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 how the tech are you. It's time for the tech News for May third, twenty twenty two, and let's just get into it. So in a previous episode, I talked about how we're heading towards a real bottleneck when it comes to electric vehicles because of supply chain issues. Namely, you know, more places around the world are starting to pass laws and regulations that are going to require automakers to migrate away from producing new internal combustion engine vehicles and switch to electric vehicles or maybe hybrid vehicles or even fuel cell vehicles, but mostly we focus on e vs. However, a massive challenge that faces us is that currently the world doesn't produce nearly enough batteries to make that kind of future possible. One estimate is that right now we're making around ten percent of the batteries we're going to need, assuming we do see this massive change from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. Now that doesn't mean we're stuck, but it does mean we have to put more money and effort into battery production. To that end, the US Department of Energy announced it will be granting three point one billion dollars that's billion with a B two various companies that are meant to use that money for a quote the creation of new, retrofitted and expanded commercial facilities end quote within the battery ecosystem, and that includes everything from the processing of raw materials all the way to recycling old batteries once they've reached the end of their useful life. Now, not only is this meant to give battery production of boost, it's also an attempt to bring the cost of electric vehicles down. With more R and D dedicated to battery production, the thought is that companies are going to find more efficient ways to produce more batteries, and that will bring the overall cost of production down, and ultimately those savings would theoretically pass on to customers so that electric vehicles aren't prohibitively expensive for the majority of drivers those Right now, electric vehicles are more expensive than their internal combustion engine counterparts, unless you happen to live in a place where there are a lot of government incentives to get an electric vehicle where you might get tax breaks or refunds that sort of thing. Now, I may need to do a full episode about the challenges when it comes to, you know, producing batteries at scale, because because there's a lot of um, you know, there's not just the monetary cost, but there are social and political costs as well, particularly when you start looking into things like mining the materials that we use to make batteries. A lot of those are those operations are centered in countries that have absolutely horrible human human rights records. Uh, So we're gonna probably do a full episode about that in the future. Apple continues to face opposition among EU regulators. The company now must fend off charges from the European Union regulators that Apple has restricted competitor access to its NFC chip technology found on iPhones. UH. NFC stands for near field communication, and these types of chips are used for short distance wireless communications, typically of very small amounts of data. It's UH it's ideal for something like using your smartphone as a payment device, where it sends a little bit of data to a point of payment and authorizes the payment so that it goes through. So it's NFC technology that allows for this kind of thing. These you know, when you see someone holding or if you hold your smartphone over that mobile payment space, Uh, that's the technology that allows that to happen. So closing that off means that you're effectively discouraging iPhone users from relying on any payment system other than Apple's own. If Apples is the only one that works with it, then people aren't even gonna bother using alternatives. Now, Apple reps dispute the allegations and say that Apple has quote ensured equal access to NFC while setting industry leading standards for privacy and security end quote. If the regulators conclude that Apple has restricted access to NFC and that the restriction isn't solely based off of security concerns, which is something that Apple has suggested in the past, like the reason why it doesn't open up n FC more is beca because it could it could stand as a security vulnerability. If Apple can't prove that that that's the reason why they've they've limited NFC accessibility, then hypothetically, the EU regulators could levy a fine against Apple equal to up to ten percent of the company's global revenue, which, let me see, let me check my notes is yeah, it says here a crap ton of money. Yeah whoo. Finance reports that a survey of Apple employees shows a growing opposition to the company's requirement that corporate workers return at least part time to the office. Now, I have a whole bunch of caveats I want to put out there before I go any further with this story. First, the survey was really tiny. I'm not sure how many people currently work in Apple's corporate offices, but it's famed spaceship campus is designed to allow for up to twelve thousand employees. But the survey includes just six hundred fifty two responses, So that would be less than five and a half percent of all employees, or at least all the total potential employees at Apple headquarters. And with a sample size that small, it's really not possible to extrapolate. And I'm sure you've also noticed that people who are really upset are far more likely to engage in feedback than those who are happy. Like, you know, it's just people are more prone to writing a negative response than a positive one. Positive they're just like, yeah, that was nice. Sometimes they'll they'll go to trouble but the folks who are mad, they are not shy about letting you know, So that means it's also possible that the most disgruntled employees were the ones who participated in the survey, while the UH the grunt old employees didn't bother anyway. This survey found that more than half of those who respond and did fifty six percent of them in fact, said they are looking to leave Apple explicitly because of the required return to office. So we're seeing some headlines talk about how more than half of Apple corporate employees planned to leave UH. I think we can safely say that there are a lot of Apple workers who do not like the return to office requirement. I also believe that some of them might actually be looking for work elsewhere and they do plan to leave the company. But I suspect that the total number is well below even of those who responded to the survey. I bet that a lot of the people who said they were doing that aren't really doing that, and that you know, once you expand that to the population as a whole, obviously we can't make any real determination because five and a half percent is just way too small of a size for us to base any firm belief on our estimation on um so. I've already heard predictions of a mass exodus of Apple employ ease. In fact, there was one that was supposedly going to happen in the middle of April, when