WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Welcome to TechLink, where we're going to patch your knowledge of the world 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:07.200 with some hot, fresh tech news. Microsoft has sheepishly admitted 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:10.520 that the Windows 10 security updates that released between March and August 00:00:10.520 --> 00:00:15.840 were in fact a serious downgrade that undid several old security patches, 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:20.360 like a bad case of scurvy, reopening decades old wounds. 00:00:20.360 --> 00:00:24.960 Luckily, I've never been on a pirate ship. And also, luckily, it seems that only a small number 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:29.120 of systems were directly affected. Enterprise users still using 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:33.480 the original 1507 version of Windows 10 released in July, 2015. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:38.680 According to Senior Director of Threat Research at Immersion Labs and also auto-generated character 00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:42.040 in Skyrim, Kev Breen, Microsoft's statement 00:00:42.040 --> 00:00:46.440 points to an integer overflow vulnerability where the build version numbers verified 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:50.560 by the Windows update service fell into a range that caused a code error. 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:55.400 This then led to certain optional components to be reverted back to their original unpatched versions, 00:00:55.400 --> 00:00:59.600 i.e. exactly how they were when they were first manufactured. 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:04.200 Security experts have given this particular bug a score of 9.8 out of 10, 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:09.400 which would be great if this was an Olympic dive or a dressage performance. 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:13.520 Microsoft, though, has now released a new patch to patch the old patch that unpatched 00:01:13.520 --> 00:01:17.320 this particular patch of PCs. The US Department of Justice's antitrust trial 00:01:17.320 --> 00:01:21.000 against Google started this week. Oh, not that one. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.880 This is a new one. As you may know, Google was recently found liable 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:28.640 for illegally abusing the dominant market power of its search division 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:34.600 and is now awaiting the court's suggested remedies to prevent it from continuing to do so in the future. 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:39.520 Oh, the courts. Now, however, the company is again in court 00:01:39.520 --> 00:01:43.160 facing similar accusations regarding its ad division. 00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:47.280 As with most antitrust disputes, a major point of contention in the case 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:51.240 is how to define the market that Google is supposedly dominating. 00:01:51.240 --> 00:01:55.200 The DOJ says that Google is acting as an illegal monopoly 00:01:55.200 --> 00:02:00.200 by intertwining its various ad tools, specifically its publishing software ad manager 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:05.640 and its ad exchange network, AdX, and its advertiser network market AdSense, 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:08.880 leading to website publishers to feel trapped. 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:12.160 Google, however, says that it's part of a much bigger ad market 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:16.160 where it competes with fellow tech giants like Amazon and Meta and Microsoft and Roku 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:21.360 and TikTok and Yahoo! That one, not just the feeling. 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:26.360 Of course, most of those supposed rivals really only publish ads within their own walled gardens, 00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:31.880 whereas Google, much like Jesus and the smell of microwaved salmon, is everywhere. 00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:35.080 In other Google-ish news, Nevada's Department of Employment Training 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:42.120 and Rehabilitation has apparently paid Google over $1.3 million for access to AI-powered cloud software 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:47.200 that will recommend whether or not unemployed citizens should receive government benefits. 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:52.200 In the past, organizations have typically relied on AI and other less sophisticated algorithms, 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:56.720 primarily to handle relatively low stakes decisions that don't require much human oversight. 00:02:56.720 --> 00:02:59.800 However, this system is apparently going to be used 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:02.840 to analyze evidentiary documents and transcripts 00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:07.680 for unemployment appeals hearings, which are likely to be relatively complex cases. 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:12.400 I mean, just look at those words. They're big words. According to Nevada officials, 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:17.600 this system will help them eliminate the backlog of cases that has existed since the pandemic 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:24.240 by reducing the time it takes to write a determination from several hours to just five minutes in some cases. 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.600 While the state promises each case will receive human review, 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:31.200 five minutes of human review isn't particularly reassuring. 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:34.280 If I were to deliver it and it arrives five minutes later, I ain't eating it. 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:39.440 This is yet another example of how automation is being used as a way to place more and more responsibility 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:44.280 into the hands of unaccountable machines. Similarly, an experiment by More Perfect Union 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:48.960 found that several Uber and Lyft drivers standing directly next to one another 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:52.160 were offered the exact same jobs for different amounts of money. 