Tech News Weekly Episode 292 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, we have two great interviews planned for you. First, Jason Howell speaks to Patience Hagen of the Wall Street Journal, about Google's ad business and the Wall Street Journal investigation that looked into Howell. They may not be holding up to their terms of service and Mike owe a lot of money. Then Hugh Langley of Business Insider stops by to talk about Google killing off its Iris augmented Reality Smart glasses, and how they may shift to focusing on software for other companies hardware. Then we've got our stories of the week. First, a look at the Secret Invasion AI generated intro. Jason and I both talk about how that's maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing, and the outrage therein before we round things out with Sony revealing, well, not really revealing it itself, but having its secrets revealed in a case involving Microsoft and the ftc. Stay tuned for this episode of Tech News Weekly

TWIT Intro (00:01:06):
Podcasts you love from people you

Mikah Sargent (00:01:08):
Trust.

TWIT Intro (00:01:10):
This is Tweet.

Jason Howell (00:01:15):
This is Tech News Weekly episode 292, recorded Thursday, June 29th, 2023, the ashes of Google Iris. This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Duo. Duo protects against breaches with a leading access management suite, providing strong multi-layered defenses to only allow legitimate users in. For any organization concerned about being breached and needs a solution, fast Duo quickly enables strong security and improves user productivity. Visit cs.co/twit today for free trial

Mikah Sargent (00:01:47):
And by drta. Security professionals often undergo manual tasks of collecting evidence. With Drta, companies can complete audits, monitor controls, and expand security assurance efforts to scale. Say goodbye to manual evidence collection and hello to automation. All done at drta speed. Visit drta.com/twit to get a demo and 10% off implementation.

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Listeners of this program get an ad-free version if they're members of Club twit. $7 a month gives you ad-free versions of all of our shows Plus membership in the club. Twit Discord of Great Clubhouse for twit listeners. And finally, the twit plus feed with shows like Stacy's Book Club, the Untitled Linux show, the GIZ Fizz and more. Go to twit tv slash club twit and thanks for your support.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:39):
Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am one of your hosts, Micah, Sergeant

Jason Howell (00:02:49):
And the other guy Jason Howell. I'm realizing we, we've got a similar like white kind of shirt color, but I forgot the memo on the, like dressing up like super casual and I guess you're casual, but it's a dressed up casual. Yeah. So I think I need to step up my game. What's casual? Yeah, <laugh>. Anyways, you're looking super sharp. Oh, thanks. I wish I was looking a little bit sharper. Nonetheless, let's dive into the actual reason that we are here, which is technology news. And we've got a couple of great interviews for you and some awesome stories of the week later. Let's start with Google's ad business under increasing scrutiny in I'd say the last few years, especially now new research showing that Google hasn't been doing a very good job of following its own agreed to standards for ads that are playing on third party sites and a whole lot more. Joining me to walk through the claims made in the report that we're gonna be talking about today is Patience Hagen, who wrote about this story for the Wall Street Journal. Welcome to the show, patience. We appreciate you.

Patience Haggin (00:03:49):
Thank you so much for having me on.

Jason Howell (00:03:50):
Absolutely. It's great to get you here. So let's maybe set the stage a little bit. Tell us a little bit about what kinds of ads, well, first of all, what is this report? Who did it and what kinds of ads are they focused on? You know, Google apparently made some promises here and they're not following through. What are those promises?

Patience Haggin (00:04:12):
This report focused on a particular kind of ad that's sold along with YouTube ads. Youtube's owned by Google and Google sells these bundles that include both ads on YouTube and video ads that run on third party sites. But as part of the the bundle, they're promise that the ads on those sites will run in an environment similar to videos on YouTube. And so it comes with a bunch of promises that they run on like premium sites, that these ads only appear before the page's main video content and the ads are skippable and that they'll be audible. Those are, those are some of the promises. And I wrote about a report that found that in many cases those promises are not kept and these ads the advertisers paid a premium price for are actually running on sites that, that violate a lot of those standards.

Jason Howell (00:05:04):
Well, in the report like the, the number of, I don't know if you call them infractions or number of incidences that were discovered is super high. This isn't just like a, a small amount. I think it was somewhere in the 80% range. When you say videos similar to video or ads similar to videos on YouTube, is it that, like, like is it the, the fact that they like play audio up or what, what ma what exactly makes them similar to what you find on YouTube and the YouTube experience?

Patience Haggin (00:05:37):
It's audio up and one of the most important characteristics is that it's on the page's main content. Like it's not in some video player that's off to the side that the user doesn't wanna see. It's supposed to be on content that the user came to that page to watch and initiated watching. And the ad is supposed to be skippable so users have the right to skip it if they choose. And what this researcher found over and over again is that you know, in 80% of cases, one of those promises wasn't kept 80%. Very often it was playing in a player that was like off to the side of the page probably where the user would never look not on top of the content that they team there to watch.

Jason Howell (00:06:18):
Wow. So I guess what strikes me about this is, you know, we, we run a podcast network here. We work with sponsors and advertisers, and we know firsthand that sponsors and advertisers are very aware of how their ads are being done. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, <laugh>, they're very interested in it, right? If they're paying money for, for these ads, they wanna know that things are happening the right way. Has any of this been talked about prior to this? Like any, any advertisers with YouTube and Google that have noticed and reported this ahead of this report? Cuz 80% seems like a lot to go unnoticed until now, I guess is my point.

Patience Haggin (00:06:55):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this, this kind of error hadn't been found before. This interesting. It no one had really scrutinized these ad buys in such a comprehensive way as this researcher did. He examined tens of millions of them and found that they violated Sanders 80% of the time. Of course, over the years, Google has had numerous incidents where buyers found flaws on how their ads were being placed, for instance, like they bought ads on YouTube, but they're running on controversial YouTube channels, or the ads are running on controversial sites. Yeah. But what makes this report kind of a, like a big c change from that is the fact that it, it appears to be so systemic and that this happened on probably Google's most expensive, most premium ad product. You know, people are paying for the most premium type of ad and they're getting kind of a cheap value, low value add that, that they would pay a lot less for.

Jason Howell (00:07:52):
Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Now, you also report that the journal also spotted similar activity. What can you share about those findings? Like how did the journal go in to kind of verify some of this stuff and what exactly did you find?

