlines switch over to e vs right away. It's far more likely that electric planes might be used for very short jumps, you know, flights that last like half an hour or so. For the longer stuff, we'll have to continue to rely on fuel powered aircraft. And that is the tech News for Tuesday, November twenty one. If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle for the show is Text Stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to tex 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 I love all things tech. And this is the tech news for Tuesday, November twenty three, twenty twenty one. And just as a heads up, we will not have a news episode on Thursday because here in America that is Thanksgiving, So we will be playing our history of Cyber Monday episode on Thursday, which I feel is going to become my own annual tradition. Anyway, let's get to the news. One of the biggest stories of and mental note, I should probably remember that when I do an end of the year wrap up episode has been about Facebook internal documents that got leaked to regulators and the press, along with whistleblower Francis Hogan's testimony to various governmental bodies around the world regarding Facebook's policies and it's impact on the world. Well, now, a collection of organizations are committed to releasing those documents so that folks like you or I will be able to see them. Note uh, this presumes that you aren't already a member of one of those regulatory bodies or part of the press that received the documents. People from the American Civil Liberties Union and several universities, as well as the tech news outlet Gizmoto, are partnering to go through the documents and make them available to everyone. They plan on reviewing each document first in order to protect the privacy and security of people who might be named in those documents. They don't want to docks anyone. And also in the case of documents relating to specific countries like besides the United States, they plan on enlisting the aid of people from those countries before they decide to release the documents. So, in other words, it sounds like they are working towards establishing a responsible process when it comes to releasing all those internal documents, as opposed to just you know, dumping them on a cloud server somewhere. Facebook reps have repeatedly argued that these documents that were cited by various media outlets have been misleading and that they only play a small part in a much larger picture. And I'm not saying that the thousands of documents are a definitive repository of all things Facebook, but it might be a harder sell to defend the company should those documents prove to be as damaging as has been indicated over the last couple of months. One document that wasn't in that big leak was one that alleges Facebook executives chose to override researchers suggestions to tweak the Facebook algorithm in an effort to curb the spread of hate speech and racism. Business Insider reports that the document shows researchers had identified issues with this algorithm, pointing out how it would allow for the spread of hateful and harmful speech that predominantly targeted ethnic minorities. But because Facebook has been the target of criticism from white conservatives in the past, including powerful media outlets like Fox News, the executives that Facebook didn't want to make any changes for fear that it would seem as though the company was actively opposing white conservatives. The name of the research project was Project Wow No. Business Insider also refers to it as quote the worst of the worst end quote meaning the worst content and comments. The document apparently also indicates that Facebook's content moderation algorithms are much better at detecting and suppressing content that targets white people, but not so great when it comes to people of color. So not only did the executives nix the idea of adjusting the algorithm to protect vulnerable populations, they were supporting an algorithm that protects a group that you know, arguably really doesn't need protection to start with. The document also includes a passage that says Facebook execs, We're worried about offending conservatives who think quote hate targeted towards trans people is an expression of opinion. End quote. Now, y'all, let me just say that is a wretched, horrible thing to even think, let alone put down in an internal document. A glance at statistics like the suicide rate among trans youth will tell you straight away that targeted hate has a very real, very tragic effect on those who are targeted, and to dismiss it as an expression of opinion is so callous as to be disgusting. Then for Facebook executives to say they're worried about offending people who think that way is stomach churning. All right, I'm gonna hop off my soapbox. I know y'all don't like it, but you know I've got this platform and I feel like i'm going to use it. Another big tech news last week, Reuters reported that Amazon had been behind vigorous lobbying efforts to undermine consumer privacy protection laws in twenty five states. That's that's half of all the states for those of y'all not in the US. Now, several members of Congress are proposing a federal level of consumer privacy legislation that would apply across all fifty states. The report showed that Amazon has been working hard to whittle away, or sometimes hack away, protections that would prevent the company from harvesting vast amounts of personal data of customers and others. On top of that, Reuters has quoted a few people who say Amazon has and pretty hypocritical, paying lips service to the concept and the importance of data privacy and security in public, while simultaneously privately working to remove any barrier that would stand between the company and that precious, precious information. Amazon reps have also essentially said, Hey, we just want a nice unified privacy law so that we can have a set standard and operate that way across the United States. And on the surface you can sort of understand that, I mean each state having a different definition and standard