people's UH share options were maturing, but it didn't happen. We didn't see a mass exodus, so I'll honestly be shocked if we do see something like that. Now. I do think some people are gonna leave, and it may even be a fairly significant number, but I don't think it's gonna be anything close to or even twenty who leave the company. I think this is more likely a case of frustrated employees attempting to send a message to management that their current policies are unpopular to say the least. Now, all that being said, if this does lead to massive employee turnover, I think the employees are in the right. We've heard a lot about Apple's culture and how it can be beyond demanding. We've also heard stories about Apple culture fostering harassment and other despicable behaviors. Whether anything changes or not remains to be seen. Currently, all eyes are on May. That's the day that Apple is going to step up it's in office policy and require corporate workers to go to the office at least three days a week. So if there is going to be something that will be a turning point, a lot of people are thinking it's going to be that. Over at Google, the company's AI division continues to court controversy in Google and AI ethicist Timnant Gebriu parted ways after gebrie published a paper about ethics and AI that Google claimed failed to meet the company's qualifications for publication, and Gebrie says that Google subsequently fired her, but the company claimed that Gebriu resigned. Now there is a reason for this apparent contradiction. Gebrew said that she pushed back against Google's objections to her paper and said that if her conditions were not met, she would resign, like this was essentially an ultimatum, and then Google subsequently accepted her resignation. Like first, Google said, we're not changing anything. We accept your resignation. And Gebrie at the time was was on vacation. She wasn't even at work, which is a big old yikes to me. And in February twenty one, David Baker, and engineer with sixteen years of employment with Google, left the company, stating that Gebber's departure was evidence that the company was actively suppressing diversity and dissenting voices within its departments. A software engineer named Venesh Canan also left, citing Gebber's treatment as one of the reasons for his decision to resign. Also in March of one, Google fired Margaret Mitchell, not the author of Gone with the Wind, but rather the other co lead of the Ethical AI Research Division. In February twenty two, Dr Alex Hannah and Dylan Baker also left Google, joining Gebra's new Distributed AI Research Institute nonprofit organization. And now Google has fired the tragic chatter Gee and my apologies for the butchering of that pronunciation. He's a scientist specializing in machine learning. He was part of a group within Google who wrote a paper pushing back on earlier research that Google published about using AI to design computer chips. His group raised concerns about the findings of the earlier research and argued that they weren't totally valid. In other words, that maybe AI isn't ideally suited for creating superior computer chip architecture. UH. He was later fired by Google. Now complicating this particular story, however, are reports that he harassed one of the authors of that original research and quote unquote impugned her work. Um. He has claimed that he was being scientifically rigorous in challenging the research and that was it. But obviously if harassment is a part of this, it does complicate things and may not fall into the general narrative of Google executives wanting AI research to follow a specific perspective and any deviation from that perspective ends up being suppressed. That's kind of what we're hearing. We're also hearing a lot from these same researchers that Google uh is overwhelmingly white in its hierarchy, and that that is also a big issue. So those are the kind of things that we're hearing from this UH. It's a very complicated topic and one that I think requires lots of investigation to see. You know, which stories are the most supported. I honestly don't know, but you know, externally, just looking in on this, it doesn't look great. It does look like Google has taken steps to kind of get rid of anyone who brought up anything that would potentially slow Google down with its deployment of AI products. But again that's just my perspective and it could be that it's off base. We have more stories to cover, but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. The Information reports that Meta Slash Facebook has plans for four different virtual reality headsets in addition to the company's work on developing an augmented reality headset. So these four headsets currently have names like Arcata, which was previously known as Project Cambria, Funston, Stinson, and Cardiff. Arcata and Funston sound like they're gonna be higher end headsets with greater resolution and the ability to do stuff like code in VR. Imagine you can wear that VR headset, you can read the text floating in front of you, and all you have to do is is wear something on your face, which is so much easier than you know, typing on a keyboard and using a computer display. Anyway, Stinson and Cardiff sound like they'll be updates to the company's Quest line of head sets, which are a tad less expensive. So on the Quest side, we're looking at hardware that costs between two and the Arcata and Fundstone levels sound like they're going to be closer to seven I'm still not entirely sold on all this, But then I'm also notoriously critical of Meta, and I have no plans to get a mixed reality headset that requires me to be an active part of Meta's ecosystem. So I admit I do have a strong bias against this. I do want to see more advanced VR and a R headsets out there. I just would prefer some that don't require me to feed yet more data to Facebook. I have no desire to be part of that machine. Now we've got a couple of podcasting related news items. First up, back to Facebook. It is shuttering its podcast platform service. And you might not know that Facebook had a pod cast platform, and it launched last year. In fact, it hasn't even been a full year since launch, and now it's shutting down. And the selling point to podcasters is the one that's the same for advertisers, namely that you know, there are a couple of billion people who have Facebook accounts, So wouldn't you just love it if your show could reach this huge audience? And yeah, that's like incredibly tempting. It's the same thing that tempted tons of content companies out there, like companies that create online content to engage with Facebook, because that looked like that was gonna be the big benefit, you know, instead of s e O, make sure that your stuff's on Facebook so that audiences find it. I'm sure a lot of podcasters were eager to jump on that opportunity, but apparently didn't work out so well. Now. I don't know the details behind all of it, but if I had to hazard a guess, just based on the way I've observed people using Facebook, I would say that when most