Patience Haggin (00:08:08):
I visited sites that were part of Google's network for these ads, Google Video Partners, and I was able to replicate the same error. I was able to see that they ads were running in in players that violated the standards, and I was able to verify that they were ads purchased through the same program by examining the code.

Jason Howell (00:08:27):
Okay. Okay.

Patience Haggin (00:08:27):
So was, yeah, I was able to kind of independently confirm the phenomenon and see that high value ads were running in low value placements.

Jason Howell (00:08:34):
Yeah. Just it, it blows my mind that this wasn't wasn't obvious prior to, it seems like a pretty, it seems like a pretty obvious thing to spot and especially on the side of the advertiser, but here we are. Has it, was there any confusion, like on the way that Google is spelling out kind of what it is promising, I mean, how, well, I guess how, how is Google responding to this or, or, you know, YouTube as far as these specific claims in this report are concerned? How are they reacting to that?

Patience Haggin (00:09:05):
They called the report inaccurate, and they said that it, that they, they weren't too specific about which of the findings were inaccurate, but they, they suggested that the sampling was wrong. They think that that maybe he, that maybe that 80% stat is wrong, but they didn't deny you know, they didn't, they didn't deny the specifics of it. They didn't deny that these premium ads are running in low value spots. Mm-Hmm. They didn't say specifically which claims they considered inaccurate. And Google's been taking calls from a lot of advertisers the past few days who were demanding answers about it. When it comes to, like, did brands know where their ads were gonna run? That's one thing I learned while I was reporting this story, that many of the brands who buy these ads don't necessarily realize they're not all gonna run on YouTube. Yeah. Since it's sold as part of a bundle. Yeah. It's sold as part of a bundle with YouTube ads and advertisers actually in most cases, they have the chance to opt out of having these ads on third party sites, but they usually don't. And many of the buyers buying them didn't even realize that it, that it was a bundle, that it wasn't just exclusively YouTube ads and in sales pitches for this product. Google doesn't really emphasize that third party sites, they just emphasize it as a YouTube product.

Jason Howell (00:10:26):
And yet it sounds like so many of these are ending up on the third party sites and not YouTube, the kind of the premium product. So you mentioned that advertisers are kind of reaching out to Google. That was certainly a question that I had. How are they responding, like when a report like this happens, and especially as like a very, like condemning report 80% is no small number. Like, what is the influence or the power that a report like this could have on Google going forward? I mean, is it just that advertisers respond Google makes changes or could it be something more significant, something on like a federal level getting involved? Where are we at right now?

Patience Haggin (00:11:06):
Well, it's gotten it's definitely gotten the interest of some in federal government. You know, interestingly enough, the ad campaigns that were affected by this included a number of political ad campaigns like for senators and other politicians. So these findings have been very much of interest to senators like Mike Lee and other senators who, who have found out that their own ads were were their own ad buys. Were violating standards this way. So we're already hearing from senators and other government agencies who are really interested in this. You know, at the very least, they might be joining the course of advertisers who are demanding information and potentially demanding refunds. If, you know, if adds to any of the pending investigations into Google, that could, you know, that could add yet another wrinkle. It's giving people another reason to question whether you know, whether Google's just gotten too big and whether Google's too powerful when it comes to the online ad market.

Jason Howell (00:12:09):
Yeah, I think that's what makes this particularly compelling at this moment, is that there is this, this big wave of attention placed on companies like Google to really look into the business that they're doing that, that largely we've, I think, you know, many people have just taken for granted over the years and like, oh yeah, that's just, that's how they do business. I mean, it's a big, you know, it's a big thing and it's a big company and whatever. And then now that attention has really shifted. So a report like this could really feed into that sentiment and impact things. I, I know certainly in the eu, you know, they're probably watching this pretty closely, but also in the US and, and other markets, it seems kind of like the ripe time for something like this. If someone has that as a goal in mind to really crack down on what Big tech is doing.

(00:12:58):
Well, this is fascinating stuff. We're def certainly gonna continue watching this cuz I think this, you know, we continue to talk about this topic on the show because so much is happening right now in the, in the face of regulation around companies like Google. So we'll certainly follow along and patients, I wanna thank you for joining us to talk about your work on, on reporting on this report, as well as kind of invest doing your own investigation on a deeper level. Patients Haggin writes for the Wall Street Journal, wsj.com. If people wanna follow you online, where can they find you patients?

Patience Haggin (00:13:30):
On my Twitter patient page.

Jason Howell (00:13:32):
Right on. Excellent. Thank you so much. Patience. We'll talk to you soon.

(00:13:37):
Take care. All right, coming up next, I'm super interested in this Google's AR strategy and how it, oh, how it's shifted over the years continues to unfold in predictably Google fashion, I think right now. Yeah. Yep, yep. It's kinda like, oh, here we go again. <Laugh>. So buckle up. We're gonna get to that in a moment. First, this episode, tech News Weekly is brought to you by Duo. Duo protects against breaches with a leading access management suite, strong multi-layered defenses and innovative capabilities that only allow legitimate users in and as well, keep the bad actors out. That's what you really want, right? For any organization concerned about being breached that needs protection Fast Duo quickly enables strong security while also improving user productivity. Duo prevents unauthorized access with multi-layered defenses and modern capabilities that thwart sophisticated malicious access attempts, increased authentication requirements in real time when risk rises.

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Mikah Sargent (00:15:27):
Micah. Alright, so yes, in typical Google fashion, why we have heard about a upcoming Sunset setting, potentially a cancellation, a killing, an ending, a shuttering. There are a number of verbs we could use to describe Google's plans with its ar mixed reality vr hardware. Joining us today to talk about what's going on is Hugh Langley, who writing for Business Insider, has an inside look at what may have happened to Google. Iris welcome to the show, Hugh.

Hugh Langley (00:16:15):
Hey guys, thanks for having me.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:16):
Yeah, it's a pleasure. So I think it's important that we start with the basics. I was hoping you could first tell us about Google's Iris Smart Glasses before this most recent news about the cancellation. What had Google planned to offer leading up to this point, and how did that project compare to the now infamous Google Glass?

