Tech Brew Ride Home - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - Musk Fears Sabotage

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Verizon and AT&T stop selling your location data, Google roles out a couple of cool new things, Alexa is coming to your hotel, Elon Musk is worried about sabotage, and how Europe might kill meme culture. Stories from: @jacknicas Tweets: @coryweinberg, @danprimack Links:In China Trade War, Apple Worries It Will Be Collateral Damage (NYTimes)One Year in, Bird Founder Sells Some Shares (The Information)The EU's bizarre war on memes is totally unwinnable (Wired UK) 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, June 19th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Verizon and AT&T stop selling your location data.

Google rolls out a couple of cool new things. Alexa is coming to your hotel. Elon Musk is worried about sabotage and how Europe might kill meme culture. This is what you miss today in the world of tech. Remember all those stories I did recently about data leaks from companies like Securus technologies, and location smart, companies which sell data about you from your cell phone, specifically location data. Well, they were only able to get this data to leak because, A, their systems were janky,

but also B, because the cell companies were willing to resell this data to them. So kudos to Verizon for pledging today to stop selling customer location data to data brokers. Verizon is the first major U.S. wireless carrier to do so, and what would think all of the others will soon be following suit. There is a little bit of wiggle room, as though Verizon is ending the sale of data to third-party brokers, it says it will continue to share some location data because it doesn't want to disrupt beneficial services, such as fraud prevention. Still, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who has been leading the crusade against the practice of selling your location data to third parties, applauded Verizon's move telling the Associated Press in a statement, quote,

Verizon did the responsible thing and promptly announced it was cutting these companies, off. In contrast, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint seemed content to keep selling their customers' private information to these shady middlemen. Americans' privacy be damned, unquote. I can't see that being the case for much longer. And indeed, just before this recording, AT&T said it too was ending sales of phone location data to third-party brokers. A couple of new products from Google today. If you use Android messages, today you got a key feature that has probably made you jealous of iMessages for the last few years, i.e., the ability to send and receive messages from your PC. Actually, you can now send messages from any web connection. All you need is the latest

version of the messages app on your phone, then head to messages.com and follow the instructions. According to reports I've seen across Twitter, the website seems to work well on any browser, not just Chrome, thankfully, and it has some cool new features. For instance, Gmail like smart replies, GIF search built right in, and previews for links shared in messages. This is obviously a step towards chat, that implementation of rich communication services that Google is pushing as an overall replacement for SMS. If you'll recall, many cell carriers have pledged to back chat by integrating it into their phone offerings, thus creating something of an open ecosystem to compete with the likes of iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.

But also from Google, if you're a listener to me, me right now, then by definition you're a fan of podcasts. And Google today launched Google Podcasts for Android, a standalone podcast app. Google has been making noises recently that it is looking to get into podcasting in a major way and creating a standalone app for podcasting would seem to be basic table stakes. It's Android only, and there are currently no plans for an iOS version of the app, but if you're on Android, check it out. The app integrates with Google Assistant, so you can search and play podcast wherever you have assistant enabled. So if you listen to half a podcast on your, I don't know, your ride home from work, you can resume it on your Google home device when you're

back in the house. And in the coming months, Google intends to roll out a whole slew of features like the ability to add closed captions to your podcast, thereby allowing you to read along as you listen. And eventually, Google wants to offer real-time live transcriptions, even if the podcast is not in your native language. Zach Renaudine, product manager on the new app, told The Verge that, quote, there's still tons of room for growth when it comes to podcasts listening.

A native first-party Android app for podcasts, quote, could as much as double the worldwide listenership of podcasts overall. This has been rumored before, but Amazon today rolled out Alexa for hospitality, a special version of Alexa for hotels that can assist with things like ordering room service, requesting housekeeping or adjusting the thermostat in your room.