folks or on Facebook, they're not really looking to engage in audio content like that. Like they're not likely to open the Facebook app in order to listen to a podcast. They're probably using a dedicated podcast app for that. Facebook will also be shutting down a couple of other audio related features. The one that I saw was Soundbites, which is kind of a short form audio service, so sort of like TikTok, but audio instead of video. In addition, Facebook is moving is Live Audio Rooms feature into the overall umbrella of Facebook Live. And if you're not familiar with the live Audio rooms offering, it's essentially what clubhouses, you know, the app that allows for streaming audio. Facebook is famous for imitating anything that gets buzz around it. Like, if there's anything that could theoretically take even a moment away from someone staying on Facebook, then Facebook wants to incorporate those features directly into Facebook and thus hopefully discourage people from leaving Facebook for even even a split second. Um. Unfortunately for Facebook, the buzz around clubhouse died out pretty darn fast. Like just last year, people were essentially saying that clubhouses is kind of a ghost town now, like once it once it stopped being exclusive, then people stopped wanting to be part of it, which just tells you, like people want to be part of a a an exclusive club. If a club says you're not allowed in, people really want to get in. And then once everyone's allowed in there are people are like it's not that special and they leave. Same thing happened to Google Plus, by the way. Anyway, Facebook found that making podcasting work on the platform was more trouble than what it's worth I reckon. So Bloomberg reports that Facebook will close down its podcasting platform on June three. Meanwhile, over at Spotify, the co founder of the podcasting platform, anchor Michael mcgano, has submitted his resignation from Spotify. He'll stay with Spotify until the end of June and then he's out Skis. So Spotify is obviously a big player in the podcast space. It's infamous for the incredibly lucrative and controversial deal with podcast provocateur Joe Rogan. It also went on something of an acquisition spree over the last few years, buying up companies like Anchor, Gimlet, wushaka, Megaphone, pod Sites, Charitable Podcast, and The Ringer, all of which are involved in the production, publication, marketing, ad sales, and content creation of podcasting. Spotify also has had some recent challenges in the space. Uh the company shut down its own in house podcast studio group, which internally was called Studio four. I should probably do a whole episode about Studio for, because I mean, it's it's kind of ugly. Spotify called its own podcast division Studio for because presumably Studios one through three were acquisitions like Gimlet Podcast and The Ringer. So if you work for a company that company acquires other companies and then the company says your department is fourth in line to those acquisitions, that just doesn't feel good. That's bad for employee morale anyway. Mcgono's upcoming departure follows other executives like Courtney Holt. Holt spearheaded the Joe Rogan deal for Spotify, so her departure was a big surprise, and Lydia Paul Green, who was head of Gimblet Media. Uh. I don't think this necessarily means that Spotify's podcasting division is in trouble. I do think that the company is having to reckon with some tough criticisms, mostly centered around the whole Joe Rogan situation and um and also just find a a settling point from which it can grow. Right now, a lot of the growth has been through acquisitions, which you can only continue for so long. It's not it's not something that you can sustain long term. Also in Spotify news, the company has announced it has opened an interactive space within the Roadblocks online universe called Spotify Island. And at Spotify Island, visitors can hang out in virtual venues, or they can make music like you can actually make music on Spotify Island, or of course they can purchase virtual merchandise. Because ultimately, what the metaverse really represents is ways for people to make more money. Now Apparently part of this island's offerings is a chance for musicians to connect with and thus sell their music to their audiences. I think that's kind of cool, right, Like this idea of being able to connect with artists that you really like, maybe you're able to like get rare recordings or demo recordings, that kind of stuff. I think that would be really neat and would really create a sense of community among fan bases. That could be actually really really cool thing to be part of. Um. Spotify, however, will also take a chunk of sales because you know they're facilitating those sales, so it's this isn't surprising. It's the same thing that Google and Apple do where they take a chunk of every sale that goes through their app stores. Spotify would be doing the same thing. We don't know yet how much of a chunk that would be. Um Uh. This story I found on engadget, and you know, in gadget also didn't have any any further information about what that that revenue split would be like. Roadblocks is one of those things I've really been meaning to check out. I've been hearing about it like for a couple of years now, but I've never have never actually experienced going on roadblocks at all. I know that I would probably find it really fascinating. I love this idea of user generated content, where users can create games and experiences. I'd probably put on the parental controls because I don't want to run into the weird stuff. I'm just tired of weird stuff. I'm not yucking anyone's yum. If weird stuff to your thing, more power to you. I just I don't know. I only got so many spoons, y'all, and I don't think I can use them to handle all the crazy things that people come up with that my my, my limited brain is incapable of processing. So again, more power to y'all. Let your freak flags brought fly. I just think I'm gonna be putting on those controls to preserve my own sanity. Uh. I don't know if this is in for the long haul or not. We saw a lot of similar enthusiasm around Second Life when it was first starting to gain attention. Like early on in the hype cycle of Second Life, there was this assumption that every single company in the world was going to establish a Second Life um presence, but it didn't really work out. That way, and Second Life is still a thing. It's just it's kind of faded into semi obscurity. Like there are people who still go to Second Life, but it's not nearly the massive amount of people that we were expecting it to be back when Second Life was first getting hyped up. Hopefully Roadblocks doesn't follow that same pathway. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Honestly, I'm curious to check out both Roadblocks and Spotify Island. I really want to see what kind of environment they've created and what you can experience there. I think it could be potentially pretty neat. Okay, we've got a couple more stories to cover, but before we get to those, let's take another quick break. Okay. Activision Blizzard, which I'm sure we all know, is heading towards being acquired by Microsoft, assuming regulators don't block the deal. Activision Blizzard has sent shareholders a notice about five proposals that are up for shareholder voting. This is something that happens with all companies that they'll send out to their shareholders. Hey, there's a big shareholder meeting. These are proposals that are up for vote. Uh, you know you can submit your vote, that kind of thing. The notice from the Board of Directors suggests that shareholders support three of the five proposals. Those three include approval of executive compensation, which of course they want that approved. Please let us pay our executives, those poor, poor executives, they make so few millions. And then there's also the ratification of the company's accounting firm, which is important. And finally, the election of the directors themselves is directors stand for election every so often. Uh, sometimes they stand for reelection, sometimes they'll step down and new people will new candidates will be considered. The notice also suggests that shareholders vote down to other proposals. One of those would allow for the nomination of an employee representative director, which I guess means that they Board of Directors does not want employees to have a spot at the table. I guess um, considering Activision blizzards past, that is a bad look. Uh. Perhaps an even worse look is that the fifth proposal would authorize the preparation of a report about how Activision Blizzard has been doing insofar as its effort to prevent abuse, harassment and discrimination. Uh. Yeah, that's even worse, right, Like it just looks bad because Activision Blizzard is has really gained a terrible negative reputation for having a a toxic workplace that foments harassment. Um that this has stretched back for years in the company, that prominent people in the company had been part of this, many of whom have subsequently left the company, though the CEO is still there, and the company says Activision Blizzard says that this report would just be surperfluous and it'd be a waste of time and resources because really, Activision Blizzards should just be focusing on making positive change rather than you know, dwelling on how well it's doing towards creating that change. Uh. The notice also argues that the criteria for the proposed report is really too generic and general, and that it uses metrics that aren't necessarily meaningful for Activision Blizzard. So really shareholders shouldn't support it because, according to the notice, the report wouldn't even It would be trying to measure the wrong thing. It'd be like it's it would be like if you were asked to find, uh, how much water is in a bowl and you're given a ruler. It's the wrong tool for the job. That's what the notice argues. But y'all, considering that laundry list of complaints that former and current employees have brought against the company, it really does look kind of questionable for the Board of directors to urge shareholders to vote against making such a report. Still, it's up to the shareholders themselves, and my guess is a lot of folks will just kind of vote the way the board suggests, because you've got to protect your investment, right Blich, a Swedish video game company called Embracer Group, formerly known as THHQ Nordic and then known before that as Nordic Games Publishing, is now set to acquire game companies Crystal Dynamics, Idos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal for three hundred millions smackaroos. So I actually had to cup Embracer Group. I don't remember ever seeing that name before. I know th h Q, and so I had to look it up and it turns out that, you know, Nordic Games Publishing Public purchased the assets of th h Q when th HQ was going bankrupt, then it became th HQ Nordic, then eventually would rename itself to Embracer Group, and this company has bought up a lot of various video game assets over the years, often as companies were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Those acquisitions mean that Embracer Group has a really large I P pool under its ownership, including really well known franchises like Saints Row, Borderlands, Dead Island, Time Splitters That's a throwback, and and many more. So, these new acquisitions would allow for new titles to come into that same pool, like tomb Raider and d oh Sex, among others. Now, I need to do some further digging, but it sounds like this game company is really more known for perch seeing other game companies than producing games, and I guess that's one way to do it anyway, I doos Montreal has announced that it will produce a new title in the dios X franchise, which is absolutely wild. And finally, aerospace company rocket Lab recently celebrated a partly successful attempt of a helicopter catching a descending first stage rocket. All right, so rocket Lab creates launch vehicles called Electron, and the plan is to reuse that first stage of the launch vehicle for future launches. Right cuts way, back on costs if you can reuse components. Now, in the old days of space launches, NASA would plan for the first stage to fall into the Atlantic Ocean, where you're not likely to squash somebody. But seawater can really do a number on electronics and such, So it would be much better if you could I their return the first stage too, from to where it you know it launched, which is what SpaceX does right. SpaceX uses a a an approach where it either returns to its launchpad, or it can land on a floating launchpad in the ocean, or you could catch it right. So this would greatly improve the chances you could refurbish that rocket stage for reuse because it didn't get into the saltwater. Uh, that's less for you to have to deal with now. I said that it was a partly successful attempt because while the helicopter did catch the descending rockets parachute line as planned and the rocket dangled from the helicopter, the way that the rockets settled beneath the helicopter concerned the pilot. He wasn't certain that it would be safe to land with the way that the rocket was hanging from the helicopter or that it would be safe to continue to fly, and since safety is obviously way more important than you know, a rocket stage, the pilot elected to drop the rocket into the ocean as a safety measure. However, this is a huge step toward making rocket labs approach a viable one, which could expand options beyond companies like SpaceX, which again uses you know, the the approach of trying to land a first stage launch vehicle onto a landing pad, whether on land or in the ocean. Um Both both approaches are really difficult, but it's cool to see that we've had a lot of progress made on both of them. And that wraps up this news episode of tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for topic, session cover in future episodes, please reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the show is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech 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 