Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 12/14 – Threads Is Shipping Some Stuff!

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

The gates have been opened for Europeans on Threads, and it looks like Meta’s serious about tying Threads into to Fediverse. I argue that the release of a new charging case for the AirPods Pro is kinda a big deal. Wait until you hear this wild story about hackers versus a train. And maybe ChatGPT DIDN’T turn students into cheaters afterall. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Links: Meta starts testing Threads integration with ActivityPub (TechCrunch) Threads launches for nearly half a billion more users in Europe (The Verge) Apple now sells the AirPods Pro USB-C case by itself — for $99 (The Verge) Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available on Meta’s Quest VR headsets (The Verge) Etsy Cuts 11% of Headcount as Competition From Shein and Temu Mounts (The Information) Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them (404 Media) Cheating Fears Over Chatbots Were Overblown, New Research Suggests (NYTimes) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Thursday, December 14th, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today. The gates have been open for Europeans on threads, and it looks like Meta's serious about tying threads into the Fediverse. I argue that the release of a new charging case for the AirPods Pro is kind of a big deal. Wait until you hear this wild story about hackers versus a train. And maybe ChatGPT didn't turn students into cheaters after all. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I said on my morning TikTok video, more about the TikTok experiment at the end of the show, by the way. I said that it feels like the Threads team at Meta is sort of in an end of the semester mode.

Like, hurry, let's get those exams taken and papers turned in so we can head home to Mom and Dad's house for the holidays. In other words, they be shipping. First, Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is testing making posts from Threads accounts available on Mastodon and other services that use the activity pub. protocol. Quoting TechCrunch, making threads interoperable will give people more choice over how they interact, and it will help content reach more people. I'm pretty optimistic about this, Zuckerberg said in a post. While this is an important step for threads to be part of the Federated Social Network, Zuckerberg didn't provide any details on how the integration might work just yet.

Hours after the announcement, multiple users reported they could follow Instagram head Adam Mosseri through various Mastodon clients. However, his posts were not visible. Users on Mastodon could also search for Mosseri's threads profile by typing at Mosseri at threads.net. So hopefully they would be able to look for other threads profiles in the future. It's not clear if the roadmap for Threads activity pub integration will let you easily crosspost between Macedon or other activity pub powered networks and threads or move your data around, end quote. Your friend in mind, Chris Messina, has not been too happy about how Threads has integrated tagging, doing it without the hashtag, but he's got to be pretty pumped at the idea that

all of those promises that threads would eventually integrate with the decentralized social web. Looks like it's coming true. And then this morning, META launched threads in the European Union, expanding on the U.S., the U.S., the U.K., and 100 other countries, and added ways to browse threads without a profile. So, welcome Europeans, quoting the verge. Threads hasn't been available to the 448 million people living in the EU, and the company has even blocked EU-based users from accessing the service via VPN. To coincide with today's launch, Meta is giving users in the region the ability to browse threads without needing a profile.

Actually, posting or interacting with content will still require an Instagram account, however. The move was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal. The company's delay in launching the service in EU countries has been widely blamed on the Block's recent introduction of the Digital Markets Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that's designed to rein in big tech abuses and level the playing field. Although Meta hasn't named the regulation directly, Instagram head, Adam Osteri, blamed the delay on the, quote, complexities with complying with some of the laws coming into effect next year, end quote. Companies like Meta designated as gatekeepers under the DMA have until March 24 to comply with its requirements, end quote. Yeah, the concern, apparently, was that the close link between threads and Instagram might conflict with the DMA,

and specifically regulations around self-preferencing sibling services by platforms. Threads gained 100 million users quickly by allowing sign up through Instagram, but that probably ran a foul of the DMA. Though Threads has eased this integration, allowing separate account deletions since November, and Instagram account remains necessary to use threads, so I don't know. Have they threaded this needle, if you'll forgive me? But for now, welcome Europeans. I'm at Brian MCC, B-R-I-N-M-C- on threads. Follow me there.

This might not seem like the biggest deal ever, but, But if you know, you know, and trust me, I'm very much in the camp of once I can get the lightning port out of my life, I'm going to be thrilled. Apple has begun selling a $99 USBC charging case for its second-generation AirPods Pro as a standalone purchase, quoting the verge. That doesn't come cheap, the MagSafe compatible case available immediately is priced at 99 bucks. Still, if you're dead set on switching all of your gadgets to USBC and already own a pair of second-gen AirPods Pro with a lightning case, this upgrade is cheaper than buying a whole new set.