It's rolling out on an invitation-only basis to select hotels today and will be customized to each hospitality location. Among the early partners are reportedly Marriott Hotels, Weston Hotels, St. Regis Hotels, Aloft Hotels, and Autograph Collection Hotels. But in addition to hotels having the ability to suit Alexa to their needs, in the near future, you too will be able to temporarily log in to your own Amazon account during the length of your stay, thus bringing along all of your personal Alexa settings, such as your Spotify playlists and audible audiobooks.

Quote, customers tell us they love how easy it is to get information, enjoy entertainment, and control connected devices by simply asking Alexa, and we want to offer those experiences everywhere customers want them, said Amazon VP Daniel Roche in a press release. Quote, Alexa for hospitality makes your hotel stay a little more like being at home and gives hospitality providers new ways to create memorable stays for their guests, end quote. Given the recent privacy snafus around the Alexa platform, Amazon was careful to note that recordings of Alexa commands on these hotel devices will be deleted daily,

and hotels will not be given access to voice recordings of Alexa interactions. But hotels will be able to measure guest engagement through analytics and reporting. The information did some interesting forensic accounting journalism, looking at the cap table for e-scooter startup Bird, and finding that Bird founder Travis van der Zanden has possibly already cashed out approximately $44 million worth of Bird shares. This is highly unusual because Bird is only about nine months old. It has become common practice for founders to take money off the table during funding raises,

but rarely this early in a company's life and rarely that much money. Founders tend to hoard shares early in a company's development, both to preserve equity and company control and also to signal to investors their confidence in the young company. The information found that since June 1st, the number of bird shares described as founders' preferred stock has dropped by one-third to nearly 7.5 million shares from 11.25 million previously. The company's most recent funding round was at $11.75 per share, so that's how they arrive at the $44 million. dollar estimate. Bird has raised $450 million to date. If Bird is familiar to you, it's because of the rumor last week that the company's valuation ballooned in mere months. As Dan Premack tweeted, yes, it's unusual, as is being valued at $2 billion just three weeks after being valued at $1 billion. And the information reporter Corey Weinberg tweeted, quote,

Tired, getting very rich selling your one-year-old autonomous vehicle startup. Wired. Getting very rich raising money for your less than one-year-old scooter startup. So I don't know quite what to make of this next story, but nor does anyone else really. On Sunday night, Elon Musk sent an email to all Tesla employees, alleging that he had uncovered a Tesla employee who he accused of attempting to sabotage Tesla by doing things like changing operating system code under false usernames and sending sensitive data to unknown third parties. Musk said an investigation was ongoing, but that it is.

appeared the employee in question was disgruntled after being passed over for a promotion. In his email to every Tesla employee, Musk wrote, quote, As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short sellers who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil and gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world. They don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power and electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it, that these companies are sometimes not super nice.

Then there are the multitude of big gas-slash-diesel car company competitors. If they are willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways. Musk concluded by saying, quote, please be extremely vigilant, particularly over the next few weeks as we ramp up the production rate to 5K a week. This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us, end quote. Then, yesterday morning, Musk reportedly sent up.

Another company-wide email alerting employees to, quote, another strange incident of a small fire on the production line that stopped production at Tesla for several hours. Quote, could just be a random event, but as Andy Grove said, only the paranoid survive. The email then says, quote, please be on the alert for anything that's not in the best interests of our company, end quote. You might be aware if you've been following Tesla

that the company has been struggling to reach its much-touted goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of this month. As of June 5th, Tesla was producing only 3,500 Model 3s per week, and the company has said before that until it reaches that magic 5,000 car per week mark, the company will lose money on every car it makes. Just last week, the company laid off 9% of its workforce. This is not the first time Musk has reputed to have uncovered sabotage at one of his companies. In 2016, when a SpaceX rocket exploded while being fueled up,

