Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 03/29 – Ok, Will Digital Vaccine Passports Work?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Monday, March 29th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. New York, Japan, China, and the EU are all going to try out digital vaccine passports. Visa is going to try out a stable coin to settle transactions. The official PHP Git repository was hacked. Boston Dynamics has a new robot that isn't as scary, unless you're a warehouse worker. And what is Amazon's recently aggressive PR campaign all about? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. So digital testing and tracing apps on smartphones did not exactly pan out as some of us thought, though I have heard that these kind of apps are used more extensively in some countries than you might think.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Okay, though, now what sort of odds would you give me that digital vaccine passports will take off? New York State has launched the first U.S. vaccine passport app, Excelsior Pass, built on IBM's blockchain-based health pass platform, quoting USA Today. The First in the Nation certification called the Excelsior Pass will be useful first at large-scale venues like Madison Square Garden, but next week will be accepted at dozens of events, arts, and entertainment venues statewide. It already enables people to increase the size of a wedding party or other catered event. The app championed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, to support the recovery of industries most affected by the pandemic, is funded by the state and available for free to businesses and anyone with vaccine records or

Starting point is 00:02:03 test results in New York. Like an airline boarding pass, people will be able to prove their health status with a digital QR code or quick response machine readable label. They'll need to download the Excelsior Pass app, enter their name, data birth, zip code, and answer a series of personal questions to confirm their identity. The data will come from the state's vaccine registry and also will be linked to testing data from a number of pre-approved testing companies. The New York system built on IBM's Digital Health Pass platform is provided via blockchain technology, so neither IBM, nor any business will have access to private medical information. An entertainment venue will simply scan the QR code and get a green check or a red X, end quote. So I'm a New Yorker, and I just got my

Starting point is 00:02:45 second vaccine shot last night. So just a few minutes ago, I fired up this app, both on my phone and then on the desktop as you need to sign up with the website first before you can get the little QR code thing you need to scan. And, well, the page just kept loading and loading and loading and never actually went anywhere, although maybe they didn't have my records from last night yet, so I don't know, check back with me later. Maybe this will still work. But this comes, as sources are saying, that Japan also plans to issue digital certificates to those who have been inoculated against COVID-19, joining China, the EU, and others, quoting ZDNet. In addition to being available for Japanese citizens who travel abroad, the app will be available to foreigners currently in the country,

Starting point is 00:03:27 regardless of if they are staying in Japan or returning to their home countries. The vaccination information will also be linked with a new system that tracks the progress of Japan's vaccination program, the report said. Beyond Japan, China and the European Union have also announced that they will be using vaccine passports as part of hopes to reopen international travel. A fortnight ago, the European Union unveiled its plans to roll out vaccine certificates around June. The certificate called the Digital Green Certificate will contain a QR code with a digital signature to protect it against falsification, and each issuing body will have its own digital signature key. China, meanwhile, launched its own version of a vaccine passport at the start of this

Starting point is 00:04:05 month. The Chinese app also uses a QR code for verification purposes, end quote. Visa has announced that it will allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD coin to settle transactions on its payment network, quoting Reuters. The company told Reuters it had launched the program with payment and crypto platform crypto.com and plans to offer the option to more partners later this year. The USDC is a stable coin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the US dollar. We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies, and we're seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers, Kai Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa said. Traditionally,

Starting point is 00:04:54 if a customer chooses to use a crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency held in a cryptocurrency wallet needs to be converted into traditional money. The cryptocurrency wallet will deposit traditional fiat currency in a bank account to be wired to Visa at the end of the day to settle any transactions, adding cost and complexity for businesses. Visa's latest step, which will use the Ethereum blockchain, strips out the need to convert digital coin into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled. Visa said it has partnered with digital asset bank Anchorage and completed the first transaction this month with Crypto.com sending USDC to Visa's Ethereum address at Anchorage, end quote.

Starting point is 00:05:39 Talk about supply chain hacks. The official PHP Git repository was hacked, or at least two malicious commits were discovered there. The intention was apparently to add back doors to the actual PHP source code. But apparently all is well. The changes were reverted almost immediately, and now the PHP project is moving to GitHub, quoting bleeping computer. Yesterday, two malicious commits were pushed to the PHP SRC Git repository maintained by the PHP team on their Git.P.net server. The threat actors had signed off on these commits as if they were made by known PHP developers and maintainers Rasmus Lurdorf and Nikita Popov. The incident is alarming, considering PHP remains the server-side programming language to power over

Starting point is 00:06:27 79% of the websites on the internet. In the malicious commits seen by bleeping computer, the attackers published a mysterious change upstream fix typo under the pretense that this was a minor typographical correction. However, taking a look at the added line 370 where zend of all string function is called, the code actually plants a backdoor for obtaining easy remote code execution on a website running this hijacked version of PHP. This line execution, Hughes PHP code from within the user agent HTTP header. If the string starts with zero deum, responded PHP developer Jake Burchall to Michael Vorsek, who had first pointed out the anomaly. In an email interview, PHP maintainer Nikita Popoff told us, quote,