Delivery estimates are already showing an arrival date of after Christmas, so the case might not be a viable holiday stocking stuffer unless your local Apple store gets stock in the coming days, end quote. USBC AirPods Pro are still slightly better than this new standalone case featuring dust resistance and splash protection along with the promise of lossless audio compatibility with Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro headset. However, both second-gen models support the latest software enhancements, including adaptive audio and conversation detection, regardless of the connector type. Microsoft has released Xbox Cloud Gaming in beta on the MetaQuest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro for Xbox GamePass Ultimate subscribers, thereby allowing you to stream hundreds of Xbox games

into VR. Quoting the Verge. The beta app is available from the MetaQuest Store, and you'll simply need a pair of supported Bluetooth controllers to start playing. You can use an Xbox controller that supports Bluetooth, a PS4-1, or even Nintendo's Switch Pro controllers. Support for PS5 controllers is coming in the future, according to meta. There are a variety of display sizes for an immersive VR environment to stream Xbox games in, or even an Xbox-themed virtual space on the latest Quest 3 and Pro headsets that take advantage of full-color pass-through. The Xbox cloud gaming app on meta headsets is part of a broader partnership between Microsoft and META to bring Microsoft Teams,

office, and Windows experiences to VR. Microsoft Teams is about to go 3D in January with the release of a mesh-powered VR meeting experience that will be available on MetaQuest headsets, end quote. Bad news for the tech company whose headquarters are literally just two blocks up the hill from me in Dumbo. I sort of feel like tech companies maybe that held off on layoffs all year are rushing to get them in by the end of the year. Etsy announced plans. to lay off around 11% of its workforce or around 225 employees. But what's interesting here were the reasons given, not just post-pandemic come down, but also new competition from Shian and Temu, quoting the information.

Executives at Etsy told analysts last month that a slowdown in consumer spending was likely to hurt the company's revenue in the current quarter and forecast that sales volumes on its site would dip in the fourth quarter compared to last year. They also highlighted a tougher digital ad market, thanks to Sheehan and Temu, with CEO Josh Silverman noting that the two companies, quote, are almost single-handedly having an impact on the cost of advertising, particularly in some paid channels in Google and meta, end quote. At sea has struggled to grow its business since the e-commerce pandemic boom, with volumes on its site remaining roughly flat since 2021. Similarly, eBay is expecting sales on its site to grow less than 4% this year.

E-commerce software giant Shopify, which caters heavily to smaller shops, has seen growth in sales, volumes hold up much better by comparison thanks in part to its efforts to lean into brick and mortar sales." So there's this company that manufactures trains called NWAG. There were allegations that NWag trains would brick themselves if the owners of those trains tried to repair them independently of the company. And now, three Polish hackers say they were able to repair the bricked trains. So 404 media says Newegg is now threatening the hackers. Wild. Quoting 404. The situation is a heavy machinery example of something that happens across most categories of electronics, from phones, laptops, health devices and wearables to tractors, and

apparently trains. In this case, Newegg, the manufacturer of the impulse family of trains, put code in the trains control systems that prevented them from running if a GPS tracker detected that it spent a certain number of days in an independent repair company's maintenance center and also prevented it from running if certain components had been replaced without a manufacturer-approved serial number. This anti-repair mechanism is called parts pairing and is a common frustration for farmers who want to repair their John Deere tractors without authorization from the company. It's also used by Apple to prevent independent repairs of iPhones. In this case, a Polish train operator called Lower Silesian Railway, which operates regional train services, purchased 11 impulse trains. It began to do regular maintenance on the trains.

using an independent company called Sirius Poljow-Sanwit, boy, SPS, which notes on its website that, quote, many Polish carriers have trusted us with train maintenance. Over the course of maintaining four different impulse trains, SPS found mysterious errors that prevented them from running. SPS became desperate and Googled Polish hackers and came across a group called Dragon Sector, a reverse engineering team made up of white hat hackers. The trains had just undergone mandatory maintenance after having traveled a million kilometers. Dragon Sector was able to bypass the security measures and fix the

trains. The group posted a YouTube video of the train operating properly after they worked on it. All of this has created quite a stir in Poland and in repair circles. Neweg did not respond to a request for comment from 404 media, but Reinek Kuljewi reported that the company is now very mad and has threatened to sue the hackers. And a new statement, Neweig said, quote, our software is clean. We have not introduced nor do we introduce and will not introduce into the software of our trains, any solutions that lead to intentional failures. This is slander from our competition, which is conducting an illegal black PR campaign against us. The company added that it has reported the situation to the

authorized authorities. In response, Dragon Sector released a lengthy statement explaining how they did their work and explaining the types of DRM they encountered. We did not interfere with the code of the controllers. All vehicles still run on the original unmodified software. part of the statement reads. SPS, meanwhile, has said that its position, quote, is consistent with the position of Dragon Sector. Koalchek told 404 media that, quote, we are answering media and waiting to be summoned as witnesses, and added that Newegg said, they will sue us, but we doubt they will. Their defense line is really poor, and they would have no chance defending it. They probably just want to sound scary in the media, end quote. This strategy to intimidate independent repair