Hugh Langley (00:16:40):
Yeah, so Project Iris is a kind of code name for a, a series of devices they were working on, but fundamentally all the same idea that they would be smart glasses. And to your point about Google Glass, you know, I think Google Glass, we all agree, looked a little bit weird. It didn't look like actual glasses. And what they wanted to do was kind of create something that looked a bit more like a regular pair of spectacles. So Iris was the plan to do that. It was gonna be using augmented real reality technology, so you would see projections on the glass. The project itself ran through various iterations. They, they, they took several attempts at, at building a kind of pair of smart glasses and it didn't work out. And not too long ago they decided to shelve it for the time being, at least.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:27):
Now when you say they decided to shelve it it's my understanding that insider that you sort of have more knowledge about this cuz I, I pointing out just yesterday, or maybe it was even this morning, I saw a bunch of different articles talking about this, but you at least have sources familiar with the matter, correct?

Hugh Langley (00:17:48):
Yeah, that's right. So I, I, I know some certain people inside the company some who's still there and some who have left who were close to the project. It's been running for, I mean, maybe more than a year now. They've been working on Iris from sort of late 2021 maybe to sort of early 2022. It started really getting off the ground. They s showed up a lot of talent. They hire they acquired a Canadian startup named North. They made a pair of smart glasses themselves called the Focals. I don't know, you, you guys may have used them mm-hmm, mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. they created a little bit of buzz at the time and Google bought them effectively to, to, to shore up these AR efforts. And another AR company as well called Rium. So they really kind of went, they, they got pretty serious about this for, for a while at least. Yeah. and they took several, you know, like I said, the, the project itself went through several iterations. Ultimately the technology was just proving too difficult for them to make something out of, you know, they wanted to turn this into a consumer product. But it was just, it was just too difficult. They took too many pivots and then they just decided to kill it.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:51):
Yeah. So you, you're kind of describing there my next question, which I, I'm kinda curious what as far as, you know, led to the cancellation of the project. And I know some people are out there, they're gonna be wondering did Google's decision to kill Iris have anything to do with Apple's newly announced Apple Vision Pro headset? Because we saw Facebook or Meta preemptively announce its next headset right before Apple went on stage and announced theirs. So you see in this space in particular, a lot of companies reacting to the news of this new sort of ultra premium headset. Why, why is Google getting out of the game and does any of it, in your opinion, or from what you've learned, have anything to do with that Vision Pro?

Hugh Langley (00:19:40):
Yeah, so inevitably, you know, all companies looking into what Apple's doing, there was certainly fear inside Google for the last year or longer even that, you know, Apple's cooking is something up really good. They, they are. So there's another product that Google is working on in tandem and has been working on which it actually announced earlier this year. It's a partner product with Samsung. So Samsung's actually gonna build it and Google's gonna offer the software, but it's going to be a kind of, they're calling it XR goggles. And I think from what I've heard, that's gonna be a little more aligned with what Apple's doing with the Vision Pro. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> while Iris was a pure augmented reality on a very sort of felt pair of smart glasses, which is pro, you know, that presents a lot of technological hurdles.

(00:20:26):
So to answer your question about why they kind of killed it you know, they were really struggling with the technology for a long time. There was a lot of pivots with what it should do. I dunno if you guys remember, but last last year at Google io, they actually showed off a pair of glasses running a translation feature Yep. In a kind of a cool demo that was actually Iris, they didn't say it, but that was, that was a version of Iris they were working on. So they, they had these really interesting ideas, but they just couldn't make it stick. I think they pivoted a couple of times after that. Then earlier this year clay Beaver, who was leading their VR and AR efforts for many years left the company. They did layoffs at the company. They reshuffled a bunch of teams, and then after that I'm told it just kind of, it just kind of petered out.

Mikah Sargent (00:21:13):
Oh wow, okay. Yeah. That, that that would lead to the cancellation for sure. Now you did mention that Google is, or was working on ski Goggle style mixed reality product, and I think originally we thought that or people who were paying attention to this thought that Google was making it internally, but now we know that this is something that is from Samsung. Did Samsung already announced this he headset goggle deal? Or is this still kind of something that's under wraps, but people are just aware of?

Hugh Langley (00:21:49):
They Google and Samsung did a press conference earlier this year I think right at the start of February, if I remember correctly. And they announced this partnership that they were working on this product, but they really didn't reveal very much. They talked a little bit more about it at io, but it's, it's a, it's pretty under wraps right now. Now at, in terms of what was happening in Google there was a kind of prototyping project that's been going on for a long time, maybe a year a bit longer than that to that, that became the kind of foundation of what this was. But ultimately Google made the decision that its strength was in software and it felt like making a software play was smarter. So in terms of the Samsung headset Google will be providing an Android kind of software experience to that.

(00:22:35):
Samsung will be building the headset itself, and I believe Qualcomm is providing the chips. Mm. So that's kind of what this tie this to the Iris stuff as well. This is kind of Google's, you know, when they kinda killed Iris, the, the, the change in thinking was we need to be a software player in this. Now that may change down the road, but I think, you know, they want to be in on this game. No one wants to be out. You've just talked about what Apple's doing. You know, this is, you know, meta are reportedly working on, you know, they've got other headsets, but also glasses, you know, no, no one wants to be left out here. So, so Google needs to play in it and I think they see themselves as being a kind of Android for AR xr is a, is a smarter play, at least for now. And then we'll see what happens.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:15):
So that almost falls in line with what Google does at this moment, where any, you know, company can make the, the hardware and sort of make use of the Android platform given that understanding. Do we, do you have any insight into, if it will look like the Android marketplace looks now in terms of, if I'm Samsung, I'm running Android on my device, but I'm adding all of these customizations and if I'm I, you know, one of the other players, one plus, then I'm, you know, running the, I think they're Oxygen os or whatever any insight into if it's going to be like a pure mixed reality Android experience on these third party hardware platforms? Or if it's gonna be kind of, cuz I think of, of of what Microsoft does with Windows where, you know, there's lots of different hardware, but they're all running Windows, 10 Windows whatever it happens to be at this point. More like that or how things are as it stands.

Hugh Langley (00:24:19):
Yeah, it, it's early days and it's hard to say. Google itself has not said much either publicly. What I do know from chatting to people at the company is this isn't just Samsung, they're interested, they are making a play to be a platform provider for anyone who will be a partner to them. Mm. So similar to Android, right? So they made this big splash announce with the Samsung. That makes sense. Samsung's obviously a legacy partner for Google. They have history even in the VR space as well. I think, you know, it's hard to say, but I, I will say, I know that Google wants this to be a platform that anyone can kind of jump aboard with. And that's, that's the, that's the one they're working on at the moment for these XR goggles as as well, which I reported in the story this week that they are still working on a sort of more lightweight version of that for companies that want to build something more like Iris, something more like those kind of slim, slimmer down glasses.