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 how the tech are you. It's time for the tech News for May third, twenty twenty two, and let's just get into it. So in a previous episode, I talked about how we're heading towards a real bottleneck when it comes to electric vehicles because of supply chain issues. Namely, you know, more places around the world are starting to pass laws and regulations that are going to require automakers to migrate away from producing new internal combustion engine vehicles and switch to electric vehicles or maybe hybrid vehicles or even fuel cell vehicles, but mostly we focus on e vs. However, a massive challenge that faces us is that currently the world doesn't produce nearly enough batteries to make that kind of future possible. One estimate is that right now we're making around ten percent of the batteries we're going to need, assuming we do see this massive change from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. Now that doesn't mean we're stuck, but it does mean we have to put more money and effort into battery production. To that end, the US Department of Energy announced it will be granting three point one billion dollars that's billion with a B two various companies that are meant to use that money for a quote the creation of new, retrofitted and expanded commercial facilities end quote within the battery ecosystem, and that includes everything from the processing of raw materials all the way to recycling old batteries once they've reached the end of their useful life. Now, not only is this meant to give battery production of boost, it's also an attempt to bring the cost of electric vehicles down. With more R and D dedicated to battery production, the thought is that companies are going to find more efficient ways to produce more batteries, and that will bring the overall cost of production down, and ultimately those savings would theoretically pass on to customers so that electric vehicles aren't prohibitively expensive for the majority of drivers those Right now, electric vehicles are more expensive than their internal combustion engine counterparts, unless you happen to live in a place where there are a lot of government incentives to get an electric vehicle where you might get tax breaks or refunds that sort of thing. Now, I may need to do a full episode about the challenges when it comes to, you know, producing batteries at scale, because because there's a lot of um, you know, there's not just the monetary cost, but there are social and political costs as well, particularly when you start looking into things like mining the materials that we use to make batteries. A lot of those are those operations are centered in countries that have absolutely horrible human human rights records. Uh, So we're gonna probably do a full episode about that in the future. Apple continues to face opposition among EU regulators. The company now must fend off charges from the European Union regulators that Apple has restricted competitor access to its NFC chip technology found on iPhones. UH. NFC stands for near field communication, and these types of chips are used for short distance wireless communications, typically of very small amounts of data. It's UH it's ideal for something like using your smartphone as a payment device, where it sends a little bit of data to a point of payment and authorizes the payment so that it goes through. So it's NFC technology that allows for this kind of thing. These you know, when you see someone holding or if you hold your smartphone over that mobile payment space, Uh, that's the technology that allows that to happen. So closing that off means that you're effectively discouraging iPhone users from relying on any payment system other than Apple's own. If Apples is the only one that works with it, then people aren't even gonna bother using alternatives. Now, Apple reps dispute the allegations and say that Apple has quote ensured equal access to NFC while setting industry leading standards for privacy and security end quote. If the regulators conclude that Apple has restricted access to NFC and that the restriction isn't solely based off of security concerns, which is something that Apple has suggested in the past, like the reason why it doesn't open up n FC more is beca because it could it could stand as a security vulnerability. If Apple can't prove that that that's the reason why they've they've limited NFC accessibility, then hypothetically, the EU regulators could levy a fine against Apple equal to up to ten percent of the company's global revenue, which, let me see, let me check my notes is yeah, it says here a crap ton of money. Yeah whoo. Finance reports that a survey of Apple employees shows a growing opposition to the company's requirement that corporate workers return at least part time to the office. Now, I have a whole bunch of caveats I want to put out there before I go any further with this story. First, the survey was really tiny. I'm not sure how many people currently work in Apple's corporate offices, but it's famed spaceship campus is designed to allow for up to twelve thousand employees. But the survey includes just six hundred fifty two responses, So that would be less than five and a half percent of all employees, or at least all the total potential employees at Apple headquarters. And with a sample size that small, it's really not possible to extrapolate. And I'm sure you've also noticed that people who are really upset are far more likely to engage in feedback than those who are happy. Like, you know, it's just people are more prone to writing a negative response than a positive one. Positive they're just like, yeah, that was nice. Sometimes they'll they'll go to trouble but the folks who are mad, they are not shy about letting you know, So that means it's also possible that the most disgruntled employees were the ones who participated in the survey, while the UH the grunt old employees didn't bother anyway. This survey found that more than half of those who respond and did fifty six percent of them in fact, said they are looking to leave Apple explicitly because of the required return to office. So we're seeing some headlines talk about how more than half of Apple corporate employees planned to leave UH. I think we can safely say that there are a lot of Apple workers who do not like the return to office requirement. I also believe that some of them might actually be looking for work elsewhere and they do plan to leave the company. But I suspect that the total number is well below even of those who responded to the survey. I bet that a lot of the people who said they were doing that aren't really doing that, and that you know, once you expand that to the population as a whole, obviously we can't make any real determination because five and a half percent is just way too small of a size for us to base any firm belief on our estimation on um so. I've already heard predictions of a mass exodus of Apple employ ease. In fact, there was one that was supposedly going to happen in the middle of April, when