00:03:52.160 --> 00:03:57.760 This was particularly drastic in Lyft's case where the pay for a trip could vary as much as $3, 00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:01.040 potentially adding up to hundreds over the course of a normal month. 00:04:01.040 --> 00:04:05.680 And that money could wind up being really important after the robot down at the unemployment office 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:10.040 denies you your benefit claim. Go fuck yourself, stay poor, asshole. 00:04:10.040 --> 00:04:15.600 Each of the following quick bits is fully OSHA compliant and has never resulted in the loss of a limb. 00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:19.120 But make sure to wear your special quick bits helmet, just in case. 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:22.840 There could be eye pokies. Following a series of delays due to weather 00:04:22.840 --> 00:04:27.520 and technical issues, SpaceX successfully launched its Polaris Dawn mission, 00:04:27.520 --> 00:04:32.800 carrying pilot slash billionaire Jared Isaacman, as well as three other people who have far less money. 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:36.840 The mission will last five days and attempt the world's first private spacewalk. 00:04:36.840 --> 00:04:40.280 Presumably they mean private in the sense of privately financed 00:04:40.280 --> 00:04:42.600 and not in the sense that somebody is getting naked. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.600 Other SpaceX projects, however, have been delayed, 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:51.280 as the Federal Aviation Administration has been slow to issue launch licenses. 00:04:51.280 --> 00:04:56.600 SpaceX by itself apparently accounts for 80% of the overtime logged by FAA workers, 00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:01.760 charged with safety and environmental reviews for space travel. Similar to how Elon Musk accounts for 80% 00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:05.400 of TOS violations at Twitter, I'm above the law. 00:05:05.400 --> 00:05:11.600 Huawei has launched a folding phone with not one, but two hinges and the world will not shut up about it. 00:05:11.760 --> 00:05:14.960 The Mate XT features a 6.4 inch OLED display 00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:20.640 when fully collapsed, but fully unfolded. It becomes a 10.2 inch tablet 00:05:20.640 --> 00:05:25.600 that's nearly the size of a standard iPad. There's also a 7.9 inch in between, 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:29.960 single fold configuration. If you just want a little bit more screen, 00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:34.080 you're not showboatin'. Oh, and its price starts at about $20,000 00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:39.440 or $2,800 US dollars. It's the perfect phone for people who miss unfolding maps 00:05:39.440 --> 00:05:43.160 when they get lost, but still wanna be able to fold them back up when they're done. 00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:46.520 Keep it in your glovebox. People keep wanting to toss data centers in the ocean 00:05:46.520 --> 00:05:50.920 off the California coast without a permit and regulators, they're sick of it. 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:55.880 The most recent offenders are the founders of Y Combinator backed startup, Network Ocean, 00:05:55.880 --> 00:06:01.720 who wanna dunk servers in the San Francisco Bay as a way to save energy and slow ocean temperature rise, 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:05.560 which I can already see a problem with. Sure, hot servers might not raise 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:09.440 the whole ocean's temperature, but experts say localized hotspots 00:06:09.440 --> 00:06:14.280 could trigger toxic algae blooms. Microsoft actually tested submerged servers 00:06:14.280 --> 00:06:18.200 in California and Scotland before recently abandoning the project. 00:06:18.200 --> 00:06:22.400 You know what they awoke in the darkness of the bikini bottom. 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:27.520 Meta has admitted to using public photos and posts on its social media platforms 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:30.560 from far back as 2007, when I joined, 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:34.560 to train its AI models in a confession that's only really newsworthy 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.560 because it was made in an Australian Senate inquiry by Meta's global privacy director. 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:43.320 Immediately after she denied Meta had done that exact thing, 00:06:43.320 --> 00:06:46.600 users in the UK and EU have the legally mandated ability 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:51.760 to opt out, but users from anywhere else do not. And while the Meta exec made it clear 00:06:51.760 --> 00:06:55.120 that the only scraped accounts over the age of 18, 00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:59.400 if an adult posts pictures of kids on their account, those are fair game too. 00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:03.120 I'm sorry, you're not ready for the future where everybody owns everything. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.160 That's a you problem, by everybody I mean us. 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:11.080 Legal loophole, parents. And a robot will begin removing melted radioactive fuel 00:07:11.080 --> 00:07:15.640 from the Fukushima nuclear plant, and it'll certainly take its sweet time. 00:07:15.640 --> 00:07:21.360 This test removal will grab merely three grams of the approximately 880 tons of waste, 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:25.200 which will then be studied to both learn more about what happened and to determine 00:07:25.200 --> 00:07:29.920 how to best remove the rest. Grabbing this sample alone will take two weeks 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:33.400 because the robot must be maneuvered very carefully 00:07:33.400 --> 00:07:36.440 by rotating teams that are averse to the idea 00:07:36.440 --> 00:07:39.960 of spending more than 50 minutes at a time in a highly radioactive environment. 00:07:39.960 --> 00:07:43.920 What, you don't wanna grow a third ARM or suffer a painful death? 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:47.520 And I'll suffer painfully if you don't come back on Friday for more tech news. 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:50.560 Not nearly as painfully as someone with radiation sickness, 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.360 but it still hurts a little.