(00:25:16):
So they're trying to really hedge their bets a little bit. You know, it's hard to say how, how this market's gonna play out. We do know Apple is also working on AR glasses that were more like Iris. They are, according to some great reporting from Bloomberg struggling with the technology there as well. It's very hard to get this te technology shrunk down. We also know from some information from reporting from the information that Meta is also very kind of deep into work on these glasses as well and, and may even seed a version of these two developers as soon as next year. Mm. so, so there's, there's this, there are the, there's the heads, the mixed reality experience, which we saw Apple kind of come out the gate with very compelling idea, but there's also a belief among the companies still that there will be a desire for something that's maybe a bit more lightweight, maybe a bit more pure augmented reality. So Google is a, as far as last I heard sort of playing to both of those at the moment.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:09):
Yeah. And then I guess the last question is did they put Iris and the hardware prototypes into the incinerator <laugh> or it's gone forever? Or is it stashed away in a sort of I don't know, nitrogen vault somewhere where it even, essentially what I'm asking is, could we see the return of this Iris hardware somewhere down the line based on, you know, your understanding of how done this project is?

Hugh Langley (00:26:38):
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. There is a, there is a vault of sorts. I'm not sure if nitrogen's <laugh>, but it's certainly it's certainly Google is is known to kind of shell things and, and put them on ice. There's absolutely a chance Iris could come back. And what I do know from speaking to people inside the company is some teams were reshuffled into other parts of their hardware division and are still exploring AR technologies. So, you know, from the ashes of Iris could come another Iris or something similar. They certainly, they certainly, like I said previously, they, they know, they know this is a space that is heating up. So Iris is toast. But I, I do think, you know, they, they still got some of the best brains in, in, in this area in the AR X R VR space, whatever you wanna call it. So if they can hold onto that talent, then, then who knows? So I wouldn't say it's, it's, it's, it's done, done. You know, Google could resurrect this idea down the line, but I think for now they just see themselves as being the, the, the platform rather than the, the headset maker at this stage for at least for the glasses.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:41):
Yeah. You know, honestly, now I just wanna plan a heist to get Google Reader out of the Vault

Jason Howell (00:27:46):
<Laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:47):
So I'm working on that. But no, thank you so much for your time today. Of course, folks should head over to business insider.com to read this excellent reporting. But if folks wanna follow you online and make sure they're staying up with what you've got is there a place or a few places they should go to do that?

Hugh Langley (00:28:04):
Yeah, best Place is probably follow me on Twitter just at Hugh Langley or one word pretty easy. That's probably place you'll see me share most of my stories.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:14):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Hugh Langley (00:28:17):
Thanks so much guys.

Jason Howell (00:28:18):
Before you go any further, Google Reader killed 10 years ago. Oh. So it's now a decade. It's a

Mikah Sargent (00:28:23):
Decade.

Jason Howell (00:28:23):
You lived a decade without Google Reader

Mikah Sargent (00:28:25):
At this point. I don't know how I've made it this far. <Laugh>,

Jason Howell (00:28:27):
I don't know how any of us have.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:29):
Goodbye Google Reader. I love you. Up next we're going to get to our stories of the week. But first, this episode of Tech Newsweek Weekly is brought to you by drta. I have a question. Is your organization finding it difficult to collect manual evidence and achieve continuous compliance as it grows in scales? As a leader in cloud compliance software by G2 Drta streamlines your SOC two ISO 27 0 1 pci I dss, gdpr, hipaa, and other compliance frameworks providing 24 hour continuous control monitoring so you can focus on scaling securely with a suite of more than 75 integrations. Drta easily integrates through applications such as aws, Azure, GitHub, Okta, and CloudFlare. And countless security professionals from companies, including Lemonade Notion and Bamboo HR have shared how crucial it has been to have drta as a trusted partner in the compliance process. You can expand security assurance efforts using Theta platform, which allows companies to see all of their controls and easily map them to compliance frameworks to gain immediate insight into framework overlap.

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Jason Howell (00:32:11):
<Laugh>? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting sign of the Times. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I love it. Also, by the way, I just looked it up Google Reader killed July 1st, 2013. So literally two days from now. My goodness. It's the 10, 10 year anniversary. I'll have

Mikah Sargent (00:32:27):
To pour one out.

Jason Howell (00:32:28):
That's right. That's right. There you go. All right. We can all feel sad on that day. I suppose <laugh> right from the jump, I will just fully admit I'm not really a comic book guy. I realize on a network where I'm surrounded by people who are comic book people, that's maybe a little dangerous to admit. But, you know, it's just was nothing that I was really into when I was a kid and that didn't really translate into my adulthood and everything. So on the surface, a story about a new Disney plus Marvel show mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it's called Secret Invasion. It wouldn't normally like captivate me or grab my attention, but then generative AI got involved Uhhuh, and now I'm really interested in the story. So last week, this show, this new show called Secret Invasion launched this first episode on Disney Plus.

(00:33:14):
I actually have to say that the plot sounds interesting to me. It's a story of this like in Slow Motion Invasion of Earth by shapeshifting Aliens. Aliens that you don't know that they're there, but they are kind of actually, what was that eighties horror movie. They live That's right. They live, they Live was a similar, similar plot point there too. Great movie, by the way. I'm guessing there's lots of Marvel action. I'm guessing there's lots of superhero stuff in there, and I'm sure it's all great. But it came out of the gate with a little bit of controversy because the opening title sequence, have you seen the opening title sequence of this? I've seen pieces of it. I'm also of it, I was wondering if we could show it super into, but oh yeah, this is it.

(00:34:00):
And as you, and so I apologize for audio listeners, but video listeners, you should definitely go online, find the trailer for it. And if you've been following generative AI at all and kind of the progression of this as related to art and animation and everything, you are gonna recognize it immediately. Like it, it really does. Either they were trying to make it look like generative AI animation mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, or they actually used generative AI to do this. So so it you know, it has this title sequence obviously has generative AI as the kind of the D N A, regardless of how it was done. People started to really notice this. Right. and, you know, when you're watching the, the the intro, I think what a lot of people jump to is, okay, wait a minute. This is a Marvel property.