for privacy makes operating across state borders pretty complicated. However, that doesn't explain away all the actual efforts to gut the existing state legislation. Amazon could have instead lobbied for a nationwide federal standard, so I would say Amazon's explanation is only partly true. Anyway, We'll have to wait and see what, if any legislation follows from this and show effort. There's no guarantee that anything will actually come about due to this. Let's shift over to Apple, a company that also has had a rough time PR wise in recent months. I should add, by the way, that all of these companies, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have been raking in cash by the truckload. So while it might be rough in the papers when it comes to the amount of money they're bringing in and the amount of of hikes they're seeing in share price, that that doesn't necessarily reflect the you know, the same sort of PR issues in the news. So it's it's like two different worlds. Anyway, Apple recently told the U S Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC that Apple did not use non disclosure agreements or in DA's in order to prevent people from revealing you know, acts of quote harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts in quote. So in other words, Apple was saying, we don't make people sign legal agreements to prevent the dirty laundry from getting out. But then a former Apple employee named share Scarlett filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC and then subsequently she came forward. She had previously been referred to as an anonymous former employee, and in her complaint Scarlett revealed that Apple does indeed issue in DA's at least in some cases. Scarlett worked as an engineered Apple, but she also was you know, working behind the scenes to push for changes in policy, such as a move toward pay equity among Apple employees. And when she left the company, Apple lawyers urged her to sign what if was effectively a gag order that would limit her explanation of why she left as quote, after eighteen months at Apple, I've decided it is time to move on and pursue other opportunities end quote. She shared that in d a with a company called or an organization and called NIA Impact Capital that is an activist investor organization. It holds share of Apple and it has currently been trying to force a vote among other shareholders that would make Apple reveal its use of India's and be more transparent in the future. Uh, something that I suspect the company would not be too keen on, seeing as how they just told the SEC earlier last month that they totally didn't do that. Later today, we expect to hear an announcement that Samsung will establish a new chip making plant in Taylor, Texas. That's about a stone's throw away from Austin if you can throw a stone, you know, thirty miles or so. The facility would likely build chips, not for Samsung products, but more as a business to business that has other corporations as its customers. So you or I wouldn't go out and you know, purchase a chip from this company. These chips would be going into products that other companies make. The plant is not expected to go into production for a couple of years because it's going to take time to build out the facility and attract the talent and all that kind of stuff. Apparently, the city of Taylor, Texas offered up some pretty generous tax benefits. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plant will have a nine reduction in property taxes over its first decade. There's been a recent push to bring more chip manufacturing over to the United States in the wake of the worldwide shortages and supply chain issues we've seen. Of course, the US also has these you know, pesky laws that protect people and thus make it way more expensive to build stuff over here. That's me being snarky. By the way, I am fully in favor of protecting workers, and in fact, I would actually love to see more manufacturing moved places that aren't as egregious when it comes to exploiting workers. Not saying that the United States is perfect on that regard, not by a long shot, but compared to some other countries, it's leagues ahead. Well, there are other efforts around the world to establish new manufact training facilities in order to kind of smooth things out alleviate the supply chain issues, but obviously it's going to take a couple of years for them to come online, and there's still the question of whether or not it actually ends up solving the problem, or if it just becomes another complicated cog in a very complex machine. In the meantime, we should expect more supply chain woes. Speaking of Texas, there's a development in that state that concerns me. Actually, to be fair, there are a lot of developments in Texas that concerned me, but the one I was thinking about was how the state is courting bitcoin mining operations. And this has to do with power consumption. Okay, so last year, or actually this past year, in February of Texas had some pretty massive blackouts during a particularly harsh cold front that brought temperatures way way down. And yeah, I know there are parts of the world that are way colder than what Texas got to, but you gotta remember Texas does not have the infrastructure to deal with super low temperatures. It's not common in that state. And Texas has a power grid authority called ERCOTT e R c OT. Ironically that stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and it's responsible for about nine of the state's electric load. So pretty much everything apart from say like the far west of Texas is under ARCOT. When the cold weather hit, demand for electricity exceeded ercott's capacity and ARCOTT began to implement blackouts. The price for electricity also skyrocketed at that time. It it's hard to even express how high it went. The governor of Texas said that the you know, arcot reform would be a high priority. There would have to be a full investigation, and the the agency would have to put in place preparations for uh, you know, high demand winters in the future. And the reason I bring all that up is