Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 08/11 – Google To Create A Global Android-Powered Earthquake Alert System

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Android is becoming a worldwide earthquake detection network. Major legal setback for Uber and Lyft in California. Businesses using Bitcoin as their capital reserve. Parallels Desktop supports Big Sur. Nreal still believes in consumer AR glasses. And we try my deepfake audio experiment. Sponsors: LiftOff.to LinkedIn.com/ride Links: ANDROID IS BECOMING A WORLDWIDE EARTHQUAKE DETECTION NETWORK (The Verge) California Wins Preliminary Injunction Against Uber, Lyft (Bloomberg) MicroStrategy becomes first listed company to buy bitcoin as part of its capital allocation strategy (The Block) Parallels Desktop 16 adds Big Sur support, 3D Metal support, and more (Ars Technica) Nreal’s augmented reality glasses are shipping this month in Korea (The Verge) Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August (WSJ) SpaceX is manufacturing 120 Starlink internet satellites per month (CNBC) Tesla is involved in the development of a smartwatch, but why? (Electrek) Onyx Launches a 6-Inch Color E-Reader (PCMag) 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 ride home for Tuesday, August 11th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Android is becoming a worldwide earthquake detection network.

Major legal setback for Uber and Lyft in California. Businesses using Bitcoin as their capital reserves. Parallels desktop supports Big Sur and Real still believes in consumer AR glasses. And we finally get to try my deep fake audio experiment. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I got to admit that this sounds cool. as hell. Android is becoming a worldwide earthquake detection network. Google is partnering with the U.S. Geological Survey to create a worldwide Android phone powered earthquake alert system using the accelerometers

found in smartphones. The first part of the system is rolling out today and it is opt in, but if you do opt in, your phone will automatically send data points to a system that will be used to detect earthquakes, quoting the verge. It's a feature made possible through Google's strengths. The Stagger number of Android phones around the world and clever use of algorithms on big data. As with its collaboration with Apple on exposure tracing and other Android features like car crash detection and emergency location services, it shows that there are untapped ways that smartphones could be used for something more important than doom scrolling. Google is rolling out the system in small stages. First, Google is partnering with the United States Geological Survey and the California

Office of Emergency Services to send the agency's earthquake alerts to Android users in that state. Those alerts are generated by the already existing shake alert system, which uses data generated by traditional seismometers. It'd be great if there were just seismometer-based systems everywhere that could detect earthquakes, said Mark Stogadis, principal Android software engineer at Google. But he continues, that's not really practical, and it's unlikely to have global coverage because seismometers are extremely expensive. They have to be constantly maintained.

You need a lot of them in an area to really have a good earthquake, early warning system, etc. So the second and third stages of Google's plan will be powered instead by Android phones. The company is proceeding fairly cautiously. In the second stage, Google will show localized results in Google searches for earthquakes based on the data it's detecting from Android phones. The idea there is that when you feel an earthquake, you'll go to Google to see if that's what you felt or not. But finally, once it has more confidence in the accuracy of the system, Google will begin actively sending out earthquake warnings to people who live in areas where there are not seismometer-based warning systems, end quote. There's plenty of additional nerdy details in the

piece I just quoted from about how phones are actually sensitive enough to detect both P-waves and S-waves from earthquakes. In fact, more often than not, people don't even detect the P-wave, but it turns out your phone can. Google believes its system is capable of locating the epicenter of quakes eventually and determining their strength, and Google hopes to have different levels of alerts depending on the earthquake severity. It's also going to develop and release an API for this, so iPhones might be able to someday plug into that, or also things like elevator systems, gas systems, airplanes so that they know automatically not to land. All sorts of amazing things could eventually be done with this system. In a lawsuit brought by California's

Attorney General, a judge has issued a preliminary injunction ordering Uber and Lyft to convert their drivers to employees who would be eligible to receive benefits. This is an early ruling and there will no doubt be appeals, but this is perhaps the most meaningful rebuke in the ongoing legal issues surrounding the gig economy. Quoting Bloomberg. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman agreed with California Attorney General Xavier Bekera that Uber and Lyft are violating the state law, Assembly Bill 5, but paused the injunction for 10 days so the companies can appeal his decision. If it stands, could spur ride-hailing companies to halt their services in the most populous U.S. state while they adjust their business model to comply with it. As other judges in California have done, Schollman cast doubt

on the company's defense of keeping drivers classified as contractors, saying it, quote, flies in the face of economic reality and common sense. Their, quote, insistence that their businesses are multi-sided platforms rather than transportation companies is flatly inconsistent with the statutory provisions that govern their business as transportation network companies, Schollman wrote. both said in response that most of their drivers prefer to be classified as contractors. Quote, the vast majority of drivers want to work independently, an Uber spokesperson said in an emailed statement, when over 3 million Californians are without a job, our elected leaders should be focused on creating work not trying to shut down an entire industry during