(00:34:54):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this is usually employed by teams of people to create motion graphics for, you know, these things. In historically speaking, this is the way it's been, and yet here we are, this major property being generated by ai. Oh, no. You know, it's, it's the it's it's the story of they're, they're taking our jobs essentially is, is what it is. People which is kind of the plot of the, the show too. Well, hey, we're taking over. That's an interesting kind of correlation between the two. I actually wonder if there's any, if somebody thread clever about it Yeah. Of kind of connection there as far as making a statement or of, of about, or whatever. Many people were concerned that this high profile studio property was utilizing generative AI instead of relying on its artists

Mikah Sargent (00:35:46):
Right. In the middle of a strike.

Jason Howell (00:35:48):
Right in the middle. Yeah. Right. So, Hollywood's not in a great spot to begin with. And then this launches let's see here. So it's driven by that fear of, of like, AI is gonna come in, it's gonna change everything, put people out jobs, make the rich even richer. All that kind of stuff I think is, is what people have responded to. Right. Method Studios provided a statement to the Hollywood reporter <affirmative> that read, and I'll quote, AI is just one tool among the array of tool sets our artists used, no artists' jobs were replaced by incorporating these new tools. Instead they complimented and assisted our creative teams so that the entire opening relied upon traditional work of the art department in, in, in their interpretation, did utilize some of the existing custom AI tools to create parts of the characters, the movements shown in the intro, but still required the designers to be involved. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it's not just like, create me an intro to a Marvel show.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:48):
Yeah. It wasn't the, the director going and sitting down with the computer and

Jason Howell (00:36:51):
You're saying, yes. And in fact, I'm happy you mentioned that because Director Ali Sle, I hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly talked about this process and I thought it was kind of adorable actually, the way he talks about it. But I think it's also kind of representative of how how vague some people's understanding or knowledge about the process of generative AI actually is. He said, quote, we would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something <laugh> and then we could change it a little bit by using words. Oh. And it would change <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:24):
Oh,

Jason Howell (00:37:25):
I just thought that was, like I said, it was just kind of adorable that the director of this project was speaking like,

Mikah Sargent (00:37:31):
I go buddy,

Jason Howell (00:37:31):
Kinda like a child would talk about generative ai. Anyways, I think for me, this, this was interesting because it really comes around to a few things. Primarily. One, do we believe them at their word if they're saying that this was AI used in concert with its artists to create something new and fresh and timely, like I, I believe them at their word as far as that's concerned. I feel like we would've heard from designers maybe, and maybe I'm missing it somewhere out in internet land, that designers who felt like they were harmed by this, like, would we hear from them even even as like designer like designers close to, or what, what would they say? Familiar with the matter? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Designers familiar with the matter. Right. But, but I don't feel like we're hearing that.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:17):
I Yeah. I, so I haven't seen anything yet. Yeah. But what I feel like happened here is that the people, because you, you gather your, this is not something that just came out yesterday or, you know. Yeah. This is something that's been in the works for quite a long time. Sure. And you've, you gather your team and you, you, the people, the producers, the folks who are making this, they're going through a process that is almost always kind of at the very least, it's templatized. Right. It doesn't all happen happen to be locked in place. Right. Right. But there's a standard process that you tend to follow mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So they gather the, the teams, they gather the vfx artists that they want to work with, that they've worked with before. And it probably was like in later on down the line in a pitch meeting, someone said, oh, you know, what we could do is use generative AI as part of this thing because it'll give the, you know, it's

Jason Howell (00:39:14):
Very, now it's very

Mikah Sargent (00:39:15):
Current. It's very current. And then we'll be able to, you know, sort of put that out there in the press that this is part of it and it's just it all. Yeah. It's like any company that wants to suddenly say we're using generative AI too. Yeah. Yeah.

(00:39:28):
I don't think the concern should be on this and that it was taking people's jobs. I think we have to look at the next five, 10 years where up to this point it's been templatized, but the next group that is looking for how they're going to create their intro, that at that point there could be jobs lost. You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I don't see this company, especially Marvel, especially Disney, going, well, we can just do it with this, so we're gonna fire this team that we've already lined up to do this. Right, right. I'm sure it was that team that was lined up to do this, that decided to use generative AI as part of their process. Yeah. But in the next five years, will then those producers go, oh, you know, we've gotta redo this part, but we don't need to hire that VF x company that we've used in the past. We can just have one of our in-house VFX artists have the help of AI to pull this off, or something like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So I think if the focus of the anger is on the loss of jobs here, then in everything that I'm seeing and everything that I understand, that's misplaced. But a general concern about how that could impact future jobs, I think is fair.

Jason Howell (00:40:40):
Yeah. I, and I think it's worth, it's worth exploring. Absolutely. At the same time, how much do you dial back now to protect something that has not happened? Am am might not happen. You know what I mean? Yeah. and I think you know, Jeff Jarvis on on this week in Google has talked about this in, in recent weeks, and he has a name for it. What is it? It's a, it's something about, there's a particular in, in the realm of ai, and I know I wrote it down somewhere, but it's in, in buried in a million different notes. There is this kind of like general kind of understanding among like, let's just say AI bros. Where everything is hyper hype, hyper-focused around now, doesn't matter. It's then that matters most. And so even if we have to sacrifice now Oh yeah. For the good of later, that's the right approach. And I'm, and so I, I see some similarities between these, these things like what you're talking about and that they're, obviously, they're coming from different perspectives, but how deeply do we now concern, like, concern and, and shut off the spigot on things like this when we don't know where it leads?

Mikah Sargent (00:41:52):
And I almost feel like that's not realistic anyway.

Jason Howell (00:41:55):
No, no, no. I totally

Mikah Sargent (00:41:56):
Agree. Like I hate to be the negative Nelson here about it, but, or even the, the cynical Cindy about it. But the fact is the AI cat is outta the AI box. Yeah. And AI Stroger has already made the decision. Mm-Hmm. right. You know, like we can be upset about it. But here's again, the cynical Cindy is the fact that is our griping really gonna make a difference?