people's UH share options were maturing, but it didn't happen. We didn't see a mass exodus, so I'll honestly be shocked if we do see something like that. Now. I do think some people are gonna leave, and it may even be a fairly significant number, but I don't think it's gonna be anything close to or even twenty who leave the company. I think this is more likely a case of frustrated employees attempting to send a message to management that their current policies are unpopular to say the least. Now, all that being said, if this does lead to massive employee turnover, I think the employees are in the right. We've heard a lot about Apple's culture and how it can be beyond demanding. We've also heard stories about Apple culture fostering harassment and other despicable behaviors. Whether anything changes or not remains to be seen. Currently, all eyes are on May. That's the day that Apple is going to step up it's in office policy and require corporate workers to go to the office at least three days a week. So if there is going to be something that will be a turning point, a lot of people are thinking it's going to be that. Over at Google, the company's AI division continues to court controversy in Google and AI ethicist Timnant Gebriu parted ways after gebrie published a paper about ethics and AI that Google claimed failed to meet the company's qualifications for publication, and Gebrie says that Google subsequently fired her, but the company claimed that Gebriu resigned. Now there is a reason for this apparent contradiction. Gebrew said that she pushed back against Google's objections to her paper and said that if her conditions were not met, she would resign, like this was essentially an ultimatum, and then Google subsequently accepted her resignation. Like first, Google said, we're not changing anything. We accept your resignation. And Gebrie at the time was was on vacation. She wasn't even at work, which is a big old yikes to me. And in February twenty one, David Baker, and engineer with sixteen years of employment with Google, left the company, stating that Gebber's departure was evidence that the company was actively suppressing diversity and dissenting voices within its departments. A software engineer named Venesh Canan also left, citing Gebber's treatment as one of the reasons for his decision to resign. Also in March of one, Google fired Margaret Mitchell, not the author of Gone with the Wind, but rather the other co lead of the Ethical AI Research Division. In February twenty two, Dr Alex Hannah and Dylan Baker also left Google, joining Gebra's new Distributed AI Research Institute nonprofit organization. And now Google has fired the tragic chatter Gee and my apologies for the butchering of that pronunciation. He's a scientist specializing in machine learning. He was part of a group within Google who wrote a paper pushing back on earlier research that Google published about using AI to design computer chips. His group raised concerns about the findings of the earlier research and argued that they weren't totally valid. In other words, that maybe AI isn't ideally suited for creating superior computer chip architecture. UH. He was later fired by Google. Now complicating this particular story, however, are reports that he harassed one of the authors of that original research and quote unquote impugned her work. Um. He has claimed that he was being scientifically rigorous in challenging the research and that was it. But obviously if harassment is a part of this, it does complicate things and may not fall into the general narrative of Google executives wanting AI research to follow a specific perspective and any deviation from that perspective ends up being suppressed. That's kind of what we're hearing. We're also hearing a lot from these same researchers that Google uh is overwhelmingly white in its hierarchy, and that that is also a big issue. So those are the kind of things that we're hearing from this UH. It's a very complicated topic and one that I think requires lots of investigation to see. You know, which stories are the most supported. I honestly don't know, but you know, externally, just looking in on this, it doesn't look great. It does look like Google has taken steps to kind of get rid of anyone who brought up anything that would potentially slow Google down with its deployment of AI products. But again that's just my perspective and it could be that it's off base. We have more stories to cover, but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. The Information reports that Meta Slash Facebook has plans for four different virtual reality headsets in addition to the company's work on developing an augmented reality headset. So these four headsets currently have names like Arcata, which was previously known as Project Cambria, Funston, Stinson, and Cardiff. Arcata and Funston sound like they're gonna be higher end headsets with greater resolution and the ability to do stuff like code in VR. Imagine you can wear that VR headset, you can read the text floating in front of you, and all you have to do is is wear something on your face, which is so much easier than you know, typing on a keyboard and using a computer display. Anyway, Stinson and Cardiff sound like they'll be updates to the company's Quest line of head sets, which are a tad less expensive. So on the Quest side, we're looking at hardware that costs between two and the Arcata and Fundstone levels sound like they're going to be closer to seven I'm still not entirely sold on all this, But then I'm also notoriously critical of Meta, and I have no plans to get a mixed reality headset that requires me to be an active part of Meta's ecosystem. So I admit I do have a strong bias against this. I do want to see more advanced VR and a R headsets out there. I just would prefer some that don't require me to feed yet more data to Facebook. I have no desire to be part of that machine. Now we've got a couple of podcasting related news items. First up, back to Facebook. It is shuttering its podcast platform service. And you might not know that Facebook had a pod cast platform, and it launched last year. In fact, it hasn't even been a full year since launch, and now it's shutting down. And the selling point to podcasters is the one that's the same for advertisers, namely that you know, there are a couple of billion people who have Facebook accounts, So wouldn't you just love it if your show could reach this huge audience? And yeah, that's like incredibly tempting. It's the same thing that tempted tons of content companies out there, like companies that create online content to engage with Facebook, because that looked like that was gonna be the big benefit, you know, instead of s e O, make sure that your stuff's on Facebook so that audiences find it. I'm sure a lot of podcasters were eager to jump on that opportunity, but apparently didn't work out so well. Now. I don't know the details behind all of it, but if I had to hazard a guess, just based on the way I've observed people using Facebook, I would say that when most