an economic depression, end quote. Micro Strategy is a NASDAQ listed business intelligence company, and it has become the first publicly traded company to buy Bitcoin as a part of its overall capital allocation strategy, quoting the block. The company announced on Tuesday that it has purchased 21,454 Bitcoins currently worth over $250 million. Micro Strategy first revealed its plan to buy Bitcoin as a way to avoid inflation on July 28th. Quote, our investment in Bitcoin is part of our new capital allocation strategy, which seeks to maximize long-term value for our shareholders, said Micro Strategy CEO Michael J. Saylor. This investment reflects our belief that Bitcoin, as the

world's most widely adopted cryptocurrency is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash, end quote. It is not clear whether micro strategy bought the Bitcoins via a crypto exchange or an over-the-counter trading desk and where these Bitcoins are held. The block has reached out to the company and will update this story should we hear back, end quote. Parallel's desktop 16 is here, adding support for Big Sur, 3D and metal, and zoom and rotate gestures on multi-touch track pads. Parallels also claims desktop 16 will get 20% faster direct-X performance, quoting Ars Technica. In addition to supporting Big Sur for both host machines and

virtual machines, Parallels Desktop 16 has a slightly different look to fit the different appearance Apple has gone with in Big Sur. While Big Sur support is the flagship feature here, there's a laundry list of small improvements in this release. For example, Parallels Desktop 16 supports 3D and metal applications when running a Mac OS Big Sur virtual machine. on a macOS Big Sur host. Also, printers can be shared between host and virtual machines across operating systems, and support has been added for Zoom and rotate gestures on multi-touch track pads for Windows apps that have Zoom rotation functionality.

We asked about any plans for supporting Windows on Apple Silicon in Big Sur, but Parallels reps declined to talk about that, saying they would discuss it at a later date, end quote. Unreal is a company you think you've never heard of, but I'm here to tell you, you actually have. because I shared audio when I visited their booth at CES earlier this year. Enreal makes AR glasses. They actually fought off an IP theft lawsuit from Magic Leap, remember them. And they've actually beat Magic Leap in another way, as they're still bringing commercial AR glasses to the market.

Enreal is shipping their AR glasses in South Korea this month for $586 or $295 if you bundle it with a Galaxy Note 20, quoting the verge. The Unreal Light, also referred to as U-plus Real Glasses, is a light sunglasses-style headset that tethers to a separate computing device, in this case the Galaxy Note 20. It uses spatial tracking and projected images to overlay apps onto the real world, and Inreal pitches it as a more spacious alternative to a smartphone when you're watching videos, playing games, or reading websites.

It's promising to support Chrome, Facebook, and Instagram, along with other apps at launch. The consumer retail version comes with an array of nose clips to fit different faces, as well as a corrective lens insert, and a black VR cover that blocks your outside vision to create a clearer picture. Unreal previously shipped a $1,199 developer kit that included a controller and a dedicated mini-computer. The consumer version of the glasses will use a phone-based control system,

and Unreal announced that it would bring hand-tracking to the glasses at some point as well, end quote. I didn't actually have time to dig up the audio from when I got the demo at CES, but I do remember being impressed. Not, oh my God, this is going to change the world or anything, but impressed. Solid. Interesting. This is something that I would normally wait until the news was official before we're reporting on, but Airbnb is the biggest unicorn we've been anticipating Mikeo public all year. Its path to an IPO has been so perilous, what with COVID and everything, and frankly, we've discussed how very desperately the company needs to go public soon, mostly for internal morale. So worth noting that sources are telling the Well Street Journal that Airbnb plans to

confidentially file for an IPO this month, with the aim of maybe getting the listing out the door by the end of the year. Let me let the Wall Street Journal remind you of how we got here, quote. The long-awaited move will bring one of the stalwarts of the sharing economy into the public domain alongside ride-sharing platforms Uber and Lyft and sets up the next few months to be an especially busy time for big IPOs. Airbnb was recently valued at $18 billion down from an earlier valuation of $31 billion. An imminent debut would mark a turnaround for Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, and allows people to list their homes for rent. For years, the company shied away from the public markets as it grew into one of the most highly valued startups with 4.8 billion in revenue in 2019 alone.

It also spent big, however, prompting it to swing to a loss in the first nine months of 2019, compared with a $200 million profit a year earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported. Its woes deepened late last year after issues emerged involving crime and safety problems on its platform. And as the pandemic spread across the globe, so did the company's headaches. People stopped traveling, causing bookings to plummet. Airbnb three years ago, valued at more than $30 billion rushed to secure financing from private equity firm's Silver Lake and Sixth Street partners at a high interest rate and with warrants that when exercise would value the company at $18 billion. In May, Airbnb said it was laying off a quarter of its staff,

end quote. We're going to end today with an omnibus segment, just grabbing a couple of things to Elon Musk-related items and one that continues our E-Reader theme this week. But as promised, what you're about to hear was never recorded by me. The rest of this segment was produced by Descript and that new overdub feature wherein I trained it on about 45 minutes of my voice and then I merely had to type out a script and let the overdub AI produce the audio with a deep fake of my voice. Let's see how it sounds, shall we? Starting now. First up, Space X is dead serious about getting their Starlink Internet satellites into orbit. In fact, they're so serious. They're manufacturing the satellites at a rate that is completely unprecedented for the space industry. Elon Musk's space company told the FCC that its