Jason Howell (00:42:25):
Yeah. What does it lead to? Long, long-termism is the

Mikah Sargent (00:42:29):
Term. Oh, long-termism

Jason Howell (00:42:30):
Interesting. And if you hear him talking about long-termism, that's kind of the idea behind it, is that the sacrifices we make now, be it people's safety, you know, all these different things for the

Mikah Sargent (00:42:42):
Sake of what's going happen

Jason Howell (00:42:43):
For the sake of, of the future. Right. Exactly. Like, like the, the pain that we're experiencing now doesn't matter because it saves lives. Then that sort, know, whats a shame

Mikah Sargent (00:42:50):
About that is that is an incredibly difficult thing to get humans to do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> is to think about helping out the future mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, because we, by our very nature of, of thousands and thousands of years have been so focused on not only the now but ourselves.

Jason Howell (00:43:09):
How do you even change that? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:10):
It's kind of wild that there is a group that's using that as a focus for something like ai. If instead we had that focus on climate change. Oh,

Jason Howell (00:43:19):
Totally. Right. Like, if

Mikah Sargent (00:43:20):
We could sacrifice now for the sake of the future Right. In that way, we, it would change everything. Yeah. That would, but instead it's like the, the oddest things that we choose to go. Totally. Well, it doesn't matter if it impacts people now. Cause we're trying to

Jason Howell (00:43:31):
Help. Yeah. Right.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:32):
Come on.

Jason Howell (00:43:34):
Right. That's an aside. But it is interesting though.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:37):
Long-Termism.

Jason Howell (00:43:38):
Long-Termism, yeah. Worth, worth. I, I need to set aside some time and, and look into it and research it. I spoke with Jeff Jarvis yesterday about, well, I'm, I'm working on an AI show for for launching in the club here in sometime in the near future and probably gonna be doing that with Jeff Jarvis. He's very interested in getting on board, but we were talking about this whole thing yesterday morning, and he brought that up as something that he's been doing a lot of research and how there's a lot of, there's overlap in like the AI bro contingency and this idea of long-termism that now sacrifice for now doesn't matter as much as what it, what we get to down the line. So, so there's some relations, some correlation there, but yeah. So anyways interesting story. Kind of a interesting moment when it comes to generative ai mm-hmm.

(00:44:26):
<Affirmative>, because this was bound to happen eventually, that some ba major studio would use this, this technology in this way. And they of course had to know that once that intro went public, cer certain people were gonna notice certain people are gonna feel very negatively about it. Right. And have their talking points in place and everything like that. You know. I think where we're at right now, it really seems like, you know, this is, this is like Photoshop. You, I'm a use, I'm not, but I, you know, I'm a professional Photoshop user and suddenly a new feature has been implemented into Photoshop that allows me to do the thing that I've done before, but a lot easier. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I, I don't think that we generally bat an eye to that. We're like, oh, wow. Great feature. Right. You know, <laugh>. Right. That's awesome. That saves me time instead of, oh, that's, that's horrible. That feature is gonna put me out of a job. And I just don't, right now it's hard for me to see how, how that AI thing puts people out of a job. I think, I think they just learn to use it as another tool in their tool set. That's what I hope for anyways. The

Mikah Sargent (00:45:29):
Device that made that, that automatically wove fibers together the automated sewing machine mm-hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> the computer, I mean, over the history of humanity, we have made tools that help speed up different processes in our lives. And humans have always adapted to adapted those things. Right. So I think we'll continue to do that. I hope that we'll continue to. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:46:00):
I'm hopeful that we will, and I think I, I'm optimistic that we will, I think is where I, where I land on that. By the way, method Studio earned an Oscar nod in January for its visual effects on Top Gun Maverick.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:12):
Oh. Oh, I thought you were gonna say, but Yeah, that would've been too soon. I was thinking for this and, but yeah, that was

Jason Howell (00:46:17):
<Laugh>. We'll see. Yeah. That would be another kind of milestone moment, right. Who gets the award? Yes. Is

Mikah Sargent (00:46:22):
It the monkey you took the photograph? Or

Jason Howell (00:46:24):
Is it I would like to thank <laugh> Theto.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:28):
Hey, golly. Oh

Jason Howell (00:46:29):
Boy. Sorry for my horrible stereotypical robot impersonation.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:34):
<Laugh>.

Jason Howell (00:46:34):
I apologize. All right. What's your story of the week?

Mikah Sargent (00:46:36):
My story of the week is all about redaction. So I'm only gonna say every three words. Oh boy. Sorry. Good luck. No, I'm kidding. I will say all of the words that are gonna come outta my mouth. <Laugh>. so Sony, while they're not at the center of the disagreement between the sort of United States and other governments they're not at the center of the disagreement between the United States and other governments, and then Microsoft. They do play a role in the FTC facing off against Microsoft, and, you know, the other bodies around the world that are facing off against Microsoft, because as we know, Microsoft is working to acquire Activision Blizzard. Mm-Hmm. And some are saying that if they acquire Activision Blizzard, it's going to greatly reduce competition in the market, and by greatly reducing competition in the market, then that's going to obviously result in a monopoly of sorts.

(00:47:42):
Microsoft holds that. Absolutely. It's not going to, as you might imagine. And so, as part of these hearings, there's obviously evidence presented to try and come up with a with, with why or why not. That is the case. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So Sony has information that was provided as part of the the hearings, the ongoing hearings, and this information is redacted, however, redacted light L I t E. Yes. <laugh>. So the Verge, oh boy, calls it a Sharpie. It says the, there, the headline is Sony's confidential. Playstation Secrets just spilled because of a Sharpie. I'm not comfortable calling it a Sharpie because I'm, I'm not either. I'm happy you point this out. I don't think it's a Sharpie. It does not, that does not look like a Sharpie man. The way that the lines are so perfect. They're perfect.

(00:48:33):
They're too perfect Edge. So, perfect. Totally. I don't know that it's a Sharpie. It could very well be that it's printed out and then somehow like redacted over it in an automated process. I don't know what's going on, but whatever the redaction process is and it looks almost like I've done this before, where in a pdf, if, depending on which, which tool you use to redact the text is still underneath with the redaction over the top of it. So if you're using something like a laser printer Mm. Which instead of putting down ink that soaks into the paper essentially puts a layer on top of the paper, then the text will still, the little dots of the text end up underneath. And by little dots, I mean, that's kind of how a laser printer works, is that it's these tiny, tiny, tiny little micro dots that sort of adhere to the page and then the redaction goes over the top of it.