Starting point is 00:07:13 The first commit was found a couple of hours after it was made as part of routine post-commit code review. The changes were rather obviously malicious and reverted right away, Popoff told Bleeping Computer. As a precaution following this incident, PHP maintainers have decided to migrate the official php source code repository to GitHub. While investigation is still underway, we have decided that maintaining our own Git infrastructure is an unnecessary security risk and that we will discontinue the Git.P.P.net server. Instead, the repositories on GitHub, which were previously only mirrors, will become canonical, announced Popov. With this change, going forward, popoff insists that any code changes be pushed directly to GitHub rather than the git.p.hp.net server from

Starting point is 00:07:56 this point on. Those interested in contributing to the PHP project will now need to be added as a part of PHP's organization on GitHub, end quote. Boston Dynamics has a new robot, and this one looks less like something from a nightmare you had because you fell asleep last night watching a Terminator movie. Say hello to Stretch, a robot that Boston Dynamics says can move up to 800 boxes an hour in warehouses, quoting the verge. The robot is called Stretch and looks relatively dull for a Boston Dynamics creation. It's not modeled after humans or animals and instead aims to be as practical as possible. It has a square mobile base containing a set of wheels, a perception mast with cameras and other sensors, and a huge robotic arm with seven degrees of

Starting point is 00:08:47 freedom and a suction pad array on the end that can grab and move boxes up to 50 pounds in weight. What connects stretch to other Boston Dynamics machines is a focus on mobility. Usually when automation equipment is installed in warehouses, the system is bolted down in one place with a workflow modeled around it. Stretch by comparison is designed to slide into any existing workplace where it could be useful loading or unloading goods. That's what's exciting about this system. It can provide automation to environments that don't have automation infrastructure. Boston Dynamics VP of Business Development Michael Perry tells the verge. You can take this capability and you can move it into the back of the truck.

Starting point is 00:09:25 You can move it into aisles. you can move it next to your conveyors. It all depends on what the problem of the day is, end quote. This will allow Boston Dynamics to target customers who would otherwise avoid automation as too expensive or time-consuming to integrate, says Perry. Around 80% of the world's warehouses don't have any automation equipment, giving the company a sizable, addressable market. And it could be that for businesses with low margins,

Starting point is 00:09:47 a robot isn't worth the hassle no matter how mobile it is. Stretch's lineage can be traced back to Boston Dynamics' two-legged Atlas robot, which is able to balance its weight so smoothly. It can run, jump, backflip, and more. Atlas picking up a box isn't just about extending the arms and moving them. It's about coordinating the hips, legs, and torso, says Perry. A lot of that same design thinking has gone into stretch. As a result, Boston Dynamics claims stretch can move up to 800 cases an hour,

Starting point is 00:10:15 a throughput rate that's comparable to that of a human employee. High-capacity batteries mean stretch can operate for eight hours at a time before it needs recharging. That throughput rate, though, should be treated with skepticism. Putting robots to work in warehouses is incredibly difficult because of the sheer variation in these spaces. Workflows can change on a daily basis as different goods come and go, and what's often valued is flexibility. The inability of machines to handle these challenges so far is what's led to an all-or-nothing dynamic in automation. You either remake the entire warehouse so it's regular enough for machines to understand, or you stick with humans, masters of the unknown. Boston Dynamics's big claim is that stretch will be able to bridge this divide, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:02 On to another kind of bot now, OpenAI says that GPT3 is already being used by more than 300 apps and tens of thousands of developers in their projects. The robot-generated writing system is producing four and a half billion words per day, quoting the verge. OpenAI started life as a non-profit, but for the last few years it has been trying to make money with GPP. GBT3 as its first saleable product. The company has an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, which gives the tech giant unique access to the program's underlying code, but any firm can apply for access to GBT3's general API and build services on top of it. As OpenAI is keen to advertise, hundreds of companies are now doing exactly this. One startup named Viable is using GPT3 to analyze customer feedback, identifying themes, emotions, and sentiment from surveys,

Starting point is 00:11:56 help desk tickets, live chat logs, reviews, and more. Fable Studio is using the program to create dialogue for VR experiences, and Algolia is using it to improve its web search products, which it, in turn, sells on to other customers. All this is good news for OpenAI and Microsoft, whose Azure Cloud computing platform powers OpenAI's tech, but not everyone in startup land is keen. Many analysts have noted the folly of building a company on technology you don't actually own, Using GPT3 to create a startup is ludicrously simple, but it'll be ludicrously simple for your competitors, too. And though there are ways to differentiate your GPT startup through branding and UI, no firm stands to gain as much from the use of the technology as OpenAI itself.