Starlink unit is now building 120 satellites per month. But even at that rate, this is still going to take a while, because SpaceX wants to eventually deploy 12,000 of the small satellites into orbit. 600 are already in orbit. Quoting CNBC, it's difficult to contextual. what SpaceX's satellite production rate means given the difference in size and complexity of spacecraft dealt by other companies. But Quilty Analytics founder Chris Quilty told CNBC that Starlink manufacturing is happening at a speed never before seen in the satellite sector. Quilty's boutique research and investment firm focuses on the satellite communications sector, which he founded after leading Raymond James coverage of the space industry for 20 years. To put it in perspective,

Eridium, which previously held the record for the largest commercial satellite constellation, was manufacturing satellites at the rate of about six satellites per month at the peak of production. Quilty said, end quote. Also on the Elon Musk tip, Tesla is apparently involved in developing a smart watch. And people are wondering why. Quoting Electric. Explorer Technologies, a Norway-based wearable company focusing on smartwatches for kids, has filed an application with the FCC for a new smart.

and listed Tesla as being involved in the project, in an application to keep aspects of the project confidential. The company listed Tesla Motors in the filing. In particular, they are seeking FCC approval for the use of connectivity on their X5 Play SM smartwatches that has been built to track the activities of kids and allow them to send voice messages and predefined text messages. It's hard to believe that Tesla would get involved in smartwatches for kids, but there could be a few possible explanations. First off, Tesla might have acquired Explorer technologies, explaining why it is mentioned in the filling. It might have acquired the company for its employees, but then it would be strange for them to still apply for FCC approval, which would aim to launch the product in the US.

Therefore, it's possible that Tesla is actually looking to use the Explorer Smartwatch platform. We have seen that third-party app developers have made Apple Watch apps to control Tesla vehicles using smartwatches. With Tesla moving to using phones instead of key fobs for Model 3 and Model Y, it's possible that Tesla is looking to offer a smartwatch as an optional key, end quote. And finally, would you get your comic books from a dedicated E-reader if it had color E-ink? Quoting PC magazine. The Onyx Bookes poke to Color E-reader recently launched on the Book Store, and it offers a color experience for those willing to spend a lot for afar from perfect experience. Onyx is quite open about the poke to color being based on emerging technology,

and states on the product page that the device has a rather low resolution compared to the more typical non-color e-readers itself, it recommends the poke-to-color only be purchased by those people who are keen on trying new things. So how limited is it? The poke to color uses a six-inch's color e-ink display with a resolution of one. For for 8 by 1, 70 to pixels. When viewing black and white images or text it renders at the 300 pixels per inch. But for color output, that's reduced to just 100 pixels per inch.

Color is also limited to just the 4,096 colors offered by the E-Inc Colito panel. It's a touchscreen, though, and includes a front light with 30 to levels of brightness control. What may stop a poke to color purchase even for those keen to try new things is the price. It's $299 for the E-reader, although Onyx is throwing in a protective cover for free, which usually costs $39.99. Even so, the non-color version of the poke to only costs $190, clearly showing how much of a premium that Color E-ink display adds. However, the positive in all of this is the fact that Color E-reader has hit the market. And that suggests others will follow.

They'll get better and they'll get cheaper, end quote. So what did you think of that? Obviously, it's not going to fool anyone in any sort of audio. Turing test anytime soon. And I did have to go in there somewhat to do some cleanup. Like it kept pronouncing Elon Musk as Ellen Musk. So I had to go in and spell it out E-dash-lon Musk. And clearly, you can hear very obvious intakes of breath when there are commas in the text, which is interesting. I wonder if I re-recorded the test audio and tried not to do any breathing, if that would somehow eliminate those intakes and then there would just be silence.

Though sometimes pauses for breath actually make sense in the sentence and that would help make it seem more natural so that would actually be useful maybe in fooling your ears in certain cases. Also, it was interesting how it did numbers. Like I picked that segment to test this on because it had a lot of technical jargon and numbers. But if you think about it, it's amazing that it did that well at all. Like, I guarantee you, I never uttered the word eridium. in the training and so it had to put words like that together all by its own as my four-year-old would say and individual sections of words strung together like certain sentences in there it got the cadence mostly right so think about it it's constructing the words in a believable way piecing them together

from pieces of other words it's maybe halfway to getting the cadence right and then if it gets better at the inflections i mean bottom line pretty pretty cool right it's way better than than I thought the technology would be before I tried it out, though it's clearly not 100% there yet. So I'll give you another sample, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air in West Philadelphia, born and raised. On the playground was where I spent most of my days, chilling out maxin relaxin all cool and shootin some b'all outside of the school when a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble in my neighborhood i got in one little fight and my mom got scared she said you're movin with your auntie and uncle in bell air i whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror if anything i could say that this cab was rare but i thought now forget it yo homes to bell air i

pulled up to the house about seven or eight, and I yelled to the cabby, yo home smell ya later. I looked at my kingdom. I was finally there to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.