(00:49:26):
So you have kind of a a raised area. Now, again, I'm not sure how they did this. The point is, regardless of how it's being done, you can kind of, in some cases read the text beneath the redaction. Heck, yes, you can. And it reveals quite a bit about Sony and kind of their confidential information regarding the PlayStation. First and foremost, I, they have some information about Horizon Forbidden West which cost Sony 212 million over five years. And had, or I should say it cost the, the group that made it $212 over 212 million, not $212 over five years with a group of 300 employees. Then the last of us part two cost 220 million. Wow. and around 200 employees. But this is even more interesting, and I'm gonna read from this sort of poll quote in the Verge in 2021, over 14 million users.

(00:50:38):
And the, the little accent there that I'm saying is because they're not exactly sure if it's as 14 or 15 or six, it could say another number, but they think it's 14. So if you hear me do that sort of up ups speak there, it's because there's a question mark. So in 2021, over 14 million users by device spent 30% or more of their time playing Call of Duty. Over 6 million users spent more than 70% of their time on Call of Duty. And about 1 million users spent 100% of their game time super fans on Call of Duty. Super. So to be clear, what that means is that some people with PlayStations only played Call of Duty. And by some people, I mean 1 million people, it's a solid amount. The concern is that because you know, Microsoft would become an Activision Blizzard a company o that owns Activision Blizzard, that they could potentially make the Sony version of Call of Duty not as good as the Xbox version, or they could even not offer it for sale on PlayStation.

(00:51:44):
That would immediately cost Sony a million players. And then those million players may move over to Xbox and then think about even the folks that spend 70% of their time, which was a much bigger number, 6 million users, that's, oh, they could also then lose those who would, you know, oh, well I give up the other games I can play on PlayStation cuz at least I could play Call of Duty over an Xbox. Mm. That's a reasonable concern. But get this, this is how much money Call of Duty is worth to PlayStation. We, according to the Verge who, you know, went through this piece the document seems to say that PlayStation revenue, thanks to call of Duty is 1.5 billion across the US and elsewhere. Wow. But get this, that's just for the game alone. If you add accessories, subscriptions, and all of the other stuff that people are paying for $15.9 billion a year billion dollars Oh my goodness.

(00:52:58):
As the Verge says, it could also say not 15.9 billion, but 13.9 billion. Oh, that's, it doesn't way less impressive. <Laugh> wrong. That is still impressive. That's still insane amount. Yeah. So yes, if, if PlayStation lost Call of Duty, yeah. That could eat up 13.9 billion of revenue at the least. And even if Activision Blizzard, Microsoft still offered Sony the ability to play it on the PlayStation, but they chose to not bring out new content for it or chose to, you know, offer a simple version because it doesn't work with PlayStations systems, whatever mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, that is a concern. That's a, that's a reasonable concern. There's also information about how much money Sony gets off of third party publishers and information about what Sony knows about PS five owners and the other kind of devices that they use. So I'm, I'm gonna read this part too.

(00:54:05):
The Verge quote, Sony also says, around half of PS five owners also have a Nintendo switch. The FTC and Microsoft have continually been arguing over whether the Switch is a competitor to the Xbox and the PlayStation five during this hearing. And Sony's data is even clearer evidence of the makeup of console ownership in the us. So according to internal surveys, almost half of PlayStation five owners in the United States also own a Nintendo Switch, while less than 20% of PlayStation five owners in the United States also own an Xbox Series X or S mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, meaning that the Switch is not really considered in the same scope and and vein as the PlayStation five and the Xbox Series X R S, which makes sense to me. My partner has a PlayStation five and well, more than a dozen times we've talked about getting a Nintendo switch. It's not like you'd have one or the other especially for these folks who are, you know, playing games to this level. So ultimately this redaction light, as you've put it has potentially, you know, revealed trade secrets, which is unfortunate. And even though Sony has requested that this information be removed, the internet honey is permanent and

Jason Howell (00:55:27):
Oh yeah,

Mikah Sargent (00:55:27):
Totally. It is written

Jason Howell (00:55:28):
And it's not out there.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:29):
Right. And you can redact it as much as you want to. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:55:31):
But it's still written once, once it's out, it's

Mikah Sargent (00:55:33):
Out. Yeah. So journalists, you know, immediately downloaded this. So even if it got pulled from online, it's still there. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an archive.org somewhere of it. Like that information is out there and so that could cost Sony some money. And that's kind of adds, it's almost insult to injury because Sony is already trying to argue that the Activision Blizzard acquisition is going to cost Sony a lot of money and competition. So for them to then potentially lose value due to this exposure of their internal way of doing things, it's even further.

Jason Howell (00:56:12):
I,

Mikah Sargent (00:56:12):
I damaging I feel

Jason Howell (00:56:13):
For whoever was responsible for the redaction <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:17):
Me too. And we don't know who it was. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:56:18):
We dunno who it was, but Oh my goodness. Like, I'm just kind of amazed because of the importance of these things. This is not the first document in the world, in the court case that has been redacted incorrectly. Like why is there not a standard system that makes sure that this doesn't happen? <Laugh>, I don't understand

Mikah Sargent (00:56:35):
Thousand percent. This should be standardized. This is so even when when this has been done in the past, we've seen it where instead of it being that the text can still be read underneath because it's sort of bleeding through. We've seen it where the text is selectable underneath a redaction and you just copy and paste it elsewhere. Right. <laugh>

Jason Howell (00:56:54):
People, it's so weird. Redactions,

Mikah Sargent (00:56:56):
I don't understand. Should not be something that does not result in a redaction.

Jason Howell (00:57:00):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand what the why, I just don't get it. But also, I mean, you know, not to bring this back around to AI systems and everything like that, but things like this could probably be, you know, even, even when we think they're redacted accurately, there are possibly clues and stuff that we can't see to the naked eye that a system that's trained on this data could actually possibly pull out as well. Like this is pretty obvious when you look at the screenshots, and I don't know if there's been any sort of tweaks on contrast or whatever to accentuate what's bleeding through. Right. But my point is like, there are ways to make these things a little bit more obvious, you know to do like inverse colors switching and, and things like that to really kind of pull these things out

Mikah Sargent (00:57:46):
And, and there's even AI tools exactly. Computer vision tools that can get this information

Jason Howell (00:57:52):
Exactly so, but you don't have to go that far with it. So, you know, like I don't, I don't understand why a document has to be printed and then redacted from other than there's probably, you know, you have multiple people involved and pass. I guess what I'm saying is if I print out a document that has the redaction built into the document mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, then this wouldn't happen, right? Because it's not printing a layer of something and then a, a black bar over the top