Starting point is 00:12:43 Another worry about the rise of text-generating systems relates to issues of output quality. Like many algorithms, text generators have the capacity to absorb and amplify harmful biases. They're also often astoundingly dumb. In tests of a medical chat butt built using GPT3, the model responded to a suicidal patient by encouraging them to kill themselves. These problems aren't insurmountable, but they're certainly worth flagging in a world where algorithms are already creating mistaken arrests, unfair school grades, and biased medical bills, end quote. Finally today, you've heard me posit for years, my own personal observation that Amazon, which used to be seemingly the friendliest company, in Silicon Valley had suddenly gotten a bit of an edge, shall we say. And obviously that probably reveals my own biases, because maybe folks that have competed with Amazon for decades could tell me they've always been willing to throw some elbows. But yeah, during those congressional hearings last week, Amazon seemingly took it up a notch. Amazon's newfound aggressiveness found voice

Starting point is 00:13:49 in their actual official Twitter account where the account seemed to pick fights with Democratic politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. There was also an incident mocking the widespread perception that Amazon delivery drivers are worked so aggressively that they are forced to pee into bottles because they don't have time for bathroom breaks. Let me quote this from the verge. This latest dust up caps a surreal week for Amazon's PR team, which continues to wage these battles anonymously and without attaching an executive's name to any of its childish internet taunts and misdirection. The same account falsely asserted earlier this week that it is untrue Amazon warehouse and delivery workers find themselves forced to pee in. of water bottles. The Amazon News account lied about this, despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary, in a late Wednesday tweet in response to Pocan calling out the company for hypocrisy.

Starting point is 00:14:38 The whole debate started when Amazon's Dave Clark, its senior vice president of worldwide operations, and so far the only executive to publicly spar on Twitter, under his own name, criticized Sanders. The context, of course, and why Amazon's PR division may be kicking up so much dust is that Sanders had publicly announced his plans to travel to Alabama today to speak in support of the state's historic Amazon warehouse unionization campaign, end quote. Yes, we haven't really talked about it, but after a month's long campaign, the union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, has concluded and vote counting begins on Tuesday, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, quoting Bloomberg. As many as 5,800 workers at the facility in Bessemer were

Starting point is 00:15:21 eligible to vote to join the retail wholesale and department store union, the hard-fought mail-in election that began seven weeks ago attracted national attention. President Joe Biden even weighed in and saw the union and Amazon engage in a sometimes testy information war. Both sides have a lot to lose. If the RWDSU prevails, the unionizing drive could spread to other Amazon facilities, some of which are already seeing stirrings of labor activism. A loss for the RWDSU would be a major setback for the U.S. labor movement, which has been in decline for decades. opinions at the warehouse in Bessemer have been sharply divided between workers who believe union representation will help them secure less demanding working conditions and those who are happy with a $15 an hour starting wage and health benefits. Hanging over the election was the fear that joining the RWDSU would prompt Amazon to shutter the facility as it is done elsewhere before, end quote.

Starting point is 00:16:17 So can we connect the dots here? Is Amazon turning up the rhetorical heat at the exact moment that it is feeling the political heat related to this union? unionization drive. Again, we've not spoken about it extensively, but Amazon has been aggressive in recent months, fighting unionization going so far as to actually hiring the actual Pinkertons. And quoting Jason Delray this weekend, Recode has learned that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressed dissatisfaction in recent weeks that company officials weren't more aggressive in how they push back against criticisms of the company that he and other leaders deem inaccurate or misleading. What followed was a series of snarky and aggressive tweets that ended up fueling their own media cycles. The timing was likely not coincidental.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Bezos and other Amazon leaders are on edge as the company is facing the largest union election in its history at its Bessemer, Alabama warehouse. Election results will be tallied early this week, and Amazon officials understand that if a majority of the employees vote to unionize, it could set off a chain reaction at other facilities, potentially forcing the e-commerce giant to overhaul how it manages its hundreds of thousands. of frontline U.S. workers. There was terror inside the executive ranks of Amazon the last time a union election was held at a U.S. Amazon facility, and that was only a small subset of a warehouse's workforce, the majority of whom voted against unionization. That vote happened in 2014 and consisted of just 27 technicians and mechanics at an Amazon warehouse in Delaware. In Alabama, though, the stakes are much higher with nearly 6,000 workers eligible to vote. Bezos knows all of this well,

Starting point is 00:17:53 end quote. Well, the counting begins tomorrow. I guess we've got something else big to keep our eye on this week that I wasn't quite expecting. Yeah, as I mentioned in that first segment, I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine last night. And I heard from everybody that if you're going to feel bad from the vaccine, it happens with your second shot. And as I went to bed last night, I thought I was feeling that sort of achiness and the chills that you get. Sometimes when you get a fever, and I was like, oh boy, here it comes. But then I woke up to the same. I woke up the morning feeling like perfect, almost like I hadn't slept this well in months. And it's now approaching 18 hours since the shot and I feel great.

Starting point is 00:18:37 So I guess it hits everyone differently. But at least for me, I feel fine. Five stars would recommend. Here's hoping everyone hearing these words will have their own second shots in a matter of months. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 03/29 – Ok, Will Digital Vaccine Passports Work?

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