professionals claim that the device, in this case a train is unsafe, and threatened legal action is an egregious but common playbook in manufacturers fight against repair all over the world. In the United States, an exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows for repair pros to hack land-based motor vehicles, quote, which would cover trains. Gray Gordon Byrne, Executive Director of Right to Repair Advocacy Group Repair.org, told 404 media. All of this is classic OEMBS, Gordon Byrne said, using an acronym for original equipment manufacturer, this is the kind of stuff DRM lets you do, and if you don't stop it, this is where it goes. What the OEM thinks shouldn't matter anymore because they're not

the owner of the train anymore. It's DRM gone wild, end quote. But in Europe, the legality of what Dragon Sector did is murkier. Digital Rights Advocate and copyright expert Corey Docterot, explained in his excellent pluralistic blog that Article 6 of Europe's 2001 Copyright and Information Society directive is generally stricter on DRM circumvention than Section 1201 of the DMCA and does not have a specific repair exemption. Because of this law, Dr. O told 404 media that, quote, there is now an extra layer of jeopardy for these researchers. They were brave to come forward and talk about it. Dr. O said that some similar types of research that bypass DRM and technological protection measures or TPMs in Europe has been done anonymously or behind

the scenes for this very reason, creating a chilling effect on this type of research, end quote. Finally today, another story to bookend this year of AI. One of the first things everyone was worried about when ChatGPT came out was plagiarism and cheating, especially by students. When ChatGPT can just write the paper for you, dot, dot, dot, but a Stanford University survey of more than 40 U.S. high schools has found chat GPT didn't increase cheating rates in 2023 versus prior years, suggesting the alarm may have been overblown. Quoting The New York Times. In a survey this year of more than 40 U.S. high schools, some 60 to 70 percent of students said they had recently engaged in cheating. About the same percentage as in previous years, Stanford Education researchers said.

There was a panic that these AI models will allow a whole new way of doing something that could be considered as cheating, said Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education, who has surveyed high school students for more than a decade through an education nonprofit she co-founded. But, quote, we're just not seeing the change in the data, end quote. Now, the Stanford research, along with a recent report from the Pew Research Center, are challenging the notion that AI chatbots are upending public schools. Many teens know little about chat GPT, Pew found, and most say they have never used it for schoolwork. Those trends could change, of course, as more high school students become familiar with AI

tools. The Pew survey results suggest that chat GPT, at least for now, has not become the disruptive phenomenon in schools that proponents and critics forecast. Among the subset of teens who said they had heard about the chatbot, the vastest majority, 81% said they had not used it to help with their schoolwork. Most teens do have some level of awareness of chat GPT said Jeffrey Gottfried, an associate director of research at Pew, but this is not a majority of teens who are incorporating it into their schoolwork quite yet, end quote. Cheating has long been rampant in schools. A survey of more than 70,000 high school students between 2002 and 2015 found

64% said they had cheated on a test, and 58% said they had plagiarized. Since the introduction of chat GPT in 2022, the overall frequency of high school students reporting they recently engaged in cheating has not increased, according to the Stanford researchers. The new research does not shed light on how frequently college students may employ chatbots as cheating bots, though. The Stanford and Pew researchers did not survey college students about their use of AI tools, and quote. So thank you for those of you who followed me on TikTok. Again, the account is TechMeme Ride Home podcast. Approaching 200 followers over there, which, you'll note, is basically a an infinitesimally small percentage of the tens of thousands of you who listen to this show every day.

And indeed, many of you got in touch with me after yesterday's announcement to be like, are you sure TikTok is where you should go where your audience is? I'm not on TikTok, but I like the idea of these breaking news posts. So why don't you post them elsewhere? Okay, so here's the thing. I chose TikTok because I wasn't on it either. I kind of wanted to learn. Plus, they make it so easy to just pick up your phone and post a video.

That's quite literally their whole thing. So I figured before I started flooding other channels where I do have more followers, I thought I'd test things out on TikTok first and work out the kinks. I do plan to continue posting on TikTok, but I do plan to post to other places soon. I'm leaning towards threads. I'm at Brian MCC on threads, by the way, as I said. But where would you have me go? I imagine most of you are on Instagram, right? Well, I'm at Brian MCC on Instagram too, but that's always been a private account. And frankly, I don't use Instagram much either. As I understand it, Instagram feed videos can be up to 60 minutes. I can do a whole show posted there. While Instagram's story length is 60 seconds and Instagram reels is 90 seconds, I frankly don't understand the distinction between those, but I can learn. So should I set up an Instagram account for the show and post there? At me on Twitter or threads.

Again, at Brian MCC in both places. And let me know your vote. Instagram, threads, Snapchat, maybe. Where are the majority of you? In the meantime, You can still sign up on TikTok. Follow TechMeme Ride Home Podcast, all one word. Talk to you tomorrow.