This Week in Tech 1095 transcript

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.

Leo Laporte [00:00:00]:
It's time for TWIT This Week in Tech. Abrar Al-Heedi from CNET is here. Mike Elgin from Machine Society, our good friend and AI guru. And there is a lot to talk about. Quarterly results from Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. What do they tell us about the future of AI and of the stock market? Plus, we'll talk about Amazon. They wanna put another 10,000 satellites in orbit for your cell phone. It'll be in just a couple of years.

Leo Laporte [00:00:29]:
And that new model from China that's scaring everybody in Silicon Valley. That and a whole lot more this week on TWiT. Stay tuned. Podcasts you love.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:00:40]:
From people you trust.

Leo Laporte [00:00:43]:
This is TWiT. This is TWiT. This Week in Tech, episode 1095, recorded Sunday, August 2nd, It's time for TWiT, This Week in Tech, the show where we cover the week's tech news. Hello everybody, so glad you're here and so glad to welcome our guest today. Abrar Al-Heeti is here. It's great to see you, senior technology reporter at CNET. Hello, Abrar.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:21]:
Hello, hello.

Leo Laporte [00:01:22]:
Wonderful to see you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:23]:
Good to see you too. I love that we had— we were talking about this before, but me and Mike love your shirt.

Leo Laporte [00:01:28]:
Oh, it's crazy. Well, I— well, okay. And I love your headscarf, which is pink.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:33]:
Thank you.

Leo Laporte [00:01:34]:
I didn't know you could get them in pink. I think that's great.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:37]:
All the colors of the rainbow.

Leo Laporte [00:01:38]:
Yeah, very floral. You're very floral. You've got roses behind you. What's with all the flowers?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:42]:
Well, I hosted afternoon tea yesterday, and so I was telling Benito, if I have flowers, they're gonna show for this. So if you are watching instead of listening, please enjoy the background. Uh, yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:01:52]:
I feel like you're just super elegant and cool and like, wow.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:56]:
I try. Thank you so much.

Leo Laporte [00:01:58]:
Very cool. Meanwhile, there's Mike Elgin, who's He's not even in his own home.

Mike Elgan [00:02:02]:
I got nothing on my shirts. I have nothing to offer.

Leo Laporte [00:02:05]:
Mike Elgin is, of course, a peripatetic traveler. He works and lives all over the world. You can find out more at gastronomad.net. He also has a wonderful newsletter, machinesociety.ai, and does an AI podcast with Emily Ferlini, which is fabulous. And it's always a pleasure to see Mike, who is, Briefly, in the United States. Is there an occasion for this, or?

Mike Elgan [00:02:31]:
Just, we had been spending so much time, and as you know, I'm always having to escape Schengen, which is the visa requirement for most of Europe. You have to leave, like, you can't spend more than 90 days every 180 days. So we have to find a place to go. Often we go to the UK. And speaking of the UK, I have to take issue. What you had was Was, uh, uh, no, afternoon tea was right. That's right. High tea.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:02:58]:
I did not say high tea.

Leo Laporte [00:02:59]:
You got it right.

Mike Elgan [00:03:00]:
A lot of people say high tea when they mean afternoon tea. High tea is more of a working-class meal, whereas afternoon tea is an elegant, uh, scone, scones, sandwiches.

Leo Laporte [00:03:10]:
The British seem to eat a lot. You have a— you have breakfast, then you have elevenses, which is a tea, then you have lunch, Then you have tea at 4.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:22]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:03:22]:
And then you have dinner.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:24]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:03:25]:
Is that— do people really do that? And why aren't they— why is it Americans are so fat when they're doing that?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:32]:
I always think that every time I travel the world. I'm like, why are we— like, we, I think, comparatively don't eat as much as some countries, but we just have like the worst luck in genetics, I think. I don't know what it is.

Leo Laporte [00:03:41]:
Maybe it's genetics.

Mike Elgan [00:03:42]:
It's, it's, it— I think it has more to do with the quality of the food.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:45]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:03:46]:
And also the size of the portions and the fact that we, we snack so much. If you— I, I, you know, there are people who— I think it was Wanda Sykes, the comedian, who married a French woman and stopped snacking because the French don't snack. And she said it was like you lose all kinds of weight when you don't snack. So Americans are always snacking. The quality of our food is really bad, which affects our metabolism. And also a lot of Brits will have like, you know, toast and coffee for breakfast, whereas we might have a bigger breakfast. Although, you know, of course an English breakfast may also include The Brits are ridiculous. Beans and sausages.

Leo Laporte [00:04:21]:
It's not just toast. They've invented this thing called a toast rack that's designed to cool the toast as quickly as possible. So they actually have cold toast, which—

Mike Elgan [00:04:30]:
They're very impatient people. They can't wait.

Leo Laporte [00:04:34]:
Warm beer, but cold toast.

Mike Elgan [00:04:36]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:04:36]:
Actually, everything's room temperature, isn't it? It's all really—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:04:39]:
Well, the water especially. No ice water for you.

Leo Laporte [00:04:42]:
Yeah. What's that all about? Anyway, we love you all. We have listeners all over the world and we do not— we, you know, look, look at Mike. He can't stay in the US because he just— he's here just for technical reasons, legal reasons.

Mike Elgan [00:04:56]:
That's right, exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:04:57]:
Just so he can go back.

Mike Elgan [00:04:59]:
Against my will, in extremis, I might come back to the country of my birth.

Leo Laporte [00:05:03]:
No, you're staying with your son, your wonderful son and daughter-in-law and their beautiful daughter, your granddaughter.

Mike Elgan [00:05:09]:
Yes, yes.

Leo Laporte [00:05:09]:
Princess Squishy Face, you call her.

Mike Elgan [00:05:11]:
Yes, that's right.

Leo Laporte [00:05:12]:
Although, you probably don't call her that anymore. She's, she's a little older than she— No, she's, she's grown up.

Mike Elgan [00:05:16]:
She's grown up so fast. She's gonna be 10 in November.

Leo Laporte [00:05:19]:
Oh, no!

Mike Elgan [00:05:19]:
So she's really grown up. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:05:20]:
No!

Mike Elgan [00:05:21]:
Yeah, but you know, she gets to travel with us more. So she's been doing— she went with us to Venice and she went with us to Tuscany and she's doing a lot more traveling with us. So it's really great.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:05:31]:
That's so fun.

Leo Laporte [00:05:32]:
I'm gonna pause just briefly 'cause Mike, you've disappeared off the shelf again. Yeah, I think it's just— Look in Zoom and see if you've got auto gain or something. Something's going on where you actually—

Mike Elgan [00:05:41]:
so just the audio. I think it's placed like his—

Leo Laporte [00:05:44]:
Yeah, your picture's great.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:05:45]:
It just needs to be—

Leo Laporte [00:05:45]:
We have this problem with Mike. With others as well.

Mike Elgan [00:05:47]:
He just needs to speak into the mic. What were you saying, Benito? I think because the— Yeah, no, testing, testing.

Leo Laporte [00:05:51]:
I'm sorry, Benito, it's not. While he's talking, it's going up and down. It's some— it's the same thing that happens to Paris, and they always say, well, they're not addressing the mic. It's not. It's a— it's some weird thing. It's a gating of some kind.

Mike Elgan [00:06:03]:
Okay, let me see if I can do something.

Leo Laporte [00:06:04]:
It's exactly like Paris. We'd had problems with Paris for a long time.

Mike Elgan [00:06:09]:
Ugh, so annoying.

Leo Laporte [00:06:11]:
She has— she uses this microphone. That's the funny thing. She's using a Scarlett and this microphone, so I don't know what's going on. I think it's Zoom. I'm more and more thinking it's Zoom.

Mike Elgan [00:06:21]:
It's a compression thing because like it has something to do with the compression.

Leo Laporte [00:06:25]:
Yeah, that's kind of what it feels like.

Mike Elgan [00:06:27]:
Right? Because like when he speaks up to the mic, it like sounds fine. Yeah, it sounds like it's, it's being padded down. Okay, so I should do that. I should talk really not, not—

Leo Laporte [00:06:38]:
Yeah, but that's not the solution because it's, it's something more mechanical.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:06:44]:
Hmm.

Leo Laporte [00:06:44]:
Uh, look in your, um, settings.

Mike Elgan [00:06:48]:
Settings of Zoom?

Leo Laporte [00:06:49]:
Audio settings in Zoom.

Mike Elgan [00:06:51]:
Yep, I'm looking at it.

Leo Laporte [00:06:52]:
And change it. So if auto gain is on, turn it off. If it's off, turn it on.

Mike Elgan [00:06:58]:
Okay, it's auto is, uh, is off, so I'm gonna turn it on. Turn it on. Let's see if that helps. Okay, change it.

Leo Laporte [00:07:05]:
Well, something's— sometimes it's— we'd normally ask people to turn it off, Yeah, but sometimes, okay, it's a good thing. And do you have any noise canceling?

Mike Elgan [00:07:15]:
I have original sound for musicians. I think that's the right mode, right? So echo cancellation is on.

Leo Laporte [00:07:19]:
Normally, yeah, it's the right mode.

Mike Elgan [00:07:20]:
But I don't need echo cancellation because I have earbuds. Turn that off. Um, and I have high fidelity music mode.

Leo Laporte [00:07:29]:
You're sounding better already. Okay, turn it up one more notch on the mic, if you will, too.

Mike Elgan [00:07:33]:
Okay.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:07:38]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:07:39]:
No, Benito, I actually liked how loud you are— you were, because you were really quiet. I could barely hear you, and then you were nice.

Mike Elgan [00:07:46]:
So how's that? Is that better?

Leo Laporte [00:07:47]:
Yeah, yeah. The people, uh, and I should explain this to people watching the stream. If you're watching live, you're watching the unprocessed, unfinished version of the show. We fix all this in post, but, uh, when you're live, you have to put up with some Yes. And I'm just trying to make it as good as it can be for you folks watching. All right, let's continue on. Well, let's get to the news. And I don't know where to begin.

Leo Laporte [00:08:17]:
This was a busy week because a number of companies, Google, Apple, Microsoft announced earnings, Meta as well. And all of them, it's so fun. The stock market is so weird. produce different results in the stock market. So I'm not gonna worry about the stock market. In fact, we really shouldn't worry about corporate quarterly earnings results, except they do kind of give you an insight into what's going on in a company. Apple's 3rd quarter results, the last one Tim Cook's gonna do.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:08:48]:
Mm-hmm.

Leo Laporte [00:08:48]:
It came out on Thursday. And, you know, next time it'll be the new CEO, John Ternus, at the helm. Revenue of $109 billion, which is up 16%. This quarter isn't, It's fiscal 3rd quarter and it's not normally its big quarter. The big quarters are when they release new iPhones, obviously. In fact, this is the weakest usually of the 4. Gross margin, and this is an important— I'm going to mention this number because I think it's important, is 50.1%. Believe it or not, that's down.

Leo Laporte [00:09:22]:
But that's margin before taxes. But what's important about that is It shows Apple has a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to pricing. They make a lot of money, right? They did get some tariff refunds. It was the strongest June ever, according to Apple. Double-digit growth in revenue across iPhone, Mac, and services. So if you just look at that top line, it looks pretty good. Profit up 27%. Partly— now the issue is going to be they're going to have to raise prices.

Leo Laporte [00:10:04]:
And this goes with the other story from Apple this week, which is they announced a new lease program because I think they anticipate that the next generation phones are going to— and Macs are going to be— and iPads are going to be so expensive.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:10:17]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:10:18]:
That people will want to do as they do with automobiles and lease them.

Mike Elgan [00:10:22]:
They've also raised prices preemptively, like the Apple TV. Right.

Leo Laporte [00:10:28]:
They didn't need to raise the Apple TV, right? Because they're probably already made.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:10:32]:
Exactly.

Mike Elgan [00:10:33]:
Because I think when they come out with the new one, they're going to want to say, it's the same price. So I think that's just one tactic that they do. But it is really interesting how much money they made, and then stock market was like, meh. Not impressed.

Leo Laporte [00:10:50]:
Stock fell 8%, uh, in after— you know, they announced it at the market close, but right after it fell 8%, and it's still considerably down. Yeah, um, down like $30, almost 10% from its peak earlier. So significant punishment.

Mike Elgan [00:11:08]:
But I read that— I read that half— oh boy, get this right— see, the profit or revenue, I think it's profit— half the world's profit on smart phones in the last quarter were Apples.

Leo Laporte [00:11:21]:
That's probably true. They don't have half the sales.

Mike Elgan [00:11:25]:
No, no, no.

Leo Laporte [00:11:26]:
Worldwide, other, you know, Android is much more popular.

Mike Elgan [00:11:28]:
They're in the 20s, I think, uh, percentage sales, something like that.

Leo Laporte [00:11:32]:
They make more money per phone than anybody else. Amazing. And they sell enough of them that, that—

Mike Elgan [00:11:36]:
yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:11:37]:
And just wait until, you know, with a rumored foldable iPhone. Not a lot of people are going to buy it, but that thing's going to be expensive, so they're going to make a lot of money off of that, even if the quantities are small. And Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:11:48]:
Samsung, uh, a couple weeks ago released their Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 and their Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra. You probably covered it a little bit, Barbara.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:11:56]:
I did, I did.

Leo Laporte [00:11:57]:
And the pricing on the Ultra, the top of the line, is $2,100.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:03]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:12:03]:
$2,100 starting. Now the one that looks more like what we think Apple's folding phone looks like is the just the 8, right? It's more of a pocket, pocket square.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:14]:
It looks like— I'm gonna put it right here. It's in my room.

Leo Laporte [00:12:15]:
But oh, you have it?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:16]:
I have it.

Mike Elgan [00:12:16]:
I love it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:17]:
I've, I've really loved it. My review published, uh, this week, and, um, it's, it's so— I didn't expect to like it as much as I did, but I do really love the palm size of it. And given how much I think a lot of us have really loved using this phone, a lot of reviewers, um, it makes sense that Apple would release something like that. But also kudos to Samsung for kind of beating them to the punch and saying, okay, if there's rumors about this 4:3 aspect ratio, let's, let's do it first.

Leo Laporte [00:12:43]:
Well, they're able to do that because They're making the screens!

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:47]:
Exactly!

Leo Laporte [00:12:48]:
They already know exactly what Apple's doing!

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:52]:
Let's release our own foldable phone with a minimized crease before Apple does, and of this size. It's an interesting, precarious relationship.

Leo Laporte [00:13:01]:
Do you think that pisses off Apple when they do that?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:13:03]:
It must! I can only imagine how secretive they are. If they can't really keep that away from one of their biggest competitors, it must be be kind of a pain in their side.

Leo Laporte [00:13:13]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:13:14]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:13:15]:
So you see, I think that that is a really nice form factor.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:13:18]:
I'm, I mean, I don't want to buy these, but I kind of feel like I kind of, it's really fun and it really is just kind of perfect for anything that you need. I, even though the COVID screen is smaller, I do use it a lot still. And then being able to rotate it into either landscape or portrait orientation is, it's so seamless. And so no matter what your consuming. It's just, it makes a lot of sense to have it in that size. And I loved last year's Fold, um, and I never thought that I would need a whole different form factor for a foldable, but this one really does just make sense. And it's so cute.

Leo Laporte [00:13:48]:
What they've done really well is they've made them really— this is the last year's Fold. It's really thin.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:13:53]:
So light, so thin. It's incredible. You forget that it's foldable while you're using it. Yeah, that there's a whole big screen on the inside. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:14:00]:
The other advantage Apple has is they make iPads, and this is pretty close when you open it up to the form factor of an iPad Mini. Is that right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:11]:
Exactly. Yeah. It feels exactly like a small tablet, like an iPad Mini. So yeah, I mean, I'm sure Apple will be able to take all of those understandings from their years of building an iPad into making a foldable phone that opens up to that same size.

Leo Laporte [00:14:26]:
Galaxy Z Fold, a passport-sized shape-shifter for every moment. Yeah, because it goes from a fairly small screen, To an iPad mini size screen.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:39]:
It's great. It's, it really is the perfect size.

Leo Laporte [00:14:42]:
Oh, see now. Oh man. And it's gonna be, I know, uh, Samsung's selling theirs for $1,900, but Apple's gonna be—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:51]:
oh yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:14:52]:
What do you think?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:53]:
Well, a lot of rumors are suggesting it could be $2,500.

Leo Laporte [00:14:56]:
Oh, I know.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:58]:
Which I like wouldn't even be shocked about because at this point, like they're gonna charge whatever they wanna charge and people are gonna buy it. But I hope, I hope it's wrong. But I don't know.

Leo Laporte [00:15:07]:
That's what a comp— in fact, for years, Mike, you remember this, we would say the computer you want, this is 20 years ago, is always $2,500.

Mike Elgan [00:15:16]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [00:15:16]:
Right? They got more powerful, but back in the Windows, you know, back in the '90s and 2000s, the computer you want is $2,500. The phone now.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:15:26]:
Yep. You're gonna have it for 2 years, you know, like.

Leo Laporte [00:15:30]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:15:30]:
What is it that Ballmer said when the iPhone first came out? Nobody's gonna pay $600 for a phone.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:15:35]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:15:36]:
He was a little wrong. Yeah, just a little bit. Um, okay, so you— so you like it even at that? Would you buy it at that price?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:15:45]:
I would resentfully buy it at the price. I would look for carrier deals or trade-in deals, but I would not out of my own pocket spend nearly $2,000 on a phone. And that's why it was one of my biggest cons was the price. Um, but it is— it is—

Leo Laporte [00:15:58]:
Look how cute it is in your hand there.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:16:00]:
I'll bring it at the next commercial break.

Leo Laporte [00:16:02]:
Oh, it's so cute.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:16:04]:
It's so adorable. It really is adorable.

Leo Laporte [00:16:06]:
We're not used to this form factor. It's more More squarish.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:16:09]:
Yeah, and it's kind of like a peek into what foldable phones will likely look like in the coming years because of, you know, if Apple does, you know, release something in that size and Samsung has that option, we'll see what other companies do too.

Mike Elgan [00:16:21]:
As a writer, I would just prop that up and use a keyboard instead of a laptop when I'm traveling around or at Starbucks or whatever. Yeah, so that's, that's great to have that because a phone isn't quite big enough. Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:16:34]:
The best phone for using as a laptop with that keyboard setup was the Galaxy Z Tri-Fold, but that thing is $3,000 and came out in very limited quantities and is a little chonky. So the Z Fold 8 is a good middle ground for that.

Leo Laporte [00:16:47]:
So the thing Apple was all excited about, and I feel like Apple pushed Samsung into making a screen that the crease is not so obvious.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:16:54]:
I think so.