Musk suggested that the incident might be the work of, quote, a long list of SpaceX adversaries. The New York Times has an interesting piece up about Apple's CEO Tim Cook and his relationship with the Trump administration and the Chinese government simultaneously. In short, as fears of a full-blown trade war between China and the U.S. ramp up, Apple increasingly worries that it will be caught in the middle, and this has led Cook to ramp up what amounts to geopolitical diplomacy

to better look out for Apple's interests. Quoting from the piece, The Trump administration has told Mr. Cook that it would not place tariffs on iPhones, which are assembled in China, according to a person familiar with the talks, who declined to speak on the record for fear of upsetting negotiations. But Apple is worried China will retaliate in ways that hamstring its business,

according to three people close to Apple, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Apple fears the Chinese bureaucracy machine is going to kick in, meaning the Chinese government could cause delays in its supply chain and increase scrutiny of its products under the guise of national security concerns, according to one person close to the company. Apple has faced such retaliation before, another person said, and Reuters reported Ford vehicles are already facing delays at Chinese ports, end quote.

Cook has met repeatedly with Chinese officials in recent months, and last month he visited the United States. the Oval Office to personally meet with President Trump. Another quote from the piece, Mr. Cook has found cabinet members more accessible in the Trump administration than the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the talks. And he has seen eye to eye with Mr. Cudlow, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, and on some issues, Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary.

So we've spoken extensively about the effects of GDPR, even getting an update on that yesterday. But here's another EU regulation that's coming down the pike. that has to do with copyright. And this one, bizarrely, doesn't feel as consumer-friendly because it could essentially outlaw memes. That's right. Tomorrow, June 20th, the European Parliament

will begin considering a new copyright directive, one section of which, Article 13, would require Internet service providers and websites to use content identification technologies to take down all copyrighted material. So the framers of this law are clearly primarily thinking of pirated music and video, but the scope of Article 13 covers all copyrighted materials, images, audio, video, software code, and even the written word.

So, yeah, you know that one meme, the one about how one simply does not walk into Mordor? This law could allow the rights holders of Lord of the Rings to take that down, from Reddit, from Facebook, from Twitter, from wherever. Some of the premier technologists in the world, including Tim Berners-Lee and Vince Cerf, wrote an open letter to the European Parliament and the European Parliament President, warning that the proposed directive, quote, takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users, end quote. This is because, as cryptographer and security specialist Bruce Schneier, one of the letter signatories, says, quote, Article 133. effectively deputizes social media and other internet companies as copyright police, forcing them to implement a highly invasive surveillance infrastructure across their entire service offerings. Aside from the harm from the provisions of Article 13,

this infrastructure can be easily repurposed by government and corporations and further entrenched ubiquitous surveillance into the fabric of the internet. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have extensive image recognition technologies that they tout every time they want to impress us with the amount of bad content that they take down before we even see it. But that's expensive to run, of course, and they probably don't want to have to do that sort of thing for memes. YouTube has had content ID for years, which is its system for detecting pirated video on the YouTube platform, but do they also want to have to chase down American Chopper memes? And should they even have to?

The argument can be made that most memes are parity and thus protected speech. can an algorithm determine if that fast in the furious meme you posted is fair use or not? And as the EFF argued in a recent tweet, quote, the EU's Article 13 copyright filters are a priceless gift

for disinformation spreaders, fake news, stock market manipulators, and censors of all kinds, end quote. So at the same time, we're trying to combat fake news. Would this sort of content censorship actually hobble those efforts? Wired UK had a ready-made Star Wars meme

featuring old Ben Kenobi, telling Luke, quote, We called them memes, and we had a lot of fun, before the dock times, before Article 13. By the way, no more World Cup spoilers. Apologies to Englishman Louis Thompson, who tweeted to alert me to something that had never occurred to me. I guess if it's a ride home show, maybe you're riding home to catch the game.

So from now on, congratulations to Insert team here that you're waiting to see win on your DVR when you get home. I've been your host, Brian McCullough. Follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC for extremely spoilerful tweets during England matches.