Mikah Sargent (00:58:17):
Of it. Well, it depends. It, because again,

Jason Howell (00:58:19):
Or at least it shouldn't, it shouldn't be, yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:58:21):
It shouldn't do that. But yeah, if you use some tools, it's essentially like in Photoshop, adding a layer on top, and depending on if you're using, again, a laser printer or an inkjet printer, you could still end up seeing the text underneath depending on how the, the machine kind of renders that Yeah. As layered or not. Right. So yeah, that's the other thing. It goes back to you talking about doing a standard because you, no matter what tool you're using, if it's not doing it correctly, meaning that it basically removes what's underneath entirely, you could end up exposing stuff, but Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm, I wanna know actually how this was done though, because let's look back. Go back to that page. You can see it looks like someone almost took one of those those like little template things for scrapbooks and laid it down on top of it and colored in. Yeah. Because the, the curves on the edges are so perfect and, but yet it does look like some sort of marker. Did it? Unless they've got some sort of like tool. I, I don't know. I just wanna know who did it, how they did it. Yeah. I'm so curious about this.

Jason Howell (00:59:26):
Super curious how

Mikah Sargent (00:59:26):
To tell. Is there a Standard redaction marker and redaction stencil. That's the word I was looking for. Stencil, right? That they use for this like

Jason Howell (00:59:34):
2 million PlayStations, the top right one. It's three little segments. Yeah. That you have the little drips in between

Mikah Sargent (00:59:41):
Character. Yeah.

Jason Howell (00:59:43):
And so like, if, if that was a human, if I was, if I was redacting that, I'd just go,

Mikah Sargent (00:59:47):
Yeah, I'll read it through the whole

Jason Howell (00:59:48):
Whole thing. Why would I like leave those perfectly segmented? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just, I don't understand how it's done either. Maybe we're focusing on the wrong thing, but I'm still fascinated by it.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:57):
Questions that need answers. Right. Goodness gracious.

Jason Howell (01:00:01):
It's still a thing that apparently keeps getting, you know, done wrong. And I think from a technology standpoint, there's something to learn from this. Dang it. Do it. Right. Whatever, right. Is <laugh>,

Mikah Sargent (01:00:12):
Whatever. Exactly.

Jason Howell (01:00:13):
Whatever that is. All right. Well we've reached the end of this episode, tech News Weekly. Thank you so much for watching and listening as you hopefully do each and every Thursday. Twit tv slash tnw is where you go to subscribe cuz if you haven't heard us say before, subscribing is really, really important. We love doing this show. You subscribe to our show, you'll continue getting it. It's as simple as that. So Twit tv slash tnw,

Mikah Sargent (01:00:39):
And this is the part where I want to mention the club. Yeah, we got a club. It's a lot of fun to join the club when you join the club at twit tv slash club twit, starting at $7 a month or $84 a year, you get some pretty awesome stuff. First and foremost, you get every single Twitch Show ad free. That's right. It's just the show, just the content. None of the ads because you in effect, are sponsoring the shows by, by becoming a member of the club. So we of course appreciate you for doing that. Along with access to every single TWIT show ad free. You also gain access to the Club Twit Discord and the Twit plus bonus fee that has extra content you wouldn't find anywhere else. It's behind the scenes before the show, after the show. Special Club Twit events and that Discord server I mentioned earlier.

(01:01:32):
It's a fun place to go to chat with your fellow club TWIT members and also those of us here at twit. There are animated images, there are several channels that you can pop into and kind of talk with people about different topics. It's so much fun to hang out there and see the great stuff that people are posting. All starting at $7 a month, $84 a year. Twit TV slash club twit. When you join the club, you're also going to get some exclusive shows that are only available to club members. There is the Untitled Linux Show. It's a show all about Linnux, as you might have guessed. Without a title. Without a title exactly. You also get access to Hands on Windows, which is Paul TH's short format show that covers Windows tips and tricks. My show Hands on Mac that covers all things Apple.

(01:02:17):
Also a short format show. The episode that'll publish later today is all about taking the stuff you're storing with Apple and backing it up somewhere else. I got a question from a lecturer who uses iCloud Drive to store their keynote presentations. And I'm just going, how do I put these somewhere else if I want to make sure that they don't get deleted or removed? It was a great question. Super pumped to get to answer that. As well as home Theater Geeks, which is newly relaunched in the club featuring Scott Wilkinson. It is all about your home theater, the devices that you use, the setups that you might have. Great show and upcoming shows too like we hear one involving artificial intelligence from Jason Howell. If you would like to follow me online, I'm at Micah Sar on many a social media network where you can head to chihuahua.com, that's c i h hua h hua.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Consider watching my shows again later today. If you're a member of Club Twit at twit tv slash club twit hands on Mac on Sundays. You can check out ask the tech guys featuring Leo LaPorte and yours truly, where we take your tech questions live and do our best to answer those. And then on Tuesdays where I record iOS today with Rose Mary Orchard although this coming Tuesday, it's the 4th of July, so we will not be having an episode. So tune in later. Jason Howell, what about you?

Jason Howell (01:03:50):
Well find me at Jason Howell on Twitter. Twitter social slash at Jason Howell on Mastodon that Jason Howell on TikTok. Yeah, I'm having some fun on TikTok right now, actually. So you could go there as well if you like trying to kind of up like up my auntie on, on a little bit of social media involvement. Cause I've been taking such a breather and a break for a while, so so I'm a little bit more active right now. In other words. Well right now it's t n w for me all about Android. Is is, yeah, there it is. A bunch of pictures of me talking to a camera in my car as most of the time. Oh, neat. And a dog that I think we're, we're getting a bead doodle. So I'm excited about that. See, really it's just the important stuff that you'll find out my day.

(01:04:32):
Exactly. I am working on an artificial intelligence show and you know, more news to come on that, but I would just say if you're interested in that, you know, and you've got ideas, suggestions, anything really, Twitter tv slash or sorry, Jason at twit tv. There you go. I don't have a website to point you to yet, but Jason at twit tv you can send me your feedback on that. But big thanks to everybody here in the studio helping us do this show. Both of the Johns, there was Burke outside the door an was in here earlier working on the cameras. And thanks to you That's right, you at home watching and listening. We appreciate you and we'll see you next time on Tech News Weekly. Bye everybody.