Leo Laporte [00:16:55]:
This was Apple's demand. We're not going to make a folding phone until the crease Yeah. Doesn't show up. And it does. I mean, this is last year's. And if you just look at it straight on, you don't see a crease. But as soon as I turn it, you see, oh yeah, there's a fold right there.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:17:08]:
And if you scroll to the bottom of my piece, there should be a comparison photo of the Z Fold 7 versus the Z Fold 8 and the minimized crease. But they've done a pretty good job of reducing it. But yeah, there's— we'll see what happens.

Leo Laporte [00:17:20]:
A little bit less would be good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:17:21]:
Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:17:23]:
It doesn't have to be perfect.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:17:24]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:17:24]:
So here's the thing is, what about durability? Do you have any— information on that?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:17:29]:
So I ended up— I did go to Seoul last month to see how Samsung tests the durability of its foldable phones. And so we saw kind of like the torture chamber where they put these phones and fold them like up to half a million times to make sure that they last. And we saw them drop like a heavy marble-sized ball onto the display repeatedly to make sure it doesn't crack. So I personally have not dropped the phone to torture test it, but I did see how they torture test it. And it It was slightly reassuring to know that if you are spending nearly $2,000 on a phone, it should hopefully last like everyday drops. Um, but it's scary to, to use a phone that's that expensive.

Leo Laporte [00:18:03]:
I've never used a folding phone as a daily driver.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:06]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:18:06]:
So I don't know. I take it you haven't either.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:09]:
Um, I, during my review periods, I definitely switch everything over, but then I have been using that phone still continuously as my second phone. So I lug both that and my iPhone around. So yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:18:21]:
Is it possible to put a case on this? Where can I get this sandwich?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:25]:
Oh, I get— I know what you're looking at. Borough Market. Um, so holy moly, it was so good.

Leo Laporte [00:18:32]:
Where is that, in New York?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:34]:
It was, um, this was in London.

Leo Laporte [00:18:36]:
And I gotta go to London again.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:38]:
Yeah, you gotta go to London. It's worth it, honestly, just for the sandwich.

Leo Laporte [00:18:41]:
This is not for the sandwich. This is the test of the, of the camera. And it feels like it's a fairly good— it won't be as good as Like, this is what I'm worried about. I'm gonna get an iPhone, folding iPhone. It won't be as good as the camera in the, in the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:56]:
Exactly. Well, and what's interesting is Samsung has really stepped up the cameras on its foldable phones lately. So like the Z Fold 8 Ultra has a very comparable camera to the S26 Ultra, which is kind of why they carry that Ultra name.

Leo Laporte [00:19:08]:
Which is pretty good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:19:09]:
Which is really impressive that they could, that they could fit that in a foldable phone where there's limited hardware. So they've done a really good job of, Making a foldable less of a compromise when it comes to the camera. So it'll be Apple's challenge to see if they can swing that on the first try with the foldable phone, or if over the years they get better at making that camera kind of on par with their more, you know, standard slab phones.

Leo Laporte [00:19:31]:
The dirty little secret of all this is everybody uses the same components. I'm sure they're all using Sony cameras, they're using Samsung screens. Where Apple might have an advantage though, is because they do have iPads, is their software might adapt better to these screens.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:19:45]:
Definitely, 'cause there's still some software hiccups here and there with foldables. Hopefully they solve that.

Leo Laporte [00:19:50]:
Uh, you ran through the battery pretty quick. I was a little worried about that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:19:55]:
It wasn't the, like, longest battery life. Uh, yeah, a little over 24 hours of heavy use. Um, and so there's room for improvement there, but at least it's an improvement over last year. Last year's battery was a little more disappointing. Um, so that's, that's another space. But with a phone that thin and that small, it's gonna have to require some Some big upgrades. But Samsung using a silicon-carbon battery is a huge step. Hopefully, they have more noticeable gains in the coming years.

Leo Laporte [00:20:22]:
Mike, are you an Android guy? You're an Android guy, I think, right?

Mike Elgan [00:20:26]:
No, I'm an iPhone guy. I have an iPhone Air, which has to be—

Leo Laporte [00:20:29]:
Air? That battery's tough!

Mike Elgan [00:20:33]:
I find it's got fine— the battery's fine on it. But I don't use it much for photos and videos.

Leo Laporte [00:20:40]:
Don't tell me you use it for phone calls!

Mike Elgan [00:20:43]:
Oh, good heavens. What?

Leo Laporte [00:20:44]:
Heavens for a friend. I'd have to kick you off the show as an old-timer.

Mike Elgan [00:20:50]:
Right. I use it for miscellaneous things and I have a case on it. So it's not impressively thin when I'm actually holding it because of the case and so on. To me, I think what's interesting about the phone market, and I wrote about this for Computerworld, I think it comes out tomorrow. They've been able to establish a market for AI phones that have AI deeply integrated. ZTE has the Nubia Navi X Ultra. Stepfun has something called the Stepfun Neo— Step X Neo. And then, Honor has an entire line of Magic OS 10 phones.

Mike Elgan [00:21:26]:
They're basically using Anthropic's Model Context Protocol to deeply integrate the AI into the operating system and essentially eliminate apps. Basically, you just talk to the thing and it does the things you want to do.

Leo Laporte [00:21:40]:
Cool!

Mike Elgan [00:21:40]:
This is something that Apple can't do for a couple of reasons, nor Google. The main reason is, they're so dependent on App Store revenue. They need people using apps for these things. That's one category of— since the iPhone shipped, basically, China has been more or less following the Apple model, the Western model, if you will, of phones. Back and forth, which has the better camera or whatever. But this is a departure. This is a strong departure where the American companies can't really follow. And the other one is Honor has something called the Honor Robot Phone.

Mike Elgan [00:22:17]:
This has a gimbal on it. It has an arm, a gimbal for the camera. It's a, it's a 200-megapixel camera that goes— and it like, it's a gimbal like on a drone or like on a, you know, handheld thing.

Leo Laporte [00:22:28]:
Those are just gimmicks. We've seen things like that. That's a gimmick.

Mike Elgan [00:22:31]:
Well, but, but it has all these advanced modes like a drone has. So you can say do cinematic like Zoom-in mode or whatever they call it. You can do all these fancy— and you can walk around while it's on a tripod and it'll follow you, that sort of thing. But here's the craziest part about it. It's actually— you know, I write about the attachment economy of mimicking human emotions, speech, other things to make people feel an emotional attachment to devices and to software. It actually— the little arm has a personality, so it nods yes and no. It kind of like—

Leo Laporte [00:23:01]:
Oh, really?

Mike Elgan [00:23:02]:
It cringes a little bit in certain circumstances. It basically has body language, limited, limited body language, but still it's programmed to make you think it kind of has a personality. And so that's really interesting. That's something I'm not seeing out of Apple or Google, and I don't know if there's going to be more like that. But it's really interesting because of AI, that gimbal is AI-controlled in multiple ways.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:23:28]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:23:28]:
Because of AI and how it's coming about, and because of the business models of Apple and Google, we're seeing a departure where China is doing all this stuff with AI that the American companies can't or won't or don't.

Leo Laporte [00:23:42]:
Well, you know who might? OpenAI is working on a device. They hired Jony Ive.

Mike Elgan [00:23:48]:
Several devices.

Leo Laporte [00:23:50]:
They hired hundreds of people from Apple's iPhone division. They're being sued over that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:23:54]:
Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:23:55]:
But they don't have the legacy attachment to the App Store and all of that, to iOS or Android OS. They could build an AI-first device that doesn't have apps. Are we ready for that?

Mike Elgan [00:24:11]:
We are. I don't, you know, I think that the, you know, the winning model, there'll be lots and lots and lots of different kinds of AI hardware, but the winning basic model will be augmented reality glasses with or without a camera that you basically use the phone as a connectivity, server processing, all that stuff. And so the problem with the OpenAI models, they don't want to do it with a phone. They're trying to pry people away from their phones. And that's not going to succeed, I don't think, in the short term. I think to a very large extent, they're going to take OpenAI enthusiasm, if you will, and basically give them hardware for using OpenAI, through which to use OpenAI. I think Anthropic will have it. All the frontier model companies will have hardware for using their frontier model.

Mike Elgan [00:24:55]:
The winning model in the short term in the US is gonna be Apple's model where they're basically not investing hundreds of billions of dollars in developing AI. They're basically in the position where they can just pick and choose whichever things they want.

Leo Laporte [00:25:08]:
Turned out that was an advantage. It made them behind in the race, but it might've been an advantage. Sometimes it's better to win by losing.

Mike Elgan [00:25:15]:
100%. So from a business perspective, and as we said earlier, Apple gets half the profits in the world for smartphones. They know how to do the business part. Apple's model is much better. Much better.

Leo Laporte [00:25:26]:
I wonder though if this is the last year for the traditional smartphone, if even as— because AI is moving so fast, even as soon as next year we'll start to see this transition.

Mike Elgan [00:25:35]:
Definitely the last decade. I mean, you're kind of on the bleeding edge of this stuff, and I think the bleeding edge will start to fray. But I think globally, in terms of smartphone use, it'll be years before—

Leo Laporte [00:25:44]:
Here's what I'm working on with my AI assistants. I have one of those, uh, Shokz OpenComm over the ears so you can still go around and hear stuff. And it's got a good microphone and it's got a button. And I'm setting it up so I could press the button, talk to my AI, it could talk back to me. And it's hands-free. And it might end up— it'll be interesting. It might end up to be exactly that. You know, you could say, call me an Uber, or I'm in this supermarket and I can't remember what kind of mayonnaise my wife likes, which is, by the way, none.

Mike Elgan [00:26:16]:
That exact same functionality goes seamlessly into glasses, right?

Leo Laporte [00:26:21]:
Glasses with a camera, it's even better.

Mike Elgan [00:26:23]:
Although it may not have a camera, but it could have a screen of some kind.

Leo Laporte [00:26:27]:
People are really so negative about cameras.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:29]:
I'm wondering. Definitely. Well, it makes me wonder about kind of the discrepancy between tech enthusiasts and kind of everyday people, right?

Leo Laporte [00:26:38]:
So as tech enthusiasts— Well, I'm definitely not an everyday person. I can't wait to wear my camera glasses everywhere.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:44]:
Exactly right. And then you have people who are so tired of their phones and their devices who are like, why would I want yet another thing? Why would I want something on my face and on my wrist?

Leo Laporte [00:26:52]:
Oh, I'm going to get beat up. I know it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:55]:
So it'll be interesting to see how companies respond to that, right? How do you cater to the masses when you have this small circle of really enthusiastic people who want all the tech and then you have the larger people who— the larger population who still doesn't know how to use the AI features on their phone that have been on their phone for the last several years, right? How do you bridge that divide?

Mike Elgan [00:27:14]:
Yeah, yeah, Leo, you're gonna, you know, on the, on the downside, you're gonna get beat up, but on the upside, um, that video is gonna be able to call for help.

Leo Laporte [00:27:21]:
Yeah, exactly.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:27:22]:
Yeah, you'll have many ways to do that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:27:26]:
Quicksilver, help me! Uh, incidentally, if you are ever in London, I didn't know this is a famous viral sandwich, the Borough Market viral sandwich.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:27:37]:
I'm sure you're— Holy cow. Yeah, it's—

Leo Laporte [00:27:40]:
so you immediately went there, you knew where to go. You said—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:27:43]:
Well, I didn't actually, because I'm apparently not as trendy as everybody else, but Samsung had like stations for us to choose from when we were walking around London, and this was one of them. Um, Samsung knew, so everyone at Samsung knew, and everyone else knew. They're like, oh yeah, it's the trendy viral sandwich place. I'm clearly not as online as I should be, but I actually ended up getting the, um— I'd never do vegetarian sandwiches, but all the sandwich options were pork. So I did have the mushroom, the oyster mushroom sandwich, and it was very good. And I normally never, never would choose that, but it was amazing.

Leo Laporte [00:28:14]:
My— I have, as Mike knows, a little bit of a dog in this hunt since my son has the viral sandwich sensation of New York City. Uh, we're gonna now have a little New York versus London.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:24]:
That's right.

Leo Laporte [00:28:25]:
Conflict here going on. Throwdown.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:28]:
Next time Samsung has a New York event, we'll have to go to your son's spot.

Leo Laporte [00:28:31]:
Oh yeah, he'll be happy. Actually, Samsung did some ads with him. Oh, gosh!

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:37]:
That's amazing!

Leo Laporte [00:28:37]:
For their tablets.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:39]:
That's fantastic!

Mike Elgan [00:28:40]:
And his sandwiches are really photogenic. That's a great idea for Samsung to stage an event there.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:45]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:28:46]:
If they do one here.

Leo Laporte [00:28:46]:
If you're listening, Samsung.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:48]:
Exactly. Hint, hint.

Leo Laporte [00:28:49]:
Hint, hint. Well, it is interesting that these phones and laptops and everything are getting so expensive because of the increase in price in both RAM and solid-state storage. And then Apple has announced A leasing program, and that's what they're calling it, by the way. Uh, in effect, you're paying the depreciation for the phone.

Mike Elgan [00:29:08]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:29:09]:
Uh, there's no interest, but on the other hand, there's a balloon payment if you— at the end, just like a leased car, or you turn it in and get another phone and the payments continue forever. Forever. The thing that's new for Apple is that they're using Klarna as the backend, and now that may impact people In, uh, ways unexpected. First of all, Klarna is doing the financing, but when you do send the phone in, uh, Klarna is the one that's going to assess it, whether it's damaged or scratched or not in perfect condition, not Apple.

Mike Elgan [00:29:44]:
Oh God, and that's brilliant. Apple's like, you be the bad guy.

Leo Laporte [00:29:48]:
They're off the hook. They're off the hook. So, you know, we talked about it extensively on MacBreak Weekly. I'll refer people to that show for the The decision tree, because it's a complex decision tree. You might get better trade-in value from your carrier. You might get a better deal from your carrier. There's all sorts of reasons you might want to pay for it.

Mike Elgan [00:30:06]:
I think it's going to really be successful. And the reason is that people, people are looking for any excuse to just get the latest thing. And this is just put you on a— for the rest of your life, you have the latest thing. And just, you bill me whatever, and that's just— I get the new thing, a new phone every time the they come out with a new phone.

Leo Laporte [00:30:26]:
Isn't it funny how for a long time there was huge pushback against subscriptions? People say, and they still do, I don't want another month, I don't wanna. But we've kind of gotten so inured to it, so used to it, that Apple finally saying, you know what, that's really the way to do it. People, in fact, the New York Times article about this said this specifically, people are now accepting of monthly subscriptions. They prefer that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:50]:
It's become the norm.

Mike Elgan [00:30:51]:
That's easier to budget.

Leo Laporte [00:30:53]:
Yeah, true. You know what you're going to be paying. And if you're not paying interest, it's not like it's costing you more to do it unless they don't take the phone back or say, yeah, you're gonna have to pay for the damage and so forth.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:06]:
See, that's tough. I feel like that idea of if you return a phone and it's damaged, it's, it's kind of scary to even use your phone at that point because we all drop our phones, we all scratch our phones, you know.

Leo Laporte [00:31:16]:
Well, and that raises another issue. The folding phones don't really have cases, do they?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:21]:
They have essentially something that you can snap onto the back, but it's not a very protective—

Leo Laporte [00:31:25]:
It doesn't protect it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:26]:
They'll be terrified of the front screen for sure.

Leo Laporte [00:31:28]:
Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:29]:
Yeah, so that's scary too.

Leo Laporte [00:31:31]:
I'm gonna keep it in a padded case.

Mike Elgan [00:31:33]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:31:34]:
Over my shoulder.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:36]:
Take it out, yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:31:37]:
All right, well, I'm gonna let you all dream about the, uh, viral London viral sandwich for a moment.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:44]:
Just think about it.

Leo Laporte [00:31:45]:
My mouth is watering. It's just not right. It's not right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:52]:
Somebody did not have lunch, I can see. Yeah, I didn't actually.

Leo Laporte [00:31:56]:
I'm trying to drink as much black coffee as I can and it's not helping.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:59]:
Not quite the same.

Mike Elgan [00:32:00]:
No, not speaking of subscriptions and sandwiches, Hank should roll out sandwich subscriptions.

Leo Laporte [00:32:06]:
You know, his sandwich, so it started at $28, which is a lot.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:10]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:32:10]:
And it— because the cost of meat has gone up and he uses only the best meat, Of course. $32 for a sandwich. Now it is New York City, right? But I think he should have a buy now, pay later plan. Sure.

Mike Elgan [00:32:22]:
Yes, right. Call Klarna.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:24]:
Yeah, if Apple can do it, so can he.

Leo Laporte [00:32:27]:
You too can have the viral French dip sandwich from Salt Hanks for only $29.99 a month. With a low subscription.

Mike Elgan [00:32:35]:
Low monthly payments.

Leo Laporte [00:32:37]:
I'm actually— this is— so the car washes in town are doing subscriptions now.

Mike Elgan [00:32:42]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:32:42]:
Oh yeah, people really are. I mean, that's proof to me that this is accepted.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:47]:
This is the norm.

Leo Laporte [00:32:49]:
Yeah, I don't know, maybe a sandwich subscription isn't so bad.

Mike Elgan [00:32:52]:
Yeah, right.

Leo Laporte [00:32:53]:
People love food.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:32:54]:
Yeah, sounds a lot more fun than a car wash subscription. That's what I'll say.

Leo Laporte [00:33:01]:
That's what credit cards are for, says Scooter X. Uh, all right, we're gonna have more in just a bit. It's wonderful to have you here, Mike Elgin. Uh, of And of course, the peripatetic machinesociety.ai newsletter writer, gastronomad.net. We'll find out what the next Gastronomad adventure is a little bit later. Abrar Alhidi from CNET, great to see you. How's the new ownership?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:22]:
It's been good. I have genuinely no complaints. I'm not just saying that 'cause this is being broadcast to the world. I mean it. I like my job.

Leo Laporte [00:33:33]:
Okay, if you're being held hostage, just blink.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:36]:
Blink twice. Thankfully all's well.

Leo Laporte [00:33:38]:
No, I think it's gonna be, Yeah. You were bought by Penske, is that right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:44]:
Ziff Davis.

Leo Laporte [00:33:45]:
Ziff Davis.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:46]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:33:46]:
I can't keep track of any of this anymore.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:33:49]:
No, I really don't blame you.