folks or on Facebook, they're not really looking to engage in audio content like that. Like they're not likely to open the Facebook app in order to listen to a podcast. They're probably using a dedicated podcast app for that. Facebook will also be shutting down a couple of other audio related features. The one that I saw was Soundbites, which is kind of a short form audio service, so sort of like TikTok, but audio instead of video. In addition, Facebook is moving is Live Audio Rooms feature into the overall umbrella of Facebook Live. And if you're not familiar with the live Audio rooms offering, it's essentially what clubhouses, you know, the app that allows for streaming audio. Facebook is famous for imitating anything that gets buzz around it. Like, if there's anything that could theoretically take even a moment away from someone staying on Facebook, then Facebook wants to incorporate those features directly into Facebook and thus hopefully discourage people from leaving Facebook for even even a split second. Um. Unfortunately for Facebook, the buzz around clubhouse died out pretty darn fast. Like just last year, people were essentially saying that clubhouses is kind of a ghost town now, like once it once it stopped being exclusive, then people stopped wanting to be part of it, which just tells you, like people want to be part of a a an exclusive club. If a club says you're not allowed in, people really want to get in. And then once everyone's allowed in there are people are like it's not that special and they leave. Same thing happened to Google Plus, by the way. Anyway, Facebook found that making podcasting work on the platform was more trouble than what it's worth I reckon. So Bloomberg reports that Facebook will close down its podcasting platform on June three. Meanwhile, over at Spotify, the co founder of the podcasting platform, anchor Michael mcgano, has submitted his resignation from Spotify. He'll stay with Spotify until the end of June and then he's out Skis. So Spotify is obviously a big player in the podcast space. It's infamous for the incredibly lucrative and controversial deal with podcast provocateur Joe Rogan. It also went on something of an acquisition spree over the last few years, buying up companies like Anchor, Gimlet, wushaka, Megaphone, pod Sites, Charitable Podcast, and The Ringer, all of which are involved in the production, publication, marketing, ad sales, and content creation of podcasting. Spotify also has had some recent challenges in the space. Uh the company shut down its own in house podcast studio group, which internally was called Studio four. I should probably do a whole episode about Studio for, because I mean, it's it's kind of ugly. Spotify called its own podcast division Studio for because presumably Studios one through three were acquisitions like Gimlet Podcast and The Ringer. So if you work for a company that company acquires other companies and then the company says your department is fourth in line to those acquisitions, that just doesn't feel good. That's bad for employee morale anyway. Mcgono's upcoming departure follows other executives like Courtney Holt. Holt spearheaded the Joe Rogan deal for Spotify, so her departure was a big surprise, and Lydia Paul Green, who was head of Gimblet Media. Uh. I don't think this necessarily means that Spotify's podcasting division is in trouble. I do think that the company is having to reckon with some tough criticisms, mostly centered around the whole Joe Rogan situation and um and also just find a a settling point from which it can grow. Right now, a lot of the growth has been through acquisitions, which you can only continue for so long. It's not it's not something that you can sustain long term. Also in Spotify news, the company has announced it has opened an interactive space within the Roadblocks online universe called Spotify Island. And at Spotify Island, visitors can hang out in virtual venues, or they can make music like you can actually make music on Spotify Island, or of course they can purchase virtual merchandise. Because ultimately, what the metaverse really represents is ways for people to make more money. Now Apparently part of this island's offerings is a chance for musicians to connect with and thus sell their music to their audiences. I think that's kind of cool, right, Like this idea of being able to connect with artists that you really like, maybe you're able to like get rare recordings or demo recordings, that kind of stuff. I think that would be really neat and would really create a sense of community among fan bases. That could be actually really really cool thing to be part of. Um. Spotify, however, will also take a chunk of sales because you know they're facilitating those sales, so it's this isn't surprising. It's the same thing that Google and Apple do where they take a chunk of every sale that goes through their app stores. Spotify would be doing the same thing. We don't know yet how much of a chunk that would be. Um Uh. This story I found on engadget, and you know, in gadget also didn't have any any further information about what that that revenue split would be like. Roadblocks is one of those things I've really been meaning to check out. I've been hearing about it like for a couple of years now, but I've never have never actually experienced going on roadblocks at all. I know that I would probably find it really fascinating. I love this idea of user generated content, where users can create games and experiences. I'd probably put on the parental controls because I don't want to run into the weird stuff. I'm just tired of weird stuff. I'm not yucking anyone's yum. If weird stuff to your thing, more power to you. I just I don't know. I only got so many spoons, y'all, and I don't think I can use them to handle all the crazy things that people come up with that my my, my limited brain is incapable of processing. So again, more power to y'all. Let your freak flags brought fly. I just think I'm gonna be putting on those controls to preserve my own sanity. Uh. I don't know if this is in for the long haul or not. We saw a lot of similar enthusiasm around Second Life when it was first starting to gain attention. Like early on in the hype cycle of Second Life, there was this assumption that every single company in the world was going to establish a Second Life um presence, but it didn't really work out. That way, and Second Life is still a thing. It's just it's kind of faded into semi obscurity. Like there are people who still go to Second Life, but it's not nearly the massive amount of people that we were expecting it to be back when Second Life was first getting hyped up. Hopefully Roadblocks doesn't follow that same pathway. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Honestly, I'm curious to check out both Roadblocks and Spotify Island. I really want to see what kind of environment they've created and what you can experience there. I think it could be potentially pretty neat. Okay, we've got a couple more stories to cover, but before we get to those, let's take another quick break. Okay. Activision Blizzard, which I'm sure we all know, is heading towards being acquired by Microsoft, assuming regulators don't block the deal. Activision Blizzard has sent shareholders a notice about five proposals that are up for shareholder voting. This is something that happens with all companies that they'll send out to their shareholders. Hey, there's a big shareholder meeting. These are proposals that are up for vote. Uh, you know you can submit your vote, that kind of thing. The notice from the Board of Directors suggests that shareholders support three of the five proposals. Those three include approval of executive compensation, which of course they want that approved. Please let us pay our executives, those poor, poor executives, they make so few millions. And then there's also the ratification of the company's accounting firm, which is important. And finally, the election of the directors themselves is directors stand for election every so often. Uh, sometimes they stand for reelection, sometimes they'll step down and new people will new candidates will be considered. The notice also suggests that shareholders vote down to other proposals. One of those would allow for the nomination of an employee representative director, which I guess means that they Board of Directors does not want employees to have a spot at the table. I guess um, considering Activision blizzards past, that is a bad look. Uh. Perhaps an even worse look is that the fifth proposal would authorize the preparation of a report about how Activision Blizzard has been doing insofar as its effort to prevent abuse, harassment and discrimination. Uh. Yeah, that's even worse, right, Like it just looks bad because Activision Blizzard is has really gained a terrible negative reputation for having a a toxic workplace that foments harassment. Um that this has stretched back for years in the company, that prominent people in the company had been part of this, many of whom have subsequently left the company, though the CEO is still there, and the company says Activision Blizzard says that this report would just be surperfluous and it'd be a waste of time and resources because really, Activision Blizzards should just be focusing on making positive change rather than you know, dwelling on how well it's doing towards creating that change. Uh. The notice also argues that the criteria for the proposed report is really too generic and general, and that it uses metrics that aren't necessarily meaningful for Activision Blizzard. So really shareholders shouldn't support it because, according to the notice, the report wouldn't even It would be trying to measure the wrong thing. It'd be like it's it would be like if you were asked to find, uh, how much water is in a bowl and you're given a ruler. It's the wrong tool for the job. That's what the notice argues. But y'all, considering that laundry list of complaints that former and current employees have brought against the company, it really does look kind of questionable for the Board of directors to urge shareholders to vote against making such a report. Still, it's up to the shareholders themselves, and my guess is a lot of folks will just kind of vote the way the board suggests, because you've got to protect your investment, right Blich, a Swedish video game company called Embracer Group, formerly known as THHQ Nordic and then known before that as Nordic Games Publishing, is now set to acquire game companies Crystal Dynamics, Idos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal for three hundred millions smackaroos. So I actually had to cup Embracer Group. I don't remember ever seeing that name before. I know th h Q, and so I had to look it up and it turns out that, you know, Nordic Games Publishing Public purchased the assets of th h Q when th HQ was going bankrupt, then it became th HQ Nordic, then eventually would rename itself to Embracer Group, and this company has bought up a lot of various video game assets over the years, often as companies were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Those acquisitions mean that Embracer Group has a really large I P pool under its ownership, including really well known franchises like Saints Row, Borderlands, Dead Island, Time Splitters That's a throwback, and and many more. So, these new acquisitions would allow for new titles to come into that same pool, like tomb Raider and d oh Sex, among others. Now, I need to do some further digging, but it sounds like this game company is really more known for perch seeing other game companies than producing games, and I guess that's one way to do it anyway, I doos Montreal has announced that it will produce a new title in the dios X franchise, which is absolutely wild. And finally, aerospace company rocket Lab recently celebrated a partly successful attempt of a helicopter catching a descending first stage rocket. All right, so rocket Lab creates launch vehicles called Electron, and the plan is to reuse that first stage of the launch vehicle for future launches. Right cuts way, back on costs if you can reuse components. Now, in the old days of space launches, NASA would plan for the first stage to fall into the Atlantic Ocean, where you're not likely to squash somebody. But seawater can really do a number on electronics and such, So it would be much better if you could I their return the first stage too, from to where it you know it launched, which is what SpaceX does right. SpaceX uses a a an approach where it either returns to its launchpad, or it can land on a floating launchpad in the ocean, or you could catch it right. So this would greatly improve the chances you could refurbish that rocket stage for reuse because it didn't get into the saltwater. Uh, that's less for you to have to deal with now. I said that it was a partly successful attempt because while the helicopter did catch the descending rockets parachute line as planned and the rocket dangled from the helicopter, the way that the rockets settled beneath the helicopter concerned the pilot. He wasn't certain that it would be safe to land with the way that the rocket was hanging from the helicopter or that it would be safe to continue to fly, and since safety is obviously way more important than you know, a rocket stage, the pilot elected to drop the rocket into the ocean as a safety measure. However, this is a huge step toward making rocket labs approach a viable one, which could expand options beyond companies like SpaceX, which again uses you know, the the approach of trying to land a first stage launch vehicle onto a landing pad, whether on land or in the ocean. Um Both both approaches are really difficult, but it's cool to see that we've had a lot of progress made on both of them. And that wraps up this news episode of tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for topic, session cover in future episodes, please reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the show is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech 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.