because bitcoin mining require there's a lot of electricity. And that's because bitcoin works on a proof of work concept, uh that is, one in which computers compete against each other. They are the mining operations, and they rush to try and solve what is essentially a very hard math problem. I mean, it's kind of similar to guessing a truly huge number. Anyway, bitcoin miners, at least the successful ones, use vast networks of powerful machines in order to get to that solution first, and those machines require a lot of electricity in order to operate. So the concern is that Texas has power grid, which is already a little bit you know weak, is not up to the task of supporting those mining operations, that the state is actively trying to attract, and that this could potentially lead to similar situations like what we saw this past February. Now, the expectation is that Urcott will offer up some sort of incentive that would essentially pay bitcoin miners to not use electricity during times of peak demand. But critics point out that most bitcoin mining operations would likely be more inclined to just keep mining because the profits for mining would be way more than any incentive the state could offer, unless the price of electricity for bitcoin miners goes way way up. Like if Urcott said, all right, but if you want to use electricity at this peak time, it's going to cost you, you know, a thousand times more, that would pretty much drive away the very people that the state is trying to attract. So the fear is that the bitcoin miners would just keep gobbling up electricity even in high demand times and thus contribute to a situation that could result in more blackouts. We've got some more news to cover, but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. We're back over in the UK. The government has created a mandate that will require all new buildings and looting homes to include electric vehicle charge points starting next year. The UK is the first country to issue such a mandate, but it really does make a lot of sense. As we see more countries commit to switching to an electric vehicle fleet over the next decade, it becomes imperative that those countries also make sure that there's an infrastructure there to support the move. I mean, after all, like the the gasoline or petrol for those in the UK, UH, that infrastructure has been around for more than a century and so you know, there's been plenty of time for it to be built up. We're now talking about switching over to something that has a bit of infrastructure there. You know, some places are have a more dense uh population of of charging stations than others, but this is a real move to make sure that it becomes common throughout the entire nation. There's also plans that if you're making any large renovations, if you have parking space is for ten or more vehicles or I guess more than ten vehicles in your you know that building, you are also required to install some electric vehicle charging points. The UK currently plans to end the sale of new gas powered or diesel powered vehicles by people will still be allowed to buy and sell used cars that run on petrol or diesel, but all new cars starting that year will be electric vehicles. Okay, we all know that Facebook. The company changed its name to Meta and that Meta plans to launch a Metaverse product in the not too distant future. But it is not the only company itchen to get meta. Another one is Niantic. That's the company that originally started as a project at Google and then spun off to be a very successful game company. It's best known as the company behind the game Pokemon Go, but it also makes or made a few other games that incorporate augmented reality features. So at the heart of Niantics games is this kind of general philosophy that centers on getting people out into the real world to interact with the game in the virtual space. So they use technology to enhance rather than replace, our physical surroundings. So, for example, in Pokemon Go, the site of various Pokemon gems tends to correspond with interesting real world locations. So the ideas you travel to that location to play the game, and in theory, you also enjoy the physical space itself, you know, might be of some cultural significance or otherwise interesting. So the ideas you get out and about and you see stuff around that you might not otherwise ever look at. That's the idea, well, Niantics metaverse plans sound like it's an extension of that philosophy that the company will offer up an expanded a r d K that stands for Augmented Reality Developer Kit. So this will let other company needs build a R based experiences, including games, using Niantics tools. So the Niantic metaverse is a very different take than the you know, put on VR goggles and replace the real world with a digital one approach. In pursuit of that goal, Niantic has raised three hundred million dollars in funding, and that brings the valuation of the company up to nine billion bucks. When it comes to existential threats, a collision between the Earth and a large asteroid or comet or some other celestial debris is a big one. I mean, it's happened before, and statistically speaking, it will happen again. The question is really just when will it happen? Well, NASA plans to test a system called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART with a launched this scheduled for today. The launch vehicle will push a spacecraft called the DART that will use what NASA describes as a kinetic impact or technique to change the path of an asteroid traveling through space. Now, first, just to calm some nerves, the target asteroid that NASA has chosen is not one that is on any sort of collision course with Earth, so this is literally just a test to see if this method is viable. The particular asteroid Dart will aim for has the name Dimorphous, and it circles around another larger asteroid called Didimus. The Dart spacecraft will essentially slam into Dimorphous in an effort to change its path and bring it into a tighter orbit around Didimus. And you can think of this as kind of like a game of galactic