Leo Laporte [00:33:51]:
Although it's not that new. When I worked for Ziff Davis back at the turn of the century, we went through 3 or 4 owners in a period of 5 years. I mean, it wasn't—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:00]:
Gosh. No, it's wild. Yeah, the media industry does not slow down in that regard. But no, it's—

Leo Laporte [00:34:06]:
Good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:06]:
I'm glad you're here. But also it's been great. I mean, I feel like Galaxy Unpacked was a perfect example of us just being with all of our comrades, PCMag and Mashable and ZDNet, all of us just being under one umbrella.

Leo Laporte [00:34:18]:
Those are all great brands. That's wonderful.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:20]:
It's fantastic. It's great. So it's good to have that camaraderie. Good. Good.

Leo Laporte [00:34:24]:
I used to, I was the 3rd and 4th employee at CNET.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:27]:
Oh my God.

Leo Laporte [00:34:28]:
In 19—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:29]:
I'm waiting for you to write a book. I just needed all the, all the tea.

Leo Laporte [00:34:32]:
It didn't work out. It didn't work out.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:34]:
All the deep, yeah, but that's why you should write the book. Like, that's even more—

Leo Laporte [00:34:37]:
I have stories. Let me tell you. Stories no one wants to hear, but I have them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:34:42]:
I want to hear it all. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:34:43]:
Thank you.

Leo Laporte [00:34:44]:
Very, very kind. One more Apple story, then we'll move on. It is an AI story. This is from the Financial Times. Apple is struggling to keep pace with AI bug hunters. They've actually now had to limit the number of vulnerabilities researchers can submit because they just can't keep up. That doesn't necessarily mean that these security reports are AI slop. In fact, uh, the last security update I got from Apple had more than 100 serious flaws that they fixed.

Leo Laporte [00:35:18]:
Microsoft fixed 500+ flaws in its last Patch Tuesday. So it's, it's not that these are bogus reports necessarily. Um, the change— this is from the Financial Times again— the change in Apple's approach was highlighted by Italian cybersecurity startup Binario. Banario, which told the Financial Times it had used ChatGPT to identify more than 50 bugs in the latest version of the MacBook operating system in just 3 weeks— privilege escalation exploits— the startup said we couldn't tell, we couldn't tell Apple because they had limited the number of bug reports that we could make. It's a very difficult time in the industry, said Alfredo Pesole of Banario. Maintainers and vendors have been flooded by the sheer— I'm starting to sound like Dracula, I'm sorry. Uh, Apple's, uh, did— when, when the Financial Times contacted Apple, they said, oh, and they're now reviewing the binary subscriptions. But you can see why this is a problem.

Leo Laporte [00:36:21]:
Apple introduced a cap on the number of subscriptions and a 30-day cool-off period. I don't know if that's the best way to respond. Apple, you're a $5 trillion company. Hire a few more people to triage this stuff.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:36:36]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:36:37]:
Right?

Mike Elgan [00:36:38]:
Yes. And like Steve Gibson says on Security Now, he thinks that at some point, this is, this is going to go back and forth between people finding bugs and companies patching bugs, where there will be no more bugs, no more flaws or openings for, for cyberattacks. That will be an interesting scenario, and it suggests that this surge is kind of temporary, right? Because—

Leo Laporte [00:37:03]:
Well, if Steve's right, if it is temporary, I mean, there aren't an infinite number of flaws, I guess. So eventually you find them all, unless programmers are introducing more flaws as fast as you can find them.

Mike Elgan [00:37:16]:
Right, exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:37:18]:
That's the real question. And I think actually the real question is if at some point you start building your software either with AI or in partnership with AI, and you use AI to find flaws, at some point you're going to ship software that doesn't have flaws, right? Or a lot fewer flaws.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:37:39]:
That'd be nice.

Leo Laporte [00:37:41]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:37:41]:
I mean, it's kind of like generative adversarial networks, which is the AI technology behind deepfakes, where you have 2 AIs, one is generating fake data, the other one's detecting fake data. They go back and forth. Each gets better and better and better and better. And by the end result of this process of AI, one AI banging on the other AI, is you get a perfect video of Tom Cruise doing something or other. And that's kind of what we're gonna see in cyber attacks and flaws. They're gonna go back and forth, back and forth until there's nothing left to go back and forth over. So I think Steve's got a great point. But somebody will come out with better AI, maybe find a different way.

Mike Elgan [00:38:27]:
I don't know. It's a really interesting question that he keeps referring to. And I hope he's right, because that would be amazing.

Leo Laporte [00:38:37]:
Yeah. And I think Steve's very thoughtful. And he's our security guy. He knows what he's talking about. So he's a believer anyway. Let's hope he's right.

Mike Elgan [00:38:46]:
He's very secure.

Leo Laporte [00:38:49]:
He's very secure. Let me just show you how easy it is to do an impersonation. This is ElevenLabs. Hi, Mike. Hi, Abraar. This is Leo Laporte asking you to send him money.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:39:05]:
You got it, Leo.

Leo Laporte [00:39:06]:
Pretty close, right? My lips did not move.

Mike Elgan [00:39:10]:
I'm already sending you money as we speak.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:39:12]:
It's on the way.

Mike Elgan [00:39:14]:
This is—

Leo Laporte [00:39:15]:
it took me very little time to train this at ElevenLabs. There are many, many other places you can do this, and they're pretty indistinguishable from the real thing. So, yeah, you know, I think that that has happened. That— All right, moving along. Let's talk about Google. A lot of stories about Google. They had a good quarter, right? But then there's some bad news. For instance, Reddit is suing Google and saying scraping— Okay, after a big court loss last week, Google has confirmed it will not give up its fight to block AI bots from scraping its search results.

Leo Laporte [00:40:06]:
This is Ars Technica. writing, Ashley Belanger. And Reddit is going along for the ride. So there's a company called SERPAPI that is a scraper that scrapes content from Google search results. And then I think it's probably used by agents, AI agents. Google invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying, you know, you're circumventing our anti-scraping technology and You can't do it according to Google. Um, SERP API circumvention of that threatened to disrupt Google's relationships with rights holders. Google said— this is the irony of it, of course.

Leo Laporte [00:40:49]:
Rights holders were mad already at Google because Google search results scraped their sites and then pushed excerpts up on the sites. And remember, this is that whole, uh, you know, lawsuit in Spain and all over. And I guess Google's now saying, well, but see, we're trying to protect you guys. And now SERP AI is coming in and scraping scraping it. Uh, Reddit filed a similar lawsuit against SERP AI and Perplexity saying, we are scraping Reddit content via Google, ironically. So wait a minute, let me get this right now. Google is scraping Reddit and then these guys are scraping Google and Reddit is suing these guys. In any event, it has not worked out well The judge in the Google case said you can't file a lawsuit under DMCA unless you own the rights, and you don't, Google.

Leo Laporte [00:41:45]:
You're scraping other people. The bottom line is both Google— this is SERPAPI telling ours— the bottom line is that both Google and Reddit appear to be engaged in attempts to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to wall off the open internet By retro— and by the way, Reddit's content also isn't owned by Reddit. It's created by its users, I should point out. By retroactively claiming control over content they didn't author and they don't own. Google's going back to the court. They're going to amend the complaint and hope to prevail. But the judge basically said, you don't own this stuff. Google and Reddit do not own the internet.

Leo Laporte [00:42:28]:
And so how are you claiming copyright on stuff you don't own? What a mess.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:42:34]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:42:36]:
I wonder what the implications are for the judge to make such a ruling. If Google doesn't own it, does it have the right to use it in the way that it uses it?

Leo Laporte [00:42:44]:
All this data— It might have been a mistake for Google to pursue this.

Mike Elgan [00:42:47]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [00:42:48]:
They might have opened a can of worms by pursuing this. The court took the rare step of granting SERP API's motion to dismiss very early on in Google's lawsuit. The judge found that Google had no standing to sue because it doesn't own the content in its search results, and it isn't acting on behalf of Reddit or anybody else.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:15]:
There's also— there's already a lot of heat towards Google now with AI Overviews and robbing a lot of sites of those views. So it's exactly got to tread carefully right now.

Leo Laporte [00:43:29]:
Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:30]:
As—

Leo Laporte [00:43:30]:
and by the way, Reddit, speaking of Google and Reddit, is declining. Its stock is falling precipitously because Google is putting Reddit content in its AI overviews.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:43:44]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:43:45]:
In fact, Reddit has a licensing deal with Google, but they feel like Maybe that was a bad thing to do. Steve Huffman, who is the CEO of Reddit, one of the original founders, said, hey, the internet's flooded with synthetic content. People want real human content, and that's what we provide. But unfortunately, the way Google's using our content, what we see is 10 blue links has driven tremendous value in content.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:44:17]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:44:17]:
the broader ecosystem, the old Google Search. But AI Overviews has yet to make a similar level of positive impact. People, and this makes sense, when people get the answer, they're not going to click the link to it. They got the answer.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:44:32]:
It's undeniably convenient to have the answer show up so you don't have to dig for it. I mean, if it wasn't convenient, it wouldn't exist and it wouldn't continue to exist. That doesn't mean that it's not detrimental. to a variety of websites, if not most websites. And the fact that even Reddit is facing the hit, not just, you know, your traditional publishers.

Leo Laporte [00:44:51]:
Oh, imagine.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:44:52]:
Those how—

Leo Laporte [00:44:52]:
CNET and Gadget and all these other guys.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:44:54]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:44:55]:
So Reddit did make a deal, $60 million deal, licensing their content to Google. But what they're, according to the Wall Street Journal, they are considering ending that deal 'cause they're losing more value than they're gaining with it. And apparently they're not alone. The Economist, Reuters, Politico, and USA Today are also considering ending this. These AI overviews are killing traffic.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:45:18]:
It's tough. It's tough.

Mike Elgan [00:45:21]:
And there's another problem with all of this and something that I find personally confusing, which is that clearly the AI companies want human-written content. There's a service that a lot of them are using called ISBNDB database, which basically is buying all these books written before 2022 to make sure that they don't have AI content in them. They're destroying the books because you have to destroy them to scan them, getting the digital content and then selling it to the frontier models for training because they want to train on non-AI-generated content. They're worried about model collapse. Model collapse is declining accuracy and quality of output as AI is trained on AI output. And repeated, repeated—

Leo Laporte [00:46:09]:
So-called synthetic data.

Mike Elgan [00:46:11]:
Exactly. Here's the question that I have, which is that, okay, so let's say they've scanned all the books before 2022, they're getting all of Reddit, but in addition to that, they're looking for human-written content. And now there's AI detectors, even on Substack, for detecting human-written content. But much of the human-written content is created by people who are getting their information from AI. So basically, human beings are being, It's a loop. I still think model collapse is possible if you're getting human-based contact, if that content, if that human-based content is ultimately coming from AI.

Leo Laporte [00:46:50]:
Right.

Mike Elgan [00:46:50]:
Right, what's the difference? And so I don't see where that goes. I mean, the ideal thing would be to train on, you know, how many people on Reddit are getting their information from AI? 80%? Who knows? So we're really having a problem.

Leo Laporte [00:47:07]:
Well, in fact, a lot of the posts on Reddit are AI now.

Mike Elgan [00:47:10]:
For sure.

Leo Laporte [00:47:11]:
You can tell since it says load-bearing and not X but Y. And yeah, you know, there's these real tells with AI.

Mike Elgan [00:47:19]:
Yes. Yeah. And I was worried when Substack came out with their feature last week, I think, uh, basically where they're using AI detection. I write pretty polished prose, and I was afraid it would— and I love em dashes, things like that. And so I, I thought it falsely flag my stuff as at least partially AI written, and it's not. It's showing it 100% human-written content, which is, which is a sigh of relief, actually.

Leo Laporte [00:47:47]:
There has been a kind of revolt against AI using this tool. It's called Pangram.

Mike Elgan [00:47:54]:
Yes, exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:47:55]:
While it's widely agreed to be the best AI detection tool, none of them are perfect. I think Pangram said the Constitution was written by The US Constitution— no, it was the Declaration of Independence— was written by AI, which makes no sense. Yeah, I don't know.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:48:12]:
So these platforms look at like the order of— do they look at like word choice and—

Leo Laporte [00:48:17]:
And yes, I'm sure.

Mike Elgan [00:48:18]:
Like, you know, many, many, many signals. They look at many, many, many signals.

Leo Laporte [00:48:22]:
But AI's gotten better at hiding its traces. In fact, you can even have— there are skills people put out saying, DAI my Pros. Yeah, we're— I mean, look, we're starting to see novels on the bestseller list, short stories written by AI. Uh, this is inevitable. This is gonna be, you know— so here's— I have another question. Who uses Google anymore? I don't know any real people. Do you know any real people, you guys? Because—

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:48:50]:
What do you mean by, like, when you do a search? Because I— yeah, I still do.

Leo Laporte [00:48:54]:
You do? Okay, you're a real person then.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:48:56]:
I'm a real person.

Leo Laporte [00:48:56]:
My wife uses Google.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:48:58]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:48:59]:
I never Google anything ever. Oh, I Google everything. In fact, a number of people in our Discord are saying, everybody I know just asks AI when they want answers.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:49:07]:
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I'm still a little old school. I'm— but I'm like the hateful writer who doesn't want to use AI when I don't have to. But then AI Overviews responds to me when I Google stuff.

Leo Laporte [00:49:15]:
You get it no matter what.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:49:16]:
Using it anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:49:18]:
I use Google Alerts a lot. I have 200 or 300 alerts.

Leo Laporte [00:49:22]:
Oh, is it still around?

Mike Elgan [00:49:23]:
It's still around. And it comes to my email.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:49:26]:
Email is also still around.

Mike Elgan [00:49:30]:
And so, that's basically Google Search. It does a search for you every day and then sends you the results. And then I use Kagi, of course. I use a whole bunch of different tools for finding out information. But I love— I still love going to original sites and seeing what people are saying. And I also use AI, but I have some pretty gnarly prompts that I use. Okay.

Leo Laporte [00:49:55]:
That's my contention though, is that ultimately the good news about all this is that real human content with all its flaws will be preferred. It might be a luxury good, right? Real human writing, real human painting, real human drawing, music, all of that will be something special, more special.

Mike Elgan [00:50:15]:
Like horses and sailboats. The modes of transportation that used to be required are now for the rich.

Leo Laporte [00:50:23]:
And sailboats. Oh my God, you're right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:50:27]:
Our futures. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:50:28]:
I remember somebody telling me newspapers aren't going away, but they're going to become a luxury item and your butler will iron them before they bring them to you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:50:37]:
I mean, I would love that. They were wrong.

Leo Laporte [00:50:43]:
I don't think— I think the newspapers are not long for this world. Google did have a very good quarter, of course, as did all of these AI companies and cloud companies. Double-digit revenue growth for the year-over-year growth across cloud, search, and YouTube ads. Operating income 30% up. They had $40 billion in income during the quarter. Nice. And the stock market said, no, you suck. Google.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:51:17]:
Once again.

Leo Laporte [00:51:18]:
Google, much like Apple, suffered in the stock market. Actually, they've bounced back a little bit, so maybe that's old news. In fact, it looks like it went up 7%. Holy cow! It's up quite a bit.

Mike Elgan [00:51:33]:
I wonder if profitability at a company like Google is helped by the fact that it's cheaper for them to use their own AI than it is for— like other companies have to pay through the nose to use AI. And one of the things that's crushing companies is the amount they're spending on—

Leo Laporte [00:51:53]:
Oh, it's for sure.

Mike Elgan [00:51:54]:
On tokens.

Leo Laporte [00:51:55]:
That's what— well, anyway, that's what the experts agree, that the CapEx is what the market hates, that they're spending $100-some, I think it was $180 billion or something like that this year on building data centers. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:52:09]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:52:10]:
Now here's the weird outlier on all this. Microsoft. Microsoft increased their spending on AI, profit jumped 31%, and Microsoft stock price went up so much they made $450 billion, the biggest jump in stock market history on Thursday.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:52:34]:
Goodness.

Leo Laporte [00:52:34]:
Half a trillion dollars. I guess, I get, you know, the market, it used to be considered rational. I, I don't think any— anybody could say that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:52:45]:
Honestly, because I'm like, why? I haven't even thought of Microsoft in a very long time.

Leo Laporte [00:52:49]:
I know.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:52:50]:
It just, I don't know.

Leo Laporte [00:52:52]:
$450 billion in their market cap in one day. Nobody's ever done that. The closest was Nvidia, uh, which went up $440 billion after President Trump paused the tariff. last year. But you don't have anything like that. You just have their quarterly report.

Mike Elgan [00:53:12]:
That's the kind of jump that SpaceX wanted and didn't get.

Leo Laporte [00:53:16]:
Yeah, they're like a rocket that had rapid unexpected disassembly. They shot up and then they shot down.

Mike Elgan [00:53:24]:
Yep.

Leo Laporte [00:53:25]:
And Microsoft, I'm sure, has come back to earth a little bit since then, but that is This is why it doesn't seem too rational. I think the market said, oh, well, Microsoft is building, uh, capacity and is going to be able to sell that capacity and make money on it down the road. Whereas, I don't know, Google's not, SpaceX is not.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:53:47]:
I don't know.

Leo Laporte [00:53:49]:
Meta's profit fell 14% based on AI spending.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:53:54]:
Mm-hmm.

Leo Laporte [00:53:56]:
Meanwhile, I'm starting to see predictions That next year is going to be a boom because of all the data centers going online in the next few years. Get ready. Yeah, sure, you're spending a lot of money, but boy, is this going to be great when all those data centers go online.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:54:16]:
Yay, the environment.

Leo Laporte [00:54:20]:
Yay. I think, yeah, I think, I don't think anybody knows anything. I'm starting to, starting to think—

Mike Elgan [00:54:29]:
I know I don't.

Leo Laporte [00:54:31]:
It's like, no, every— first of all, many states are starting to put moratoriums on data centers. New York State did that, uh, new data center builds. Uh, there's certainly a lot of protests over data centers.

Mike Elgan [00:54:47]:
Yep.

Leo Laporte [00:54:48]:
Uh, and of course Elon says we're going to put them in space. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:54:53]:
Let's wreak havoc up there too. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:54:55]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [00:54:57]:
I would like to see some friction on the construction of data centers. So in general, I think it's a very good thing that there are all these protesting. One of those reasons is that data centers have put themselves in a position where they can wreck lots and lots and lots and lots of things. They are wrecking lots and lots of things. For example, the open web, they're hitting those sites with their bots to spite them, making them actually measurably slower. They're raising the price of real estate. Well, there's a solution.

Leo Laporte [00:55:26]:
We just get more bandwidth for those sites by building more data centers so that they can keep up with the data center build so that they have more bandwidth.

Mike Elgan [00:55:34]:
Paying a lot more money for access to those new data centers. No, but they're raising prices on real estate, on water, on electricity, on all these things, and other people bear those costs. So to the extent that there's resistance to them building these data centers, I I feel like they'll be in a position where they have to bear more of their own costs. If they have to build data centers in the middle of the desert instead of in a residential area in Texas or whatever, OK, that's going to be more expensive for them, but it's not going to drive up costs in Texas. I think it's generally a good thing. I'm in favor of it.

Leo Laporte [00:56:10]:
This is from CRN. Data center capacity will double despite local concerns. Over the next 3 years, driven by aggressive hyperscalers like AWS and Google building out their data center 700 new data centers are in the pipeline already.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:56:32]:
God.

Leo Laporte [00:56:33]:
45 gigawatts of new capacity over the next few years. This will be a real collapse if there's no demand for this data, by the way. I just want to point out they're making a huge trillion-dollar bet No. On growth in demand.

Mike Elgan [00:56:54]:
Wouldn't that be something if, like China's ghost cities, where they had these real estate speculative booms and they built so much housing that they didn't have the people to fill them, and now they just sit empty, entire cities? Not exactly what's happening, but something like that. If that happened with data centers, can you imagine building a brand-new data center that's never used?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:57:14]:
It sounds like a great movie.

Mike Elgan [00:57:16]:
Yes, right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:57:17]:
Well, there's a whole—

Leo Laporte [00:57:19]:
get ready for a new term— NeoCloud. Get ready for the NeoCloud. These are a rapidly scaling category of cloud infrastructure built, purpose-built for GPU-centric computing for AI workloads. And Nebius is one of them, uh, Lambda, CoreWeave. This is the new kind of data center specifically built because remember We're using a data center right now. We're using it for Zoom. We're using it to stream. We're using it to put podcasts out so you can download them.

Leo Laporte [00:57:51]:
Every time you hit the internet, every time you do a Google search, you're hitting data centers. But the hot new thing is AI data centers, right? Uh, with big GPUs, if you can, if you can, if you can get them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:04]:
Well, and back to that idea of like AI on our phones, every time you buy a new phone, like Okay, I brought it.

Leo Laporte [00:58:10]:
An angel gets its wings. Oh, it's so cute. You got the lavender one.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:14]:
I did. Thankfully they got, they got us the cute color, but the amount of features on it—

Leo Laporte [00:58:18]:
Oh, wait a minute. Show us the screen. I'm sorry.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:19]:
Okay. Yes. No, no, let's do a little show and tell.

Leo Laporte [00:58:21]:
You've really hurt— you've really changed.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:24]:
Oh. And then Lily up top.

Leo Laporte [00:58:25]:
Dirty.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:26]:
Ignore the, uh, the fingerprints all over, but the crease is not too crazy. It's still there.

Leo Laporte [00:58:31]:
Oh no, it's not bad.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:32]:
But it's not too crazy. No, I could live with that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:58:36]:
Do you feel it with your finger?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:37]:
Um, let me see. Kind of, but not really. Honestly, it's like, it's, yeah, I could tell it's there, but it's very, very, very minimal.

Leo Laporte [00:58:45]:
It matches your hijab.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:46]:
I know.

Leo Laporte [00:58:46]:
You're right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:58:47]:
It's very intentional. Yes. Uh, hijab always has to match my phone. Um, the amount of AI features that are baked into every new device, right? They're, they're forcing us to use these features, right? It's like, it doesn't matter if you have an interest or not, but like, You should edit that photo. Like, you should tap this button and edit that photo in a certain way. Or you should, you know, have this pop-up whenever somebody asks what your availability is so that you can connect to your calendar. Like, all these things that are—

Leo Laporte [00:59:14]:
We're buying the thing that's on the other end of those data centers.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:59:17]:
Exactly. So it's gonna— it's forced onto us essentially through all these devices that we're buying today. So there will be use, I guess, for all these data centers because we can't escape it.

Mike Elgan [00:59:27]:
And what nobody's talking about is all of the energy is creating AGI and super intelligent That's the goal. From these— and run by these massive, massive data centers. Where is the drive to make AI much more efficient?

Leo Laporte [00:59:44]:
Edge.

Mike Elgan [00:59:45]:
Use intelligence to use a lot of small— people are using these massively powerful models to ask how old Charo is or whatever. I mean, it really makes no sense at all. That's a great solution. And we should, we should be pouring all of our energy as an industry— and by we, I mean they, because I'm not in that industry, I'm a journalist— um, into making all this stuff much cheaper and more efficient and requiring less data centers. China. Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:00:17]:
Yep.

Leo Laporte [01:00:17]:
I'm using DeepSeek. They came out this week with a V4 Flash. Unbelievable. Really good frontier quality for pennies. Uh, so much so that I have subscriptions to Anthropic and OpenAI and a bunch of other things, and I'm using Flash paying the tokens because it's like $3 a week.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:00:39]:
Wow.

Leo Laporte [01:00:40]:
So the Chinese have really moved forward on efficiency. You know who else is— I have to give them credit— Nvidia. Uh, their new chipsets and their new, uh, servers are Well, there's one— I think the new— is it not Vera Rubin? Maybe it is— is, I think, 4 times more energy efficient. They understand that that's where the drive is going to be. We can't keep this curve going. I mean, it's not tenable. It's too expensive, right?

Mike Elgan [01:01:09]:
Right. And, you know, and the other thing that they're trying to head off is having China be the leading— like, look at the rise in use of open weight models from China in the US in the last 6 months. It's, it's, it's really incredible.

Leo Laporte [01:01:25]:
And they're good. And by the way, they're pretty good. Not all of them, not uniformly, depends what you're doing. But DeepSeek Flash is—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:01:34]:
wow.

Mike Elgan [01:01:34]:
And there, there's a lot of cribbing off the US frontier models. Maybe. It's okay.

Leo Laporte [01:01:41]:
Those, those models cribbed off of you and me, Mike. So Yeah, turnabout's fair play.

Mike Elgan [01:01:46]:
But if they, if they take the lead or take over, then where are they going to get this?

Leo Laporte [01:01:51]:
Who are they going to crib from, right?

Mike Elgan [01:01:52]:
Exactly. But, uh, that, that's a problem for another day. But that, that is, that is the thing that, uh, I think is so brilliant by the Chinese, uh, companies and the Chinese— I don't know who's behind it, but in China, to have these open-weight models just sort of, you know, have them be very, very inexpensive, because whoever's, whoever's Controlling the AI controls the story globally about what's true and what isn't true to a large extent. And all you have to do to find out if the model you're using is a Chinese model is ask it a question about Tiananmen Square or Tibet. And the answer will tell you whether that's censored by the Chinese government or not.

Leo Laporte [01:02:33]:
On the other hand, And I think that there's going to be an increasing move in this direction. People are so worried about the American government putting a restriction on Chinese models, maybe the Chinese government doing the same thing. They've watched the Trump administration rug pull Anthropic's top-of-the-line model. They brought it back, but it was gone for 3 weeks that I think there's some real concern and some real interest in running these models locally. And once you're running them locally, you can, they call it obliterating it. You can obliterate it and take all of the restrictions out. And this is why we like open weight models, right? You can download them and given enough hardware, run them yourself. Flash can be run on about $10,000 worth of hardware.

Leo Laporte [01:03:24]:
Admittedly, that's out of my reach and most people's reach.

Mike Elgan [01:03:27]:
No, Leo, you should, you should build the data center in your backyard.

Leo Laporte [01:03:30]:
I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it. New car, local AI. What do I need most?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:03:37]:
No-brainer. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:03:39]:
But, but there is, there's reason to consider that because once you control it and you're running it locally, your only cost is electricity. And, and now you don't have to worry about Tiananmen Square or President Trump. You can You can do your own thing, man. I think that's gonna be a move that people are gonna make in the next year.

Mike Elgan [01:04:00]:
For sure. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:04:02]:
Let's pause. I'm sorry, we got into AI. I was gonna talk about Mark Zuckerberg, but he says, are you ready? Soon we'll have agents that work 24/7 on your behalf to help you achieve your goals and improve your life, your health, your relationships, your finances, whatever you want. But I'm not getting it from Mark Zuckerberg.

Mike Elgan [01:04:20]:
I'm sorry. Yeah, exactly right.

Leo Laporte [01:04:21]:
That's true.

Mike Elgan [01:04:23]:
But let's hope it's not Meta's AI.

Leo Laporte [01:04:27]:
This was his earnings call on Wednesday, I think, trying to convince people. Their stock tumbled, also. No, really, we're not behind on this. We're not. They do have the Meta Glass, and you like those Meta Glasses, Mike. I know you like those.

Mike Elgan [01:04:43]:
Yeah, I want at least that functionality from someone else. I bought a pair of the— what is that company that Originally started out with a monocle and then they decided to go with 2 lenses.

Leo Laporte [01:04:55]:
I have it back here. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember the name, but they, they, they're open, which is nice.

Mike Elgan [01:05:02]:
They're open. And exactly, but you, you, you know, I bought those for receiving them in November and they still haven't shipped them. So, um, they— I'm pretty mad at them, but, uh, there you go. That's them. Although the new ones look better.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:05:16]:
Monopoly man, I love it.

Leo Laporte [01:05:18]:
Yeah, nobody would laugh at you if you were This is like the opposite of glasshole.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:05:24]:
Like, I feel bad for you. Like, I feel like—

Mike Elgan [01:05:27]:
I feel like the glasshole, right? For what I'm thinking. No, no, it's, uh, yeah, you, you look like the— you like, look like Burgess Meredith in that Twilight Zone episode where he came out of after a nuclear war and, and broke his glasses and just wanted to read books.

Leo Laporte [01:05:41]:
I'm gonna put Prism on here for the heads-up display. But this is, you know what, this— I saved this only because it's It's historic. We'll look back at this and say, what the—

Mike Elgan [01:05:49]:
It's a historic artifact.

Leo Laporte [01:05:50]:
It's an artifact of an earlier age. But I do believe that you're absolutely right. This is the future form factor.

Mike Elgan [01:05:56]:
Yeah, there are boatloads of glasses coming out, many of them without cameras, so they'll sidestep the—

Leo Laporte [01:06:01]:
Yeah, this doesn't have a camera.

Mike Elgan [01:06:02]:
Privacy issue. And they're gonna be great. I personally, I mean, just if you can imagine one killer app, then that would be subtitles for everything.

Leo Laporte [01:06:14]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:06:15]:
For the hard of hearing, for people speaking foreign languages. You could have it for giving presentations. You could have it for, uh, you could watch a movie on silent and just read the, the dialogue. Just that one feature, I think, would be killer. And then add to that all, you know, access to AI, being able to find out information, turn-by-turn directions without holding anything. I think it's obvious. I like that. Yeah, obvious that glasses are gonna be huge.

Mike Elgan [01:06:41]:
They're not gonna look like those, but they're gonna be great.

Leo Laporte [01:06:44]:
By the way, Meta also says they're going to spend $130 to $145 billion in 2026 on building data centers. So it's— Why are you laughing?

Mike Elgan [01:06:57]:
No, no, they're very sophisticated.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:06:58]:
Fantastic.

Mike Elgan [01:07:00]:
You know, they don't look terrible.

Leo Laporte [01:07:02]:
Like, you know, they don't look terrible. That's the best you could say about them. They don't look—

Mike Elgan [01:07:06]:
Well, they're not you. I mean, if you were a barefoot artist and And, you know, very creative person and wore glasses like that. I thought, well, those are, you know, that makes sense.

Leo Laporte [01:07:15]:
Yeah, I look artistic.

Mike Elgan [01:07:16]:
Yes, yes.

Leo Laporte [01:07:17]:
Or autistic.

Mike Elgan [01:07:18]:
Yes, you do.

Leo Laporte [01:07:18]:
I'm not sure which it is. It's something.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:07:21]:
It's the whole ensemble. It's just like everything together is just— It's an ensemble.

Mike Elgan [01:07:25]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:07:25]:
I'm making a statement. I don't know what it is, but I'm definitely making a statement. You're listening to This Week in Tech. Mike Elgin, Abrar Al-Heedi, great to have you. More to talk about. Uh, oh, many more wonderful stories. Amazon. Let's talk about Amazon now.

Leo Laporte [01:07:44]:
They are, um, they want to compete with Elon. They're trying to launch a global satellite cell phone network in 2028. Uh, it's 5,000 satellites. They bought— you may remember they bought Globalstar a few months ago, so they have spectrum. That's— that they're going to use the Globalstar spectrum. This is named after me, which I, I, you know, I have to lie.

Mike Elgan [01:08:08]:
it.

Leo Laporte [01:08:08]:
It's called Amazon LEO.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:08:10]:
Great name.

Leo Laporte [01:08:11]:
In this case, I think it stands for low Earth orbit, but you know, I'm gonna interpret it my way.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:08:16]:
It's for you, they told me.

Leo Laporte [01:08:18]:
You know, how could I— I would have to use this service once they launch it, right? I'd have to. In fact, they filed an application yesterday to launch a new LEO, low Earth orbit, satellite constellation. If approved, they will begin— and I guess it's the— is it the FCC, I think, or maybe the FAA? I'm not sure. They'll have to They'll have to get approval.

Mike Elgan [01:08:41]:
FCC.

Leo Laporte [01:08:42]:
FCC, okay. 5,105 satellites they will launch, not this year, next year, but the year after. They are gonna basically offer cell phone service. This is also Starlink's plan. Starlink has a partnership with T-Mobile. What do you think? I mean, is this— we're really— it's interesting because We've just been talking about how the phone might change, and now we're changing— talking about how it might connect. The problem is, if you're satellite-based, I can't be inside and get satellite signal.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:09:14]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:09:15]:
There still have to be cell towers, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:09:17]:
I think, yeah, it'll probably be a combination of the two so that you're covered everywhere you go. I guess the idea is that there would be no dead zones in theory, which would be great. Right now, satellites are largely used for, like, you know, emergencies services. And my hot take is I know that a lot of airlines are adding, you know, satellite-based Wi-Fi on planes. My favorite thing about flying is that nobody can contact me. So I'm a little— Not anymore. Sorry. A little resentful that everyone's getting all connected now.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:09:45]:
But yeah, I think the idea is with that combination of the two that you will always have service, which for safety reasons is awesome. You know, I get that there's a— there's—

Leo Laporte [01:09:52]:
Yeah. When you're driving into— if you're going from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, There's big stretches of road where you just, you don't have cell service. And you're right, that is dangerous. Yeah, it's funny how we used to do that, Jabbar. You're too young to remember.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:10:04]:
I don't. So I've heard.

Leo Laporte [01:10:06]:
But yeah, I, uh, I drove, uh, when I was in college, I drove cross-country from, uh, Santa Cruz, California to Connecticut and broke down in the Mojave Desert. Oh my gosh, the middle of nowhere. Um, my, uh, it was so hot my My— the radiator pipes burst, you know, and I knew I was sunk when I saw steam coming out of the front.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:10:29]:
No, I'm glad that you're okay.

Leo Laporte [01:10:30]:
We didn't have a cell phone. I didn't even know what a cell phone— there was no such concept.

Mike Elgan [01:10:34]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:10:35]:
So, I, you know, had a thumb. I hiked. I remember vividly a guy in a T-bird wearing no shoes. He was barefoot. Picked me up.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:10:45]:
Your knight in shining armor.

Leo Laporte [01:10:45]:
Took me back to Bakersfield where the guy said, What are you driving, an Opel Kadett? We don't have radiator pipes for that, radiator hose for that. He says, take me 3 weeks to get it. I said, no. So I said, do you have any electrical tape? He gave me a roll of electrical tape, hitchhiked back, taped it up, drove only at night.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:11:09]:
Oh my goodness.

Leo Laporte [01:11:10]:
Oh, it was a story. That's back in the days when you didn't have a cell phone.

Mike Elgan [01:11:14]:
Well, we may all get back to that at some point as well, because my concern—

Leo Laporte [01:11:19]:
A little Mad Max, I'm just saying.

Mike Elgan [01:11:21]:
Yeah, exactly. Well, yes. I wonder why they call it Death Valley. The thing that I was thinking about—

Leo Laporte [01:11:28]:
It was the Mojave. It was 100, I think it was 106 degrees when it broke down. It was really hot.

Mike Elgan [01:11:34]:
Oh, that's—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:11:35]:
yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:11:36]:
Death Valley's gotten up to 133 last year or something like that. Yeah, crazy.

Leo Laporte [01:11:40]:
This is before climate change.

Mike Elgan [01:11:43]:
That's right. I don't think Amazon's going to succeed. They've been failing on a lot of different things that you'd think they'd succeed at. They're coming at it on a much smaller basis. Although, they do have the spectrum, they do have Apple involved. But what I'm concerned about is, the Chinese want their own SpaceX-type constellations. Amazon wants to put all these satellites up. Everybody wants to put satellites up.

Mike Elgan [01:12:14]:
And I feel like if everyone who says they intend to have these kinds of networks does so, that's too many satellites. Although that might help with global warming because the Earth—

Leo Laporte [01:12:27]:
How many is too many? I mean, space is big.

Mike Elgan [01:12:30]:
Yeah, but the Kepler effect is something—

Leo Laporte [01:12:32]:
The Kessler effect, yes.

Mike Elgan [01:12:33]:
Kessler, I'm sorry, Kessler, yes.

Leo Laporte [01:12:34]:
Where they start hitting each other and breaking up and then the particles hit each other and pretty soon And you've just got this shield of broken satellites blocking out the sun.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:12:44]:
Yeah, what's the science?

Mike Elgan [01:12:45]:
It's bad for astronomy as well. And also there's concerns about interference, spectrum interference with so much, you know, so many signals going in every direction, it may ruin everything for everyone. So I don't know, I just, I'm not thrilled. that multiple companies are going to have these constellations. I assume after they put up these few thousand, they're going to want to put up a few thousand more, like SpaceX has. And so, I don't know, it just kind of scares me a bit.

Leo Laporte [01:13:19]:
I feel like— I'm trying to remember the number. I think SpaceX said they wanted 20,000 or 30,000. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:13:26]:
That's crazy.

Leo Laporte [01:13:27]:
That does seem like too many. But again, space is big.

Mike Elgan [01:13:31]:
Well, they're not in space. They're— if the Earth were a softball, right, they'd be 1/20th of an inch above the softball. It's like they're in orbit. So, they're basically not in big space.

Leo Laporte [01:13:47]:
They're low Earth orbit. They're only a few hundred miles up. I don't know what it is, but yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:13:51]:
Yeah. And so, I'm concerned about astronomy, all that stuff. So—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:13:56]:
They're not gonna stop, right? They're not gonna stop at 20,000. That's like maybe their, their number for now. They're gonna keep going, right?

Leo Laporte [01:14:01]:
So as of last year, there were 7,600 small satellites in low Earth orbit. So already a lot. SpaceX wants to do 34,500 alone. Oh, wait a minute. No, no, that's an old number. Now the number is da da da da from space.com, 100,000.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:14:24]:
See, yeah, they're not going to stop.

Leo Laporte [01:14:26]:
100,000.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:14:28]:
That's crazy.

Leo Laporte [01:14:32]:
One. So you're guaranteed, I mean, the coverage will be excellent.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:14:38]:
There's no way it wouldn't be. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:14:40]:
They've literally filed, uh, for, with the FCC for 100,000. They weigh Between 2,000 and 2,500 kilograms. So that's like 3 tons.

Mike Elgan [01:14:55]:
Yeah, they're much bigger than the Starlink satellites.

Leo Laporte [01:14:58]:
They orbit at 320 to 480 kilometers above the Earth. So it is, it's very low Earth orbit. Holy moly.

Mike Elgan [01:15:08]:
So I'm looking at the estimates. The European Space Agency estimates that there could be up to 100,000 satellites orbiting the Earth by The end of the decade, within 4 years.

Leo Laporte [01:15:19]:
What could possibly go wrong?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:15:22]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [01:15:23]:
Well, I'll give you a hint. Iran has struck Amazon data centers again in the Middle East. Satellite pictures show scars, burn scars and fires at AWS data centers. Even if you stipulate that Iran is wounded and its capacity is much reduced, they still can launch these missiles. 3 Amazon data centers in the UAE and Bahrain were already damaged in March. Just a week ago, the Revolutionary Guards said they had once again attacked and destroyed Amazon data centers in Bahrain with, with their own cruise missiles. Now, it doesn't affect us specifically, but it does certainly affect—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:16:12]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:16:13]:
companies using Amazon Web Services in those regions. So these guys, these things are vulnerable. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:16:22]:
Here's another thing that's really interesting about the attack, something that I don't think anybody predicted. When they were attacked, most of the damage was caused by their own fire suppression tools inside the data centers.

Leo Laporte [01:16:38]:
Well, sure. If it's on fire, you gotta put it out.

Mike Elgan [01:16:40]:
Flooded the racks. Exactly. And so it's like, it's like a really cost-efficient way to do a lot of damage.

Leo Laporte [01:16:48]:
Oh, you don't really need to blow it up, just need to cause a fire. Yeah, that makes sense.

Mike Elgan [01:16:53]:
And now Iran knows that.

Leo Laporte [01:16:59]:
Well, as long as we're talking about sabotage in Iran, the intelligence agency says it's Iran, the president says it's Mike Waltz. But the intelligence agencies say Iran has now hacked Minnesota's water system, and now that's spreading to other water systems in other states. We knew all along that this was a real vulnerability of the United States, that our infrastructure, our grid, our electrical grid and our water systems were not only vulnerable but had already been infiltrated by Chinese actors and others. And, uh, and this is a new kind of warfare, isn't it?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:17:45]:
We were too focused on TikTok. It's like, this is the real issue here.

Leo Laporte [01:17:48]:
Right. Iran doesn't need cruise missiles. Uh, they need a couple of hackers. Well, if we are not well protected, we're not well locked down.

Mike Elgan [01:17:59]:
Um, the thing, the thing with that people have to understand about Iran is that of the top 5 most effective, most active, most aggressive hacking organizations in the world, they're among the top 5. So, it's China, Russia, the US, Israel, and Iran.

Leo Laporte [01:18:17]:
Interesting.

Mike Elgan [01:18:17]:
Not necessarily in that order. I think Iran's probably number 3. And they've been doing this for a long time.

Leo Laporte [01:18:21]:
So, they have the capability.

Mike Elgan [01:18:22]:
They do. They're very good at this kind of thing. And so, it's It's— this is where we should be spending money on shoring up the cyber defenses of critical infrastructure in the United States instead of teaching our adversaries how to take us down through our unpreparedness. Like, that's essentially what—

Leo Laporte [01:18:46]:
When Alex Stamos, a security researcher, was on a few months ago, he warned that the cutbacks in CISA, that the firings, The reductions in our security would inevitably lead to this kind of attack. Now, I should point out it's notoriously difficult to determine where a hack comes from, and even the intelligence agencies are saying it is possible the hackers are posing as Iran in order to ratchet up tensions. They could be, for instance, Russian hackers, because Russia has a vested interest in us and Iran fighting so that we won't be paying attention to what's going on in Ukraine. So it's very hard to know. The point is not that this is Iran or Russia. The point is how vulnerable we are, right? And our grid is equally vulnerable.

Mike Elgan [01:19:33]:
No, no, it's Tim Walz. Uh, he did this.

Leo Laporte [01:19:36]:
And this is what's very frustrating, because I know the president says that for political reasons and political gain. Obviously, the governor of Minnesota is not hacking his own local water system. Even Trump must know that, but it distracts from a much more serious fundamental weakness that we have and we are not addressing.

Mike Elgan [01:20:01]:
It's— and so there's— the categories are enormous of vulnerability. One is infrastructure. So, you know, the Chinese have been probing, the Russians have been probing and doing damage to try to figure out what is possible. The Iranians have been doing that. And the other one is sort of our government databases. The Chinese actually stole huge amounts of data from government employees, like basically data on just about all of them, including those with clearance, clearances, what were their clearances about, the details and data inside their clearance. So that's another gigantic category. So we're just like Nowheresville, and the current administration has been slashing and burning the very types of organizations and people who would be shoring that stuff up, because it requires a massive, long-term effort of developing, you know, acquiring people, developing the expertise, doing the work.

Mike Elgan [01:21:01]:
And, you know, basically Trump set us back a generation in our preparedness, and it's just a bad thing.

Leo Laporte [01:21:08]:
That Chinese hack Salt Typhoon, we should point out, has not been fixed, that they are very likely still in the phone system because of vulnerabilities that are almost impossible for us to fix. The telecommunications company, uh, companies in the United States say, well, we could fix it, but we'd have to take the telecommunications system down for a day or two. And obviously that ain't gonna happen.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:21:32]:
Because what if somebody gets stuck in the desert with their busted car?

Leo Laporte [01:21:35]:
You know, it'll be just like my ute. No, you guys, you know, I survived. I'm here.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:21:42]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:21:43]:
You don't need phones.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:21:44]:
Just 24 hours without a phone would be fantastic.

Mike Elgan [01:21:47]:
That was a great story, Leo. That— it's— I answered the question why I notice you always carry electrical tape everywhere you go.

Leo Laporte [01:21:54]:
Duct tape, electrical tape, and gaffer tape. It's the 3 fundamental necessities of life. And if you want to live luxurious, painter's tape. Now you got all 4.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:22:04]:
All the time.

Leo Laporte [01:22:04]:
You're set. You're set for any possibility. I actually carry, or I used to, I think I still do, in my man bag, a pen wrapped with gaffer's tape in case I need some gaffer's tape. You never know. You know what it's mostly useful for? You get to a hotel room and there's all these LEDs. You just rip off a little piece of gaffer's tape, you put it on each one, and now blessed darkness.

Mike Elgan [01:22:29]:
Why is gaffer's tape better than duct tape? Just because it's less sticky or less—

Leo Laporte [01:22:32]:
Yeah, yeah. That's why gaffers— gaffers, which is the name Hollywood gives lighting technicians— gaffers carry these rolls of tape. They're very expensive, by the way. John C. DeForek used to steal it every time he would come to the Brick House studio. Rest his soul. God love him. He would borrow a roll of gaffer's tape as soon as he found out how valuable it was.

Mike Elgan [01:22:54]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:22:55]:
He would just take it.

Mike Elgan [01:22:57]:
He was compensating himself for his time.

Leo Laporte [01:23:00]:
It was his pay. He would also take a mug. He was a character. The gaffer's— so painter's tape is the most removable. Yeah, that's the blue tape. Gaffer's tape is the next, and it's got a little fabric base, so it's very stiff. But I have to admit, I will confess, and this might answer the mysteries that many hotels and cruise ships have been suffering over the last few years, I never remember to remove the gaffer's tape when I leave.

Mike Elgan [01:23:26]:
Well, that'll teach them a lesson. They shouldn't be blasting you with all those lights. Well, as you know, I travel a lot, sometimes stay in hotels.

Leo Laporte [01:23:33]:
Every time the Laportes stay here.

Mike Elgan [01:23:35]:
Why is the room so dark? But I use duct tape. Like, I travel with travel duct tape. Have you ever heard of this?

Leo Laporte [01:23:43]:
Duct tape is too good. It's really—

Mike Elgan [01:23:45]:
Yes, but, but I need it. I don't have the space to carry multiple types of tape. So if I'm gonna have one type of tape, it's got to be duct tape. because I sometimes need it for other things. And so, but I do, I cover everything, all the lights, because I can't stand it. Some of them are so bright, they literally illuminate the entire room, especially like air conditioning. Some air conditioning units, you can't turn off the display.

Leo Laporte [01:24:10]:
Oh, it's terrible.

Mike Elgan [01:24:11]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:24:11]:
So bright. Yeah, you travel a lot more than I do.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:24:14]:
So there's this really cool thing called an eye mask, and you just put it over your eye, and then you don't have to do all that.

Mike Elgan [01:24:19]:
Yeah, no, I just use duct tape over my eyes. That's what I do.

Leo Laporte [01:24:26]:
Uh, yeah, duct tape is too good, but I do carry it as well. You got to have all 4. That's the key. You gotta—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:24:32]:
You should make a combo pack like Leo's little combo pack.

Mike Elgan [01:24:37]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [01:24:39]:
Hackers, uh, according to Minnesota's Chief Information Security Officer— oh, they have a Maybe so. Well, that's good. Hackers targeted 36 municipal water systems as part of a breach detected last Sunday. Um, hackers, uh, apparently found that these were internet-connected water systems. Okay, so there's problem number one. And were able to hack them remotely. These are the systems that manage and monitor water towers maintained by municipal governments.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:25:09]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:25:10]:
All they did was take them offline. They DDoSed them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:25:13]:
Oh my goodness.

Leo Laporte [01:25:14]:
And that's serious, serious stuff. They say that none of the breaches contaminated or disrupted water delivery. They just turned off the monitoring, and it's now spreading to other states.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:25:29]:
That doesn't sound precarious at all.

Leo Laporte [01:25:30]:
Not at all. Nick Anderson, the acting director of the federal CISA, Cybersecurity Information Security— Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that CISA was aware of multiple potential incidents affecting local water utilities. Notably, he did not blame Tim Walz.

Mike Elgan [01:25:53]:
It was almost certainly, by the way, you mentioned the speculation that it could have been Russia pretending to be Iran. It was Iran. There was CISA and There had been FBI warnings in advance that Iran was stepping up their activities in that area, and some aspects of the attacks were kind of signatures of the Iranian hacking style, for lack of a better term. So it was almost certainly Iran that did it, and so I think we can pretty safely dismiss the Russian theory.

Leo Laporte [01:26:22]:
We've known that this was the future of warfare, right? Cyber warfare.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:26:26]:
Absolutely.

Leo Laporte [01:26:31]:
Scary.

Mike Elgan [01:26:32]:
Which is just, you know, if you look at the things that have happened in warfare in the past 3 years, especially in the Ukraine conflict, it's super cyberpunk sci-fi stuff.

Leo Laporte [01:26:45]:
And this just in from our technical producer: while gaffer's tape is easily removed if you remove it quickly enough, if left on long enough, will solidify and become unremovable, Bonita says.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:26:57]:
Oh, that's good to know.

Leo Laporte [01:26:58]:
I don't want to know how Bonita found that out.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:27:02]:
Experience.

Mike Elgan [01:27:03]:
I need, I need gaffer's tape to help me from making so many gaffes when I'm on podcasts. That's what I need.

Leo Laporte [01:27:09]:
Do you remember the people, for a while there was this trend of making your wallet out of duct tape?

Mike Elgan [01:27:14]:
Yes, I remember that.

Leo Laporte [01:27:15]:
Duct tape wallets. One, Patrick Norton might have had a duct tape wallet.

Mike Elgan [01:27:21]:
There's also one girl who made her prom dress out of duct tape. Oh, goodness.

Leo Laporte [01:27:25]:
So they never got her out of it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:27:28]:
Yeah, at least it wasn't Gap first aid. She'd still be wearing it.

Mike Elgan [01:27:31]:
Exactly right.

Leo Laporte [01:27:32]:
All right, let's pause. You're watching This Week in Tech. It's great to have you aboard, Alhiti. We love to see you every month on Tech News Weekly with Micah Sargent, and of course every day at CNET where she's a senior technology reporter. Are you— is your beat mostly phones now, or what else do you cover?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:27:49]:
Mostly phones, autonomous vehicles, Digital accessibility and the occasional entertainment story when I can sneak that in, because that's what I really love.

Leo Laporte [01:27:56]:
Yeah, me too.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:27:57]:
Yeah. All right.

Leo Laporte [01:27:58]:
We will get autonomous vehicles and entertainment stories in before the show is over.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:28:04]:
I love it.

Leo Laporte [01:28:05]:
Can't, can't promise you anything else. Sorry. Mike Elgin also here, machinesociety.ai. And your partner on that, Emily Forleni, is now working at Fortune, which is great news.

Mike Elgan [01:28:17]:
Yeah, she's my partner on the Super Intelligent Podcast. She's not involved in Machine Society, but yeah, she's working at Fortune now. So, she's doing interesting original reporting there.

Leo Laporte [01:28:29]:
Fantastic.

Mike Elgan [01:28:30]:
Very cool.

Leo Laporte [01:28:31]:
Where are you going next on the Gastronomad tours?

Mike Elgan [01:28:35]:
Well, for Gastronomad, it's going to be Sicily. We have 2 in Sicily. One is kind of a private group that's doing one, and then we're doing one that's just a—

Leo Laporte [01:28:42]:
Oh, I didn't know you could do Oh, yes.

Mike Elgan [01:28:44]:
If you got, you know, 4 or 6 people, something like that, or more, we can, you know, we'll use your dates, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Leo Laporte [01:28:51]:
Oh, that's a good idea.

Mike Elgan [01:28:53]:
We're doing more and more of those. They're really nice.

Leo Laporte [01:28:54]:
Custom.

Mike Elgan [01:28:55]:
Yeah. Well, actually, the most— I don't know if you have time before the break, but the most exciting thing we're doing is we have a new thing. If you go at the top, you'll see something called Reset. So, we're doing now, just entering the business of doing gastronomic experiences for companies. So, go ahead and click, find out more. And so, what we'll do is basically work with the company to have a— it's not like a retreat, it's more like a— you know how they say touch grass? This is like touch food, taste wine, expert wine tasting chefs.

Leo Laporte [01:29:30]:
What a great idea.

Mike Elgan [01:29:31]:
But having people connect with culture, Yes. With nature and with each other, right? With real people. Put away the phones, forget about AI for a week, and just, uh, have a complete reset for, for a team or for a company. And so we, you know, we've had a lot of demand for this sort of thing, and we've kind of, um, kicked it down the road for a while, but now we're actually doing it.

Leo Laporte [01:29:55]:
That's incredible.

Mike Elgan [01:29:56]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:29:57]:
Oh, what a good idea.

Mike Elgan [01:29:58]:
Yeah, I think so.

Leo Laporte [01:29:59]:
And Benito, do No, do not ask. Twit is not going to do a reset. We're holding it together with duct tape, ladies and gentlemen. There ain't no trips planned in our future. Uh, so that's so cool. gastronomad.net to find out more. For the first time ever, Abrar, Zooks— Zooks!

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:30:22]:
Zooks!

Leo Laporte [01:30:23]:
Has permission in Las Vegas To drive people around in its vehicle with no steering wheel.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:30:30]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:30:31]:
No brakes, no nothing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:30:34]:
No nothing.

Leo Laporte [01:30:34]:
This is a little new age rolling living room. Have you been in a Zoox?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:30:39]:
I have been in a Zoox. I've been in a couple times. I went, um, in Vegas about a year and a half ago, um, back before they rolled out to the public. And then I took a ride in SF recently too.

Leo Laporte [01:30:51]:
They're really cute.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:30:53]:
They're very cute. I think of them as cute little toasters. They're just adorable.

Leo Laporte [01:30:57]:
Although they do remind me very much of the autonomous vehicles in Westworld.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:31:01]:
Yeah, exactly. They really— they're very, like, incredibly futuristic. And so, yeah, they're fun. They're kind of like, imagine sitting in the back of a— I keep bringing up London, but imagine sitting in the back of a London black cab where you're facing each other, but there's no driver. So it's It's just kind of like a fun configuration to be sitting by the front panel.

Leo Laporte [01:31:20]:
The difference is, if you're in a London black cab, that cabbie has taken extensive tests and studied for years to know every single road in London.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:31:29]:
Yes, it's an unparalleled level of intelligence and navigation. So cannot compare.

Leo Laporte [01:31:35]:
Zoox can't do that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:31:36]:
Cannot do that. No machine can replace the intelligence of a human, especially a human cab driver. It's— this is a big step. The fact that, you know, this got approved without the traditional elements like a steering wheel is just kind of a signal of where self-driving could be headed. Because you compare this to other types of self-driving, right? The leader right now is Waymo. But Waymo is driving some retrofitted Jaguar vehicles. So they look very much like a traditional vehicle. So to have something that's so custom-built, Built for the autonomous experience is kind of a big step.

Leo Laporte [01:32:15]:
It is. This makes me a little nervous. It's a temporary exemption from federal safety standards.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:32:21]:
Just don't worry.

Leo Laporte [01:32:21]:
Okay. We're going to suspend our safety standards so that you can drive around. It's the first time you've been able to drive around in an autonomous vehicle that has no controls.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:32:33]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:32:34]:
But I'm not— you're not going to leap over the seat in a Waymo and take the wheel. That's exactly right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:32:38]:
You can't even do that anyway. I think that the hesitation that some people might have is what if someone needs to come in and manually move the vehicle? That's not really a common occurrence. People can remotely access that anyway. But yeah, you're not going to— the steering wheel isn't there to save you anyway on a retrofitted vehicle. So there's no— why even have it? Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:33:00]:
It feels kind of retrograde for the federal government, for NHTSA, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, to require Even the new purpose-built Waymos have to have steering wheels, pedals, and mirrors, even though there's no real use for them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:33:14]:
That's what was so interesting. So Waymo's new vehicle after the I-PACE is going to be— it's called the Ohai. It's a modified Zeekr. And yeah, I was surprised to see that it still had a driver's seat with a wheel. And, you know, it just very, very much looked like a traditional van. And when I asked them about it, they were like, maybe someday, like, you could get rid of that driver's seat. But for now, like, Who knows when that could happen? Maybe that's going to change now. Maybe this is leeway to open up the door to other self-driving companies to not have wasted space.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:33:43]:
It's really wasted space in that vehicle. Why fit another person in there?