billiards. The cub ball hits the target ball and that moves it out the way. There are other proposed methods of diverting the path of asteroids. Some of them require us to identify the threat very early on and then rapidly respond to it. So, for example, there's a proposal of using a spacecraft to fly by an asteroid and alter its path through gravitational attraction. So it would be kind of like towing the asteroid out of its collision course with the Earth. The gravitational attraction would be slight, but it would be enough to affect the asteroids pathway, and if you catch the asteroid far enough out from the Earth, well you only have to change its path a tiny little bit for it to completely miss the planet and you remove the threat. However, the approach that Dart takes is a more let's say, direct method to change an asteroid's path. Also, if you're wondering about the science fiction film Armageddon, in which a group of space miners and plant and explosive to destroy and incoming threat, that would not work. At best, the exploded bits would just reform in space due to that gravitational attraction I was just talking about, so they would effectively be one big thing again. But at worst you would turn what was originally kind of a bullet into a cloud of shotgun pellets. Either way, it is not a solution. Motherboard reports that NASA is looking for proposals for nuclear power plant designs. This power plant would not be located on Earth, however, but on the Moon. I find that really interesting because it raises some big questions. I mean, if we are to establish any sort of lunar base, clearly we're gonna need electrical power. So this is a problem we have to solve. But nuclear fission is a tricky solution. I mean, you do have the issue of nuclear waste and what to do with it. I assume that the Space Treaty would make it a bit tricky to justify storing nuclear waste on the Moon itself. That seems to kind of fly in the face of the spirit, if not the actual word of the treaty. But let's say that we somehow solve the waste issue. Nuclear power plants don't just magically use atoms to generate electricity. The way they were work is that you have a system of water. Typically you actually have a couple of different closed and independent systems of water. And what you do is you use the energy given off by the nuclear fission reactions to heat the water up, which then turns into steam, and that steam turns turbines that generate electricity. So, in other words, nuclear power plants are really steam generators on steroids. But that would mean that we would have to transport not just the nuclear power generator to the Moon, we also have to bring up enough water to make it work. Now there is ice on the Moon. I don't know of any proposal that would involve harvesting the ice from the Moon in order to serve a purpose in a nuclear power plant. And the reason why I say this is a big deal is that water is actually pretty darn heavy stuff to send up to space, and every pound or kilogram costs a lot of money. So that's one of the reasons that facilities like the International Space Station have such extensive risk ecling and reclamation systems in place so that no drop of water is wasted. Anyway, we're just at the request for proposal stage right now, and since the entire Artemis project has been hit with some delays due to other issues, I expect it will give us some time to debate the merits of a nuclear power plant on the Moon before it becomes a reality. Rounding out our NASA news is a somewhat discouraging story. The James Webb Space Telescope, which has had a long and arduous journey towards launch, has hit another delay. The original plan was to launch it as early as two thousand seven, but for many reasons that never happened. The plan was to finally launch the telescope on December eighteenth of this year, but now there's been another setback. While preparing to attach the telescope to the Ariana five launch vehicle, a clamp band released unexpectedly and the telescope fortunately did not tumble to the ground that would have been the end of a multidecade, multibillion dollar project, but it did vibrate like there was a shutter that went through the telescope. And because this telescope has so many delicate moving parts and potential points of failure, the fear is that that vibration could have moved something out of alignment and put the mission in jeopardy. So NASA has formed an anomaly review Board that will investigate and test the telescope to look for any damage. That should be done by the end of this week, and assuming that the board finds no evidence of damage, the plan is to launch the telescope no earlier than December twenty two. So hopefully, fingers crossed, this is not going to turn into another chapter in the long story of the telescope's difficult journey from idea to reality. Finally, the Rolls Royce Aviation Company unofficially broke some speed and altitude records for electric airplanes. Now I say unofficially because as of my recording. Those records have yet to be certified, but the electric airplane prototype named the Spirit of Innovation hit a top eat of three eighty seven point four miles per hour and a sustained speed of five point four miles per hour. That beats out the previous record, which was held by an aircraft called the Extra three three zero l E that had a top speed of two miles per hour. And you have these planes run on electric engines. They rely upon arrays of batteries to supply the juice needed to generate the force necessary to create lift and flight. But batteries are significantly less energy dense than say, jet fuel, so don't expect to see the world's airlines switch over to e vs right away. It's far more likely that electric planes might be used for very short jumps, you know, flights that last like half an hour or so. For the longer stuff, we'll have to continue to rely on fuel powered aircraft. And that is the tech News for Tuesday, November twenty one. If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle for the show is Text Stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.