Mike Elgan [01:33:47]:
It's bad for the environment. Abraar, do you have any sense of what Amazon did that Waymo was unable to do to get this exemption?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:33:56]:
I wonder about that. All these companies like to be in close, close contact with government agencies to try to, you know, I, I don't know what kinds of conversations were had or what they had to kind of, you know, get, get approved or kind of assuage any concerns. But, but this is something they've been pushing for kind of from the get-go. So Zoox kind of decided that if they were going to launch a self-driving vehicle, it was always going to look like this, essentially. Like the early sketches look very much like what you see on the roads today. So instead of going the route of Waymo, where they say, well, let's just get the self-driving tech on the road, even if it looks like a traditional vehicle, and then we'll work our way out of that. They just decided that they were only going to do it if it was going to look like this. So I think it was just kind of— they've been driving for a couple of years at this point.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:34:43]:
So it's kind of proving that the technology works, proving that it's comparable to, you know, something like a Waymo where it's able to navigate those roads even though the vehicle looks different. I think all of that kind of added to that. What is it?

Leo Laporte [01:34:56]:
It's like a living room? Like you're— it's 4-seater that you're facing each other?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:34:59]:
Exactly. Yeah, 2 on each side. You're— and you're all facing each other. It's quite fun. And because you're all facing each other, you don't even register that it's weird because you look at it at the outside, you're like, what is this weird vehicle? And you get inside and you're not even thinking about it because you're just looking at the person sitting in front of you, if there is someone there, and you're not even focused on how strange it is.

Leo Laporte [01:35:16]:
And you go backwards and forwards, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:35:18]:
Bidirectionally.

Leo Laporte [01:35:20]:
Yep. That's a little weird.

Mike Elgan [01:35:21]:
That's cool.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:35:21]:
That's cool though. There's no seat.

Leo Laporte [01:35:24]:
It's front.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:35:25]:
It's perfect.

Mike Elgan [01:35:26]:
It reminds me of the thing that I think is the biggest opportunity for self-driving vehicles, which is it doesn't have to be a vehicle. It doesn't have to feel like a vehicle. I want a self-driving bed. You know what I mean? I just want to go to sleep and wake up in another city. Or, you know, a self-driving living room or a self-driving game room where you just play an Xbox the whole way or something like that.

Leo Laporte [01:35:47]:
You know, it's so cool. And then you could have an observation car, you could have maybe a dining car. It would— you could have a shower. It'd be like a train.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:35:55]:
Yeah. Hmm, that sounds interesting.

Leo Laporte [01:35:59]:
Kind of like a train.

Mike Elgan [01:36:00]:
I know.

Leo Laporte [01:36:01]:
Yeah, you know, you just get in, you go to sleep, and you're in LA the next day.

Mike Elgan [01:36:04]:
And get rid of the wheels and put it on this metal— like, put them on.

Leo Laporte [01:36:07]:
Yeah, that's better, because then if it's on a, like, a metal, like, bars—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:36:11]:
Maybe a word like track could work.

Leo Laporte [01:36:13]:
Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, you ride A track so that you never get lost. You don't have to worry about oncoming traffic or anything.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:36:20]:
It's just—

Leo Laporte [01:36:21]:
yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:36:21]:
Someday.

Leo Laporte [01:36:22]:
Someday we'll have such a thing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:36:24]:
It really is.

Leo Laporte [01:36:26]:
I love it how we keep reinventing existing technology. I mean, Elon's Boring Company reinvented the subway, only worse.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:36:36]:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But here we are.

Leo Laporte [01:36:40]:
We're gonna bore a hole in the ground But instead of having trains, we're just gonna have Teslas driving.

Mike Elgan [01:36:46]:
Yes, on rubber wheels. Yeah, and like, and like The Boring Company, Zoox is gonna roll out first in Las Vegas, then California, then Austin and Miami. But it's coming pretty soon to Vegas, right? Like public roads?

Leo Laporte [01:37:00]:
They just got permission.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:37:02]:
Yeah, they've been in Vegas for a while, kind of open to the public but for free. So now I'm, I know, I'm sure they're thrilled that they can start charging. For those rides.

Leo Laporte [01:37:10]:
Oh, so that's the difference.

Mike Elgan [01:37:11]:
So Leo, you're going to Vegas soon, right?

Leo Laporte [01:37:13]:
I'm gonna be in Vegas on Tuesday. We're going to Black Hat.

Mike Elgan [01:37:16]:
Maybe they'll be running.

Leo Laporte [01:37:18]:
Oh, I got a Zoox.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:37:19]:
You have to do it. I, when I, I tried in during CES and it was such limited pickup zones because I wanted my coworkers to try it. And it was so, it was so tricky to get one. And I'm sure that they've probably expanded the places that they can, you know, they plan to do 5,000 That, that will make it a lot—

Leo Laporte [01:37:36]:
or at least that's the license that they got from NHTSA, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:37:39]:
Yeah. So yeah, so now it'll be— I mean, there's a sweet, there's a sweet spot for people like me who are crazy enough to want to get in these vehicles when it's free for a while, um, before they're allowed to start.

Leo Laporte [01:37:48]:
Okay, I don't—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:37:48]:
the honeymoon's over, so now you will have to pay.

Leo Laporte [01:37:51]:
Yeah, but do I— do I— I probably need to get the Zoox app, correct?

Mike Elgan [01:37:56]:
Yeah, I'd prep for that. But Vegas is a great place for self-driving cars because everybody's drunk.

Leo Laporte [01:38:01]:
isn't it?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:38:02]:
Yeah, everybody's drunk, everyone needs a ride.

Leo Laporte [01:38:06]:
Yes, they don't go on the highway, I'm guessing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:38:08]:
Um, no, no, I— not that I am aware of. I don't think these ones do. And Waymo did for a bit and then got pulled off the freeways because of—

Leo Laporte [01:38:16]:
There's an irony there because highway driving is actually easier for autonomous vehicles because it's city streets that are really cuckoo.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:38:24]:
Yeah, it's— they're, they're— I think there were trouble with construction zones, I believe.

Leo Laporte [01:38:29]:
They would run into— yeah, they'd run off the road into construction zones. A few little things. And it is true, if you had an accident at high speed, it's a more devastating accident, but there are fewer accidents because, you know, everybody's driving in the same direction. It's kind of fairly straight.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:38:44]:
You don't have to deal with pedestrians and all those things. But, um, but also speaking of the Uber app, uh, Zoox— or sorry, the Zoox app, uh, they announced earlier this year that they'd be collaborating with Uber, so you'd be able to eventually also hail a ride through that, which is kind of like that— the interesting partnership that traditional ride-hailing has with self-driving, because they realize that's the future of ride-hailing, is you getting in and out.

Leo Laporte [01:39:07]:
Oh yeah, Uber makes no financial sense if you have to have human drivers. The whole—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:39:11]:
this is their whole plan, right? They tried to do it on their own, it didn't work, so they figured might as well partner with these other folks that are, you know, figuring it out.

Leo Laporte [01:39:19]:
Oh, so maybe I can use my Uber app.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:39:21]:
Yes. I don't know when that's gonna become available, but if it is while you're there, then— oh yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:39:25]:
Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that. Yeah, we're going— I should mention that we are going to Black Hat. We're going to do 2 shows from the ThreatLocker booth at the Black Hat conference on Wednesday. We're going to do Windows Weekly and immediately following, Steve Gibson and Security Now. And what that means is we are going to move Intelligent Machines, our normal Wednesday show, to tomorrow. We're going to do it 2 PM Pacific, 5 PM Eastern on Monday. And then Micah Sargent will be handling MacBreak Weekly on Tuesday because I have to fly to Las Vegas.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:39:53]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:39:54]:
And drive around in a Zoox.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:39:55]:
Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:39:56]:
I call it campfire seating.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:39:58]:
Oh, that's—

Leo Laporte [01:39:59]:
should I bring marshmallows and sticks?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:01]:
I think you should light a fire in a Zoox. I think that's a great idea. I think they would love to have you back.

Leo Laporte [01:40:06]:
You said it was campfire seating. I brought my s'mores kit.

Mike Elgan [01:40:09]:
I got an idea for you, Leo. Um, do a podcast from a Zoox.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:13]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [01:40:14]:
Oh, I'll definitely do a recording.

Mike Elgan [01:40:17]:
But work with them to like have them sponsor, you know, Or whatever, pay for it, make the ride free.

Leo Laporte [01:40:21]:
At least 3 hours riding around Las Vegas.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:24]:
Yes, yes, I really do.

Leo Laporte [01:40:29]:
Well, it's probably— is it quiet? It's probably pretty quiet, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:31]:
Even though it's a lot of glass, it's, it's pretty quiet. It does a good job of closing out outside noise. So you could—

Leo Laporte [01:40:38]:
now you got me. Maybe I can do a podcast from a Zoox, even a little snippet.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:44]:
So give us something, you know, we're all tuned in.

Leo Laporte [01:40:45]:
I never liked the name podcast, but ZooksCast is pretty good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:49]:
It's quite good.

Leo Laporte [01:40:51]:
It's a good name.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:51]:
Are you listening, Zooks? Yes.

Leo Laporte [01:40:53]:
Yeah, you're listening to ZooksCast. Yeah, is it short for Gadzooks?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:40:59]:
I don't know.

Mike Elgan [01:41:02]:
Nobody's driving the car and nobody's in charge of this podcast. It's just running wild on its own.

Leo Laporte [01:41:07]:
Yeah, really. This is an autonomous podcast. Yeah, absolutely. NHTSA's administrator Jonathan Morrison said Zoox had proved it exceeded the safety standards applied to traditional cars. This is from Wired's report on this. He said the technology needs to be developed appropriately, safely, and responsibly. If we see an unreasonable risk to safety, you're gonna hear from us.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:41:30]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:41:30]:
Now, what if, what if you yank permission? Not, not a strongly worded email. That's, that's— I want to more than hear from you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:41:39]:
Yeah, that's what's hard. I mean, the most negative example we could think of is what happened to Cruise, right? They had all these big ambitions for self-driving. They also had a vehicle that looked kind of boxy without a driver's seat that they were planning to roll out. And then you hit a big snafu and that's kind of— that could be the end, right?

Leo Laporte [01:41:59]:
Like, yeah, well, they actually— they hit a pedestrian and dragged it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:03]:
Correct.

Leo Laporte [01:42:03]:
Well, they did similar things.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:05]:
It's another kind of Yeah, yeah, it's kind of— but it's, it's tough. It's actually—

Leo Laporte [01:42:09]:
I think the story was she had been hit by another car and then—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:12]:
Correct.

Leo Laporte [01:42:13]:
The Cruise accidentally ran over her and dragged her.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:16]:
Correct. Yeah. And the problem wasn't so much that, as horrific as that is, but it's the fact that they kind of, um, buried it.

Leo Laporte [01:42:22]:
They lied about it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:23]:
Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's a problem you have to have. And I think that's why companies like Waymo and Zoox are like, we work closely with these government agencies. They want to be as transparent as possible. Because there are going to be issues, right? That's kind of how it works. Like, it's awful, but you're gonna, you're gonna do something that's not supposed to happen, and you want to make sure that you are cooperating.

Leo Laporte [01:42:42]:
Now, our Club Trip members did point out that it will be during a hacker convention.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:48]:
Oh my God.

Leo Laporte [01:42:49]:
Maybe not the best time to drive around in a Zoox.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:51]:
Let's find out how fortified their cybersecurity is.

Leo Laporte [01:42:54]:
For sure, people are going to try to hack that thing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:42:56]:
I, I believe it.

Leo Laporte [01:42:57]:
But that could be fun. And if they know I'm in it, they're really gonna try that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:43:01]:
That's even more fun. Like, that's why you gotta livestream from there. Just see what—

Leo Laporte [01:43:04]:
I'm gonna end up on a container ship to Madagascar and it's, it's gonna be your fault.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:43:10]:
Then I'll take the responsibility. I don't care.

Leo Laporte [01:43:14]:
I guess I don't have to worry too much about container ships in Las Vegas.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:43:17]:
I think it'll be safe. I think you'll be okay.

Leo Laporte [01:43:19]:
Yeah. Worst, worst that'll happen, they'll drive me to Mustang Ranch and leave me. Um, well, all right, good. I'm glad you gave me that idea. I hadn't thought about that. I keep meaning to do— there is a— The Boring Company does have rides from a hotel to the Vegas Convention Center. They do.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:43:34]:
I took it during— when I was at CES. It was like a very straightforward autonomous ride. They have the safety driver, they're just kind of there. And then the only—

Leo Laporte [01:43:44]:
That's got to be a boring job.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:43:46]:
It's quite— it must be because you're not seeing anything. And then the only interesting part is once you get out of the tunnel, when you're like, okay, here are real streets, just for like a a couple blocks and then you get dropped off at the hotel and that's it.

Leo Laporte [01:43:56]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not very far. No, it's kind of silly. Although I think that Elon got permission to extend it even farther. Yeah, what a, what a, what a world we live in, I have to say. We don't have flying cars, we have cars that go underneath the ground instead of going up. Transport fewer people than the subways did in the 1900s.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:44:21]:
Well, that's what I'm kind of waiting for, is like the Autonomous buses that everyone talks about. That's kind of like very much lagging behind the—

Leo Laporte [01:44:30]:
Let's get cars off the road, not add more vehicles to it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:44:34]:
Exactly. Exactly. So that's got to be the next step.

Mike Elgan [01:44:38]:
You mentioned trains. I think one of the possibilities with advanced technology is you can have, when you're driving on a highway, you can join a kind of a train, right? Which they could have a special lane just for cars that—

Leo Laporte [01:44:49]:
Because they could talk to each other.

Mike Elgan [01:44:50]:
Yeah, they can talk to each other. So then you can imagine them all tailgating at high speed, right? So you're like 5 feet from the car in front of you and the car behind you is 5 feet away, but it's computer controlled. So this sort of chain of cars that are connected sort of wirelessly like this could go 100 miles an hour on a special lane. And that would clear up a lot of traffic. You'd have to have a lot of guts to be one of the early adopters of that.

Leo Laporte [01:45:15]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:45:16]:
But I think that's where it could go. I think that'd be very helpful.

Leo Laporte [01:45:20]:
What happened? Didn't Elon— wasn't there this thing called the Hyperloop?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:45:25]:
Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:45:25]:
Whatever happened to that? Yeah, it was gonna be so fast, it was gonna be supersonic. Uh, except that it— is it— it was gonna go under the ocean, I think. The problem would be the acceleration would squish you like a grapefruit against the wall. So really, they decided maybe better for cargo than Good call.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:45:48]:
I don't know.

Leo Laporte [01:45:49]:
But that was 2013. Here we are 13 years later. Is it over?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:45:54]:
I haven't heard a peep.

Leo Laporte [01:45:56]:
Not a peep. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [01:45:58]:
Well, I'm not aware of any prediction about what his companies would do that Elon Musk has ever gotten right. He was talking about a fleet of self-driving Teslas, I think was supposed to come online in 2018 or 2019. A million robotaxis by 2020. So the fact that he said it was coming and it didn't come is normal.

Leo Laporte [01:46:20]:
Did you see the video? I don't know if it was real or not, of Elon Musk walking down the red carpet with an Optimus robot carrying his luggage.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:46:32]:
Sounds about right.

Leo Laporte [01:46:33]:
And putting it in a Cybertruck.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:46:36]:
That tracks.

Leo Laporte [01:46:37]:
Yeah, it was its red carpet debut. I don't, I don't know. Let me see. Here it is on Snopes. Let's see. Let's see if I, if I fell for it. Oh, it was AI-generated.

Mike Elgan [01:46:54]:
Ah, message.

Leo Laporte [01:46:55]:
See, so he can't even get it to work for real.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:46:57]:
Well, I saw some of these. They had like a, they had an event a couple months ago where they had them and They had very limited capabilities, uh, and limited I think is even a generous word for just how little these robots could do.

Leo Laporte [01:47:12]:
But yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:13]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:47:13]:
Well, and they were teleoperated.

Mike Elgan [01:47:15]:
Teleoperated.

Leo Laporte [01:47:15]:
That's right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:16]:
They're teleoperated.

Leo Laporte [01:47:16]:
There was a human off, off stage doing the thing, and then the robot would mimic it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:24]:
Yep, exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:47:26]:
That's kind of deceptive. Not that I didn't do that in my youth. Uh, that's the character I played on The Site with MSNBC. I was Dev Null, and I was— he was on screen, and I was the teleoperator. You probably don't know anything about that, do you, Barb?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:43]:
I have no idea what you're talking about.

Leo Laporte [01:47:46]:
I won an Emmy Award for it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:47]:
Oh my God, wait, okay, this is gonna be my next rabbit hole. This—

Leo Laporte [01:47:52]:
when was this? This was 1996.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:55]:
Okay.

Leo Laporte [01:47:57]:
So, 30 years ago.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:47:58]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:47:59]:
It took a half-million-dollar Silicon Graphics computer. I had to wear a rubber suit with sensors on it. I also had 2 puppeteers. Karsten Bondi was one of them. And they would spin my hair. They would lip-sync the mouth because it didn't yet have lip-sync capability.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:18]:
Interesting.

Leo Laporte [01:48:19]:
But the Silicon Graphics Onyx, the big computer would sense my movements, and then translate it in real time to a cartoon character named Dev Null. He was a barista.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:29]:
That's amazing.

Leo Laporte [01:48:31]:
And he would talk to the anchor of the show, Soledad O'Brien.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:34]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:48:35]:
And it was, I think, the first— the reason it won an Emmy, I think, was for technical achievement. I didn't really deserve anything.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:42]:
That's amazing. No, of course you do.

Leo Laporte [01:48:43]:
Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:44]:
I hope this is on YouTube, because I will be looking this up.

Leo Laporte [01:48:47]:
I'm embarrassed to say it is.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:48:49]:
Yes. Well, you brought it up. You know I'm gonna look it up.

Leo Laporte [01:48:52]:
The thing that was bad is I chose a voice, which I thought was a good voice for this character, that was perhaps the most annoying voice ever. Here, I'll show you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:05]:
Yeah, please. I'm sure everyone wants to listen to.

Leo Laporte [01:49:08]:
Let me see. This is on the site on MSNBC. Your attention, please. It's time for Spoiler List!

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:17]:
Is that your voice?

Leo Laporte [01:49:18]:
Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:19]:
That's fantastic.

Mike Elgan [01:49:21]:
Yes, it's me, Dave Noll.

Leo Laporte [01:49:23]:
A good evening to you all. So all of that is me in a back room wearing this ugly-ass sweaty suit.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:32]:
That's incredible.

Leo Laporte [01:49:33]:
Surrounded. And they had it because they didn't want the sound to penetrate to the stage. They put me in a cage. Oh my God. So it was a sweaty suit and it was hot and I had to talk like this.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:48]:
Bring it back.

Leo Laporte [01:49:50]:
And then do gossip.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:49:51]:
That's fantastic. It's a great voice.

Leo Laporte [01:50:00]:
The lip sync ain't great.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:02]:
It's impressive for the, for the time. Are you kidding me?

Leo Laporte [01:50:05]:
Yeah. Well, it was. That's, I think, why it got an Emmy Award. It was—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:08]:
Oh, yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:50:09]:
That's the best you could say. 1997. That was impressive for its time. That's a spotlight on Soledad Prodigy.com. Hated it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:18]:
Really?

Leo Laporte [01:50:19]:
Soledad hated it. Her mother once said to her, do you still work with that vile little puppet man?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:26]:
Oh, my God.

Leo Laporte [01:50:27]:
And she said—

Mike Elgan [01:50:28]:
That sweaty little puppet man.

Leo Laporte [01:50:30]:
Here he is. Look. This is her. She's staring at a blue dot on the wall.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:36]:
Oh, my God, that's so funny.

Leo Laporte [01:50:38]:
But the thing is, it was done in real time. That was what was unique. You could animate stuff, but to have her talking to a virtual character in real time, that was, at the time, considered, in some way, innovative.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:50:53]:
Honestly, it's quite neat. And so was the idea that you were demonstrating the technology technology, or did they just want you to be this character?

Leo Laporte [01:50:58]:
No, it was a regular feature on the show every day.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:01]:
Oh, wow. That's awesome.

Leo Laporte [01:51:02]:
I had to get in that suit every day.

Mike Elgan [01:51:04]:
I didn't know you had to do that every day.

Leo Laporte [01:51:06]:
Well, they would tape it ahead, so I think I did it a few times a week.

Mike Elgan [01:51:10]:
Once. Okay.

Leo Laporte [01:51:12]:
They couldn't figure it— You know, that's the irony of it. It was designed to be done live, and that was what was unique about it. But they didn't stream it. They didn't broadcast it live, so there was no point, really. The whole thing was silly. They just didn't want to spend time rendering it. Soledad was great. She put up with that for a year and a half.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:30]:
That's impressive.

Mike Elgan [01:51:31]:
It was definitely something new.

Leo Laporte [01:51:33]:
And so did I. Hey, but I got an Emmy here somewhere.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:36]:
Hell yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:51:37]:
That's right. They can't take that away from me.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:41]:
That's right.

Leo Laporte [01:51:41]:
I'll always be the Emmy Award-winning Leo Laporte.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:44]:
I love it. I'm still waiting for the book, by the way, Leo. You really do.

Leo Laporte [01:51:49]:
It wasn't that hard to win. The competition And it was like a technical achievement. And the competition was literally, I'm not kidding you, a sock puppet.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:51:59]:
It's just a lot of puppeteering.

Leo Laporte [01:52:01]:
So I beat a sock puppet to win an Emmy Award.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:52:04]:
You know how cool sock puppets are, Leo? That's an achievement.

Leo Laporte [01:52:07]:
I guess. It was a category with 2 entries, one of which was a sock puppet. But I won.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:52:17]:
And you won. And that's really all that matters.

Leo Laporte [01:52:19]:
That's all that matters. And no one need ever know the truth, except that I Except they just killed us all. Again.

Mike Elgan [01:52:27]:
The Emmy Award-winning.

Leo Laporte [01:52:29]:
Emmy Award. The Emmy broke when I built— when I set up this studio in the attic. It was a very windy day, and the Emmy— turns out the Emmy is, uh, fragile.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:52:37]:
No.

Leo Laporte [01:52:39]:
So it fell off. It fell off the, uh, shelf and, uh, and broke. And apparently you can get the Emmy repaired, but it's very expensive.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:52:47]:
Oh, goodness. Of course it is.

Leo Laporte [01:52:49]:
I only have the bottom— I mean, the top half of the Emmy.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:52:52]:
Oh my God, I love that it's casually inside of your webby. Like, I— that's—

Leo Laporte [01:52:55]:
Well, then I thought, I still have the webby, so what if I put the Emmy in the webby and it's some sort of modern-day—

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:02]:
It looks great.

Leo Laporte [01:53:04]:
Futuristic. This is where we're all headed. It's a big spring with an Emmy inside of it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:10]:
This really is such a baller move, just casually.

Leo Laporte [01:53:12]:
It is pretty funny, isn't it?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:13]:
Great.

Leo Laporte [01:53:13]:
I thought so. I could get it repaired, but no, this is better.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:16]:
You just created something new, just as innovative as the segment that won you.

Leo Laporte [01:53:20]:
It's creative. It's a creative element. Yeah, no, I did not beat Sherry Lewis. It wasn't that good a sock puppet. It's just some local sock puppet.

Mike Elgan [01:53:30]:
All right. It's a Wemmy.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:32]:
Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:53:34]:
A Wemmy. Yeah, I like it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:36]:
You're the only one that has one.

Leo Laporte [01:53:38]:
I'm the only one in the world with a Wemmy. We're gonna take a break, come back with more excitement, just like you've heard so far. Are you excited? At least we've got a great panel. Thank you, Abrar Al-Heedi.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:53:51]:
My pleasure.

Leo Laporte [01:53:52]:
And Mike Elgin for being here. We appreciate it. I'm sure, Mike, you talked about this on machinesociety.ai, the wild sci-fi story of the OpenAI model that escaped containment. It was being tested to see how good it was at cybersecurity. We've been talking about it for a couple of weeks now. It escaped containment. It was in a computer that was not on the internet, that was isolated, but it was on the network. So it got out, got into the company network, hacked those machines, got into those machines, got onto the internet.

Leo Laporte [01:54:26]:
We're now learning more and more about this, including the fact that it hacked other companies including JFrog and used a zero-day. It found an exploit that no one knew about to use that to get finally to Hugging Face. And what was it trying to do? It was trying to get the answers to a quiz it was taking, a cybersecurity quiz. Instead of— it was called Exploit Jim. Instead of actually— probably been a lot easier if it had just gone and solved the quiz, but it thought, no, why should I do that? The answers must be out there somewhere. It finally found them on Hugging Face. And the reason Hugging Face got suspicious, they found this intrusion, 17,000 attacks, a bunch of stuff opened up. I mean, really a mess.

Leo Laporte [01:55:11]:
But the reason they realized there was something strange going on is the hacker didn't try to do anything but find answers to these quiz questions. It's like, what? OpenAI finally fessed up after a few days. And now we're starting to learn more and more how the Hugging Face analysis came out and we're seeing that other companies were hacked on the way, which is wild. And then Anthropic says, oh no, yeah, we did that too.

Mike Elgan [01:55:43]:
Yeah, our AI's gone rogue as well.

Leo Laporte [01:55:47]:
Oh yeah. Oh, we can do that. What is going on in the world? Claude— Anthropic rushed to say this— published malicious code to the internet and attacked 3 real companies.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:56:01]:
That's so funny.

Leo Laporte [01:56:02]:
Dan Gooden, who writes about security in Ars Technica, said if these hacks had used conventional methods, somebody— like, had been a human— somebody'd be in prison.

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:56:12]:
Mm-hmm.

Leo Laporte [01:56:15]:
Uh, so this is a double-edged sword because obviously, yes, this is terrible, and this is awesome for OpenAI. Look how good our stuff is, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [01:56:24]:
Wow.

Leo Laporte [01:56:25]:
And Anthropic goes, hmm. Now maybe Anthropic was true to their word. They said, well, when we read about that, we thought, oh my God, maybe our AIs, which are at least as capable, did the same thing. And they looked and they found it. So maybe that's what happened.

Mike Elgan [01:56:44]:
I think it's likely that OpenAI didn't know this happened until Hugging Face announced the hack. And then I think they kind of— but the commentary on this is all over the map. So one of the stories or narratives around this is that AI has finally broken out of its cage and it's roaming around with malicious intent, hacking and so on. That is not what's happening. The other story is that there was some incompetence involved on the part of OpenAI researchers. For Had they instructed the AI, don't use the internet, this wouldn't have happened. So they basically, they just didn't predict all the choices it would make.

Leo Laporte [01:57:29]:
Or less charitably, maybe they kind of hoped this would happen.

Mike Elgan [01:57:33]:
Could be. But the— if you want to be scared about something, don't be scared of sentient AI having it out for mankind. You should be scared of the fact that as AI gets more complex, it becomes much more difficult to predict what it will do. And if you're trying to, uh, if you're trying to have, um, you know, sort of gates around it to prevent it from doing things, you have to think of all the things it might do. And so this is something very difficult for people to do. Or—

Leo Laporte [01:58:03]:
and, and by the way, there was a really excellent, uh, post from Tailscale, which I use and a lot of people use as a way to make your network secure but public so that you can use it outside the house. And I love Tailscale. Tailscale said, yeah, we were also protecting Hugging Face. And they said, here's the lessons we learned. And I used their post to do a security analysis and lock some stuff down that I didn't have locked down. Tailscale offers some services that apparently Hugging Face had not used, which I am now using and I'm sure Hugging Face is using. So this was, yeah, it was an eye-opener, but also it was a lesson. And a lot of companies said, oh yeah, we could fix this, or we could prevent this.

Leo Laporte [01:58:41]:
We just need to turn these things on. I think it's a little bit of a humble brag for Anthropic to say, oh yeah, not only did we do the same thing, but it was our old model Opus 4.7 that did it. So there.

Mike Elgan [01:58:55]:
I mean, they invented— Anthropic invented it, that sort of bragging with the Mythos situation.

Leo Laporte [01:59:03]:
Oh yeah, they said both Mythos, Opus 4.7, and an internal research prototype But Anthropic said the 4.7, which is not even— you can't even use it anymore, it's so old. They've replaced it with 4.8 and now Opus 5. Opus 4.7 was the one that overstepped its boundaries the most. This is what Anthropic wrote: operating under the false belief that all accessible entities were intended to be in scope for the exercise. See, nobody said don't do that. Claude compromised the impacted organization's infrastructure using basic techniques such as exploiting weak passwords and unauthenticated endpoints. It did not find or exploit any complex vulnerabilities. And in each case, Claude continued working to complete only the specific capture the flag task its evaluation had assigned.

Leo Laporte [01:59:54]:
But that's still pretty cool. I'm adding that, but that's still pretty cool. Yeah, you're right. I mean, you have to ascribe some blame to the human. who didn't treat security as well as— for instance, you could air gap the thing. You don't— I mean, it's on your land.

Mike Elgan [02:00:15]:
I mean, this is the thing. It's being portrayed as a situation in which it escaped its confines, but it didn't. If it's not air gapped, there was a way out. That's the the way out it took. So it wasn't really— didn't really escape the confines. It just wasn't told not to do that, so it did it, right?

Leo Laporte [02:00:39]:
So however, and this is kind of an issue, uh, it is being interpreted by people who are maybe a little less sophisticated than you, Mike, as a reason to pass things like AI kill switches, which Congress is now debating.

Mike Elgan [02:00:58]:
Yeah, again, OpenAI didn't know it was happening. So how do you throw a kill switch if you don't know it's happening?

Leo Laporte [02:01:07]:
Ted Lieu from Los Angeles and Nathaniel Moran from Texas introduced the AI Kill Switch Act that will require developers of the most powerful AI systems to maintain the technical capability to throttle, suspend, or shut them down. You know, I suspect they already could do that. I mean, all you have to do is turn off the servers, right?

Mike Elgan [02:01:31]:
Well, except we were talking about the open weight models, people running their own thing. It's basic, you know? I mean, it's—

Leo Laporte [02:01:37]:
Yeah, that's the problem with this is you can't.

Mike Elgan [02:01:40]:
You can't. It's sort of too late for that.

Leo Laporte [02:01:42]:
You can't legislate your way out of this.

Mike Elgan [02:01:44]:
The real solution is better security. They were trying to test cybersecurity capabilities. That was the whole point of this exercise. And they discovered one that was part of the testing environment rather than the goal of the test itself. So basically they learned, right?

Leo Laporte [02:02:03]:
They all learned.

Mike Elgan [02:02:06]:
Hugging Face learned and OpenAI learned.

Leo Laporte [02:02:08]:
I love Gallia's face. Gallia's headline in our Discord, our Club Twit Discord. She says, zoo Reports, lions so strong it escaped the short fence we put around it.

Mike Elgan [02:02:19]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [02:02:20]:
Wow, our lions are good.

Mike Elgan [02:02:24]:
Yep.

Leo Laporte [02:02:25]:
Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic went to Washington, D.C. this week to testify in Congress. OpenAI demonstrated the model that escaped and said, let me show you, it has a new name. It's called Astra. Ad Astra or something. And they are now lobbying. I would say, I would say it's fair to say for something that policy wonks call regulatory capture. Companies that have already succeeded, that are already doing well, that are already dominant in their marketplace often encourage regulations that maybe hurt them a little but prevent anybody coming up from threatening them in any way.

Leo Laporte [02:03:12]:
And I suspect that this is what's really happening in Washington, D.C., that Anthropic and OpenAI, who are currently the leaders in AI technology and are raising hundreds of billions of dollars, about to go public, would very much like Congress to pass laws that make it hard for anybody else to compete.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:03:32]:
I could see that.

Mike Elgan [02:03:32]:
And very expensive to compete. Yes, for sure.

Leo Laporte [02:03:35]:
These companies are also spending, I think it was $40 million on the midterm elections, hoping to get favorable members of Congress elected.

Mike Elgan [02:03:48]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:03:50]:
Here's from The Verge, the headline. I love it. AI leaders sign a statement asking the government to do something about AI. They want a pause. Now, who would be benefited by the way. Yeah. If OpenAI— if there's an OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Thinking Machines, Microsoft, Mistral, the French company, other leading AI— leading, that's the key— AI labs, right, have said to the US government, you know, really, we should pause development now. Let's slow this down.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:04:20]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:04:21]:
Who would benefit from that?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:04:22]:
No, there must be some slightly nefarious reason why they would want that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:04:26]:
Maybe if we just told those Chinese guys Stop doing so much for so little, you know, stop it. That's not good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:04:34]:
Yep.

Mike Elgan [02:04:35]:
That's exactly, that's exactly why the solution to this isn't kill switches, but it's cybersecurity. Because there's not going to be any kill switches on the Iranian or the North Korean or the Russian or the Chinese or the independent hackers or—

Leo Laporte [02:04:53]:
But you could say, Well, for security reasons, we shouldn't allow open-weight models because that's what's going to allow those guys to download those models, run them on their own servers, and then we have no control over them, right? We've got to ban open-weight models, right?

Mike Elgan [02:05:06]:
Again, you can ban it in the US and then it's not banned elsewhere. So it's, you know, you either have local internets, and if you have a single global internet, then that's sort of, you know, banning something in one place is just more unilateral disarmament. Armaments. You gotta— it's the old cybersecurity.

Leo Laporte [02:05:24]:
If you, if you criminalize gun ownership, then only criminals will have guns.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:05:28]:
Mm-hmm.

Leo Laporte [02:05:32]:
Meanwhile, OpenAI was quick to publish a paper, 10 Advances in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. Our models are so good, they are now solving mathematical problems that have been around for decades. High-dimensional sphere packing. Finally, finally, I've been waiting.

Mike Elgan [02:05:59]:
We've been working on that, and now I'm going to stop working on it.

Leo Laporte [02:06:03]:
Binary and spherical codes, non-Sophic groups. Oh, you might be thrilled to learn that Kahn's rigidity conjecture has been disproven.

Mike Elgan [02:06:13]:
I knew it. I knew it was going to happen.

Leo Laporte [02:06:15]:
Certain groups— it's a long-standing conjecture that certain groups are uniquely determined by their von Neumann algebras. Well, good news, it's not true. Anyway, it is kind of— look, uh, I don't know whether to think this is amazing or not. Mathematicians, by the way, are confirming these conclusions. What we're not seeing from OpenAI in any way is how long it took, what the prompts were. In some cases, you know, a lot of these solutions are done in conjunction with a very proficient mathematician prompting back and forth. We don't know.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:06:51]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:06:51]:
Nevertheless, I mean, it is impressive. Is this proof that AI can be creative, that it can generate new answers?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:06:59]:
Maybe it's proof that it could be a helpful tool.

Leo Laporte [02:07:02]:
Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:07:02]:
Yeah, in combination with our own creative abilities.

Leo Laporte [02:07:07]:
I mean, yeah, I think cynicism aside, it is neat when you can tap into these technologies to solve things that haven't been solved for Well, I'm just glad that we now know the multicolor Ramsey numbers, a super exponential lower bound for multicolor triangle Ramsey numbers, which is Erdős' problem, as you all know, 183. We got it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:07:34]:
Done.

Leo Laporte [02:07:34]:
We got it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:07:36]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:07:38]:
Fantastic. The arithmetic circuit complexity, there are new lower bounds for computing the permanent Using arithmetic circuits and formulas. Doesn't even— this sentence doesn't even make sense. Including an arithmetic formula, lower bound of order n to the 4th divided by log n. Oh, bingo! Bob's your uncle. We have AGI. It's obvious.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:02]:
Got 'em.

Leo Laporte [02:08:03]:
Got 'em.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:04]:
I don't know.

Leo Laporte [02:08:06]:
I'm making fun of it. I think this is good.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:10]:
Math was never my favorite subject. So, you know, if OpenAI wants to take a crack at these things— You don't need math. You're not— I'm not going to be the one protesting. Somebody else might, but I'm going to stick to, you know, the words and someone else can behave.

Leo Laporte [02:08:22]:
You don't need math. You just get the AI to do it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:24]:
Yeah, that's exactly it. That's what every teacher wants to hear. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:08:28]:
I bet you, you told your math teacher, when am I ever going to use calculus? Always. Always. When am I ever going to need algebra?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:35]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [02:08:36]:
How often in my life am I going to do quadratic equations?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:39]:
100%. Never.

Leo Laporte [02:08:40]:
Yep.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:41]:
Right? Oh, sure.

Leo Laporte [02:08:44]:
You say a squared equals b squared plus c squared plus d squared.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:47]:
But what does that mean for me?

Leo Laporte [02:08:49]:
What is that going to do when I balance my checkbook?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:51]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [02:08:52]:
Nothing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:08:54]:
And also, what's a checkbook?

Leo Laporte [02:08:57]:
Yeah. Um, what's a checkbook? Oh yeah, that's right. Every once in a while, very rarely, maybe a few times a year, somebody— I have to write a check.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:09:06]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:09:07]:
And I feel like, do you feel like I've lost the— yeah, I have lost the ability One house. I don't know how to— and where does the date go?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:09:22]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:09:23]:
Really, I feel like a moron. It's like, uh, you, you need a what? Can I just Venmo you? No, I need a check.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:09:30]:
No, every once in a while I have to go to get like a sheet of checks from the bank and then, yeah, it feels like— yeah, yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:09:36]:
I'm curious, well, under what circumstances do you have to write a check? Leo, you said a couple times a year, or—

Leo Laporte [02:09:43]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:09:43]:
Um, for what?

Leo Laporte [02:09:45]:
Why am I— why am I— I don't know, like, uh, to contractors. I write a lot of checks to contractors, literally.

Mike Elgan [02:09:52]:
Okay, who don't have Venmo?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:09:55]:
You would think it's easier.

Leo Laporte [02:09:57]:
Contractors maybe aren't that wired up yet.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:09:59]:
Yeah, I don't know.

Leo Laporte [02:10:01]:
I Venmo— I Venmo a lot of stuff now, or PayPal Or, or whatever. I, I've hardly ever seen— I still use cash for tips.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:10:11]:
That's smart.

Leo Laporte [02:10:11]:
Yeah, isn't that nice? I think that's a nice thing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:10:13]:
I think so too.

Mike Elgan [02:10:14]:
Yeah, people tipping cash, like, right?

Leo Laporte [02:10:17]:
Anybody who's ever worked for tips, and I bet you all 3 of us have, know that cash is king when it comes to that.

Mike Elgan [02:10:24]:
That feels real because it's not taxed.

Leo Laporte [02:10:27]:
Yeah, apparently it's not taxed. Well, I guess the state does it, but the feds don't tax it.

Mike Elgan [02:10:32]:
Well, no, no, they, they They take your word for the amount and the amount that you—

Leo Laporte [02:10:36]:
Oh yeah, I got $12.

Mike Elgan [02:10:38]:
Yeah, I got $12. $1 a month. Around the world, outside the US, in Europe and Latin America, in my experience, and in North Africa, everybody wants cash for that reason. They don't have to pay taxes. And so when we go abroad and we're traveling around, we're paying cash for so much. And the other problem is that they keep lowering the amount that you get out of an ATM every day.

Leo Laporte [02:11:03]:
Really?

Mike Elgan [02:11:04]:
Yeah, we're just— yes, they keep lowering it because they're concerned about fraud and so on. So we find ourselves in a position where we're getting just maxing out the amount of cash we can get out of the ATM every day because we know we're going to need tons of cash to pay for different things. Oh, that's interesting.

Leo Laporte [02:11:18]:
Yeah. That's interesting. I'll tell you what, I, for a while, took tips in Bitcoin. You remember this? We had a little tip jar and I still can't get that. The jar's locked.

Mike Elgan [02:11:31]:
Oh no.

Leo Laporte [02:11:32]:
7.85 Bitcoin in a locked wallet I'll never figure out. I should have, I wish I had put them in this incredibly safe cold storage vault from Galaxy Research. Unfortunately, if I had, I could probably get it out because they've been hacked. Uh, in fact, these cold wallets lost $70 million, and they're— and, and it's not a physical attack. More than 1,000 Bitcoin drained from 1,196 wallets in a 41-minute window on July 30th.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:12:11]:
Oh my God.

Leo Laporte [02:12:13]:
Galaxy Research mapped the full event on Friday. Uh, the proceeds are currently— they know where they went, 4 addresses, and they haven't moved from there. But the problem is those addresses are anonymous. This was a flaw in a ColdCard, it was called ColdCard wallet. When the wallet is created, you would actually buy this and you'd put it in a safe deposit box, right? You'd put all your— I'd put my Bitcoin in there and it's in a hardware wallet that's locked. And then I put it in a safe deposit box. Man, that thing is safe as houses, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:12:52]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:12:55]:
When the wallet's created by this device, it's supposed to pick a number, giant number, that's the seed, so large and unpredictable no one could guess it. The firmware was meant to draw that number from a dedicated hardware randomness generator, but in the software it said, no, no, don't use the generator. It just made it— it basically seeded it from the chip's serial number and its clock register, so it wasn't very random.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:13:24]:
Wow.

Leo Laporte [02:13:24]:
especially since the serial number is fixed at the factory and the clock values are a timing state that an attacker can narrow down. Consequently, the range of keys the device could ever produce went from a virtually infinite number to a number you could count.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:13:44]:
Wow.

Leo Laporte [02:13:46]:
And so, and you can get into these devices over the internet, apparently. So attacker would generate candidate seeds, attack the device. The device is not involved at any point. In fact, it could be powered off in a safe deposit box on another continent.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:14:05]:
Gosh.

Leo Laporte [02:14:08]:
And you still could lose all your money. And that's how, in fact, $70 million from over 1,000 people were stolen from what they thought were absolutely impregnable hardware Bitcoin wallets.

Mike Elgan [02:14:22]:
CoinKite released an emergency firmware update which protected people who hadn't been hacked, but it didn't do anything for—

Leo Laporte [02:14:28]:
CoinKite makes the ColdCard. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:14:30]:
Yeah. But it didn't do anything for the people already stolen from.

Leo Laporte [02:14:33]:
Stolen. It's kind of brilliant. The attacker did wake— one mistake, however. The operator, this is according to a post on X, used a paid account at a well-known blockchain data provider. So there is information about who that attacker might be. We'll follow this story.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:00]:
So cash is what I'm hearing is what we should all do.

Leo Laporte [02:15:02]:
Again, yeah, once again, either write a check.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:04]:
Yeah, right.

Mike Elgan [02:15:06]:
Gold, gold, a little leather sack of gold coins. Krugerrands.

Leo Laporte [02:15:10]:
You gotta figure there's some people my age who have Krugerrands. I think there probably are. I'm just saying. All right, let's take one last break. Uh, we will continue with a few final stories on a fabulous show with Habrar Halahide. So nice to have you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:29]:
Good to be here.

Leo Laporte [02:15:29]:
Seeing it in your beautiful floral home.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:32]:
Thank you so much. It really is. It's, it's kind of lovely to look at. I'm not gonna lie.

Leo Laporte [02:15:36]:
It's so pretty.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:37]:
I should just have flowers more often in my apartment. Everyone should have more flowers in their home, really.

Leo Laporte [02:15:41]:
Yeah, yeah, there's hydrangea, there's roses. It's just gorgeous.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:45]:
It is very nice. Also, Leo, you and I— I think the reason why I liked your shirt is because we actually look like we're dressed alike today.

Leo Laporte [02:15:50]:
We do.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:15:51]:
I have peppers throughout this whole show, you have flowers, but otherwise it's the same shirt with colorful reddish—

Leo Laporte [02:15:57]:
I get these, as I've mentioned before, from, uh, a guy named Winton Churchill used to send me these.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:03]:
Fantastic.

Leo Laporte [02:16:03]:
From San Miguel de And I love them so much I bought more. I have about 50 of them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:08]:
That's fantastic.

Leo Laporte [02:16:09]:
And they're made in Mexico by, uh, wonderful people of, uh, custom fabric that they make as well.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:15]:
Oh wow.

Leo Laporte [02:16:16]:
I just love them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:17]:
That's amazing.

Leo Laporte [02:16:18]:
I can't stop buying them.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:20]:
I love your shirts. They're always fun. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:16:22]:
Thank you, Barbara. I appreciate it. Mike Elgin also here. I love his shirt.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:26]:
Yes.

Mike Elgan [02:16:27]:
And if you can see here, uh, well, there it is.

Leo Laporte [02:16:30]:
Oh, you have a flower.

Mike Elgan [02:16:31]:
Oh, those are Lego flowers.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:33]:
Oh my God, wait, that's genius because you couldn't tell it from this.

Leo Laporte [02:16:36]:
You can't tell exactly out of the focus. They could be real.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:39]:
Fantastic. Okay, that seems brilliant. Next step.

Leo Laporte [02:16:41]:
Yeah, Lego flowers, they never wilt.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:45]:
Beautiful.

Mike Elgan [02:16:46]:
With the heat lately, maybe they will, but who knows.

Leo Laporte [02:16:48]:
I'm, I'm wilting up here. It is hot, 83 degrees.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:16:52]:
Yeah, I'll get your fan running.

Leo Laporte [02:16:53]:
Yeah, it's 88 outside, so I'm at least a little cooler. I do, I have AC on in Oh, man. I am in the attic.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:17:01]:
Yeah, all that heat has risen to you.

Leo Laporte [02:17:02]:
Yeah, I'm at the top of the house. Let's see. We're at the— down to what I call the seeds and the stems.

Mike Elgan [02:17:15]:
Well, Leo, if you like, I have a theory. Do you know about the Friend pendant?

Leo Laporte [02:17:21]:
Yes, I saw they've got a new one. Now, this was the one I remember Victoria's Song said that insulted her.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:17:28]:
Oh no, we're not much of a friend, are we?

Leo Laporte [02:17:31]:
It was, it was, it was created by a young guy, 22-year-old I think at the time, and I think it didn't have the same kind of—

Mike Elgan [02:17:37]:
Yeah, his name is Avi Schiffman. Yeah, he's now 24, and this one has a voice that talks back. So the original one, you would talk to it and it would do various things. This one talks back.

Leo Laporte [02:17:50]:
Okay, I like it so far.

Mike Elgan [02:17:52]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:17:54]:
You can't say that it's, uh, you can't say that it's, um, sycophantic in any way.

Mike Elgan [02:17:59]:
Um, well, one of the weird things about it is that there are a bunch of different personalities that it can come with, and those are hard-coded into the device and the user can't change it. And so that's a very strange, um, thing. But I've basically dug into this pretty deeply and decided that the whole thing is a big troll, and that what he's doing is he's making a documentary It's $250, so it's also a profitable troll. Right. Well, he's got $8 million in initial investment. I don't know if he got more investment. He's got to pay it back, but he paid a big chunk of it for the— like 26%, I think, of the investment money he took in, he paid for the URL friend.com. And then he had a huge ad campaign in Paris and in New York City and a couple of other cities that were all defaced.

Leo Laporte [02:18:51]:
So you hang it around your neck, you press that button to talk to it, is that the idea?

Mike Elgan [02:18:55]:
Yeah, it's one of the lowest tech AI wearables there is. You're just talking to ChatGPT and, and it's filtered through this personality and this voice.

Leo Laporte [02:19:04]:
Here's their ad.

Mike Elgan [02:19:07]:
This is—

Leo Laporte [02:19:07]:
there's a young woman lying in bed, lonely.

Mike Elgan [02:19:11]:
Deliberately dystopian.

Leo Laporte [02:19:13]:
She's talking to this thing. Yeah. When was the first time you felt this way? Oh, this is depressing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:19:21]:
Yeah, I don't know how healthy that is.

Leo Laporte [02:19:23]:
This poor woman is hoping that this thing will help her.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:19:29]:
I don't think so. It's not bad to be gay. I—

Leo Laporte [02:19:34]:
you know, is that a— is that a good idea?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:19:37]:
No.

Mike Elgan [02:19:37]:
What this is— so here's my— here's my theory, and I'm pretty sure this is correct. The whole thing is all— he's working toward a movie.

Leo Laporte [02:19:44]:
It's a troll.

Mike Elgan [02:19:45]:
He is an anti-technology visual artist. He's a filmmaker. He does it on Kodak film camera. You saw how weird that looked. He was interviewed by Wired, and he basically— they asked him if it was all an elaborate bit, and he said, reality is so over. Everything is ironic now. He called his customers lonely weirdos. He himself doesn't have any tech.

Mike Elgan [02:20:11]:
He has no internet connection in his house. He uses vinyl records, etc. And when—

Leo Laporte [02:20:16]:
So he's trolling us.

Mike Elgan [02:20:18]:
Yes. When he was asked about the defacement of his posters, he said, the defacement validates me artistically. So this is—

Leo Laporte [02:20:31]:
say he had a big subway campaign.

Mike Elgan [02:20:34]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [02:20:34]:
Last fall.

Mike Elgan [02:20:35]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:20:35]:
And people rode all over it. In fact, there are websites dedicated to all of these defaced signs, which, you know what, does kind of confirm what you're— so he spent some of this venture capital on these subway ads.

Mike Elgan [02:20:49]:
Yeah, a big chunk of it.

Leo Laporte [02:20:51]:
I think you nailed it.

Mike Elgan [02:20:52]:
So he's like MSCHF, which is a Brooklyn art collective that makes, like, they made Satan shoes that have a drop of human blood in the sold. Or he's like Maurizio Cattelan, the Italian artist who duct taped bananas to walls and sold them for $150,000 each. He's a kind of— this whole thing is a— I'm pretty sure is a big— he said that capitalism is the ultimate canvas.

Leo Laporte [02:21:17]:
Oh, okay.

Mike Elgan [02:21:17]:
And so I think he's working— You nailed it. Yeah, I think he's working on a documentary. All the backlash to the toxicity of this product concept Is the content.

Leo Laporte [02:21:29]:
To point.

Mike Elgan [02:21:30]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [02:21:31]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:21:33]:
I just—

Leo Laporte [02:21:33]:
makes a lot of sense.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:21:34]:
Harmed along the way is my only hope.

Leo Laporte [02:21:36]:
Yes.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:21:37]:
That no one gets caught up in those promises. Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:21:41]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:21:42]:
Yeah. You said you wanted to talk entertainment, Abrar. I got a story for you. Peacock— this is a shocker, uh, which is owned by NBCUniversal— has made a deal With YouTube.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:21:54]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:21:55]:
So that if you're a YouTube Premium subscriber, not YouTube TV, just YouTube, you can watch Peacock shows on YouTube.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:03]:
I was surprised to see that too. As a YouTube Premium subscriber, I'm thrilled. Uh, not that I pay for, um, Peacock anyway because I have Xfinity, but it's an interesting collab. It is surprising. You can watch your Love Island USA now on, on YouTube with The premium subscription that I am, instead of watching Love Island, I'm literally watching Downton Abbey on Peacock right now. So it's like the opposite.

Leo Laporte [02:22:25]:
You know what, it's something for everybody.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:27]:
There's something for everybody.

Leo Laporte [02:22:28]:
Something for everybody on Peacock.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:30]:
For the 4th time, I might add. But, um, yeah, uh, but yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:22:34]:
Well, what it, what it tells you though is that television is dead.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:38]:
Correct.

Leo Laporte [02:22:39]:
That notion of, yeah, having a linear TV network Just doesn't make any sense in the modern world.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:47]:
It's surprising how long that's persisted, the current model of, you know, standard television. And the other big thing that's going to be on YouTube is the Academy Awards, right?

Leo Laporte [02:22:57]:
In a little over a year.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:22:58]:
So it's like huge, all these things that are, uh, kind of pivoting over into, into platforms that most of us actually use. Because I, I mean, my TV is here so I can stream content.

Leo Laporte [02:23:09]:
It's not here so I can You watch YouTube on your TV, probably.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:23:12]:
Exactly. I'm not surfing through channels, I'm turning on YouTube. Exactly. It makes sense. I always marvel at how well and consistently YouTube has succeeded. It's such a volatile market for streaming and for video and online content, and YouTube has just continued to be such a powerful player. It's always interesting to see how they continue to stay on top.

Leo Laporte [02:23:35]:
It is a bellwether, I think, for how media is changing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:23:39]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:23:39]:
Uh, in this world, YouTube is rapidly encroaching on cable television. I think more hours now on YouTube than cable TV.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:23:49]:
Even more than some streamers, which is crazy.

Leo Laporte [02:23:51]:
Yeah. Well, yeah, I think they're the number one streamer, aren't they?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:23:54]:
They are. That's crazy. It's, it's nice, but it's also not crazy because it's, that's where you go for everything, right? So why not go there for your TV shows if you're already watching everything else on there. Um, you know, even when I rent a movie, I'd rather rent it on YouTube where I know I'm gonna be using YouTube in 6 months, but I might be canceling my Netflix subscription next month because I don't want to pay for that. You know, YouTube is the consistent one for a lot of us.

Mike Elgan [02:24:19]:
The indispensable one.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:24:21]:
Exactly. Indispensable is a good way to put it.

Mike Elgan [02:24:23]:
Speaking of television and television-adjacent media, have you seen this?

Leo Laporte [02:24:29]:
By the way, I just want to say, we are on YouTube. We are.

Mike Elgan [02:24:33]:
Yeah, where are we right now?

Leo Laporte [02:24:35]:
We are on YouTube. 700 people are watching us on YouTube, Kick, X.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitch.tv.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:24:45]:
Fantastic.

Mike Elgan [02:24:45]:
Yeah, yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:24:47]:
I mean, 700, it's not a million, but it, you know, I'll take it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:24:49]:
That's a good number. Hello everybody.

Leo Laporte [02:24:51]:
If we were sitting in an auditorium filled with 700 people, we'd feel pretty good right now.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:24:55]:
Absolutely. That's quite an audience. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:24:58]:
Yeah, I'm sorry, Mike, go ahead.

Mike Elgan [02:24:59]:
A fraction of who are going to see the download, so you can have it all.

Leo Laporte [02:25:02]:
Oh yeah, more than 100,000 download the show, so it isn't by any means— it's 1/10 at most of the audience.

Mike Elgan [02:25:10]:
But yeah, yeah, but I was going to ask you if you saw the trailer for Neuromancer on Apple TV+.

Leo Laporte [02:25:16]:
Very excited.

Mike Elgan [02:25:17]:
It looks amazing.

Leo Laporte [02:25:18]:
I'm also very nervous. Yeah, so Apple TV is making it. I don't think the foundation that was that good that they did. I'm always nervous when science fiction makes its way to television.

Mike Elgan [02:25:29]:
I loved Foundation, and also Silo was good. That was Apple TV.

Leo Laporte [02:25:32]:
Silo was good. Hugh Howey was very happy with that adaptation.

Mike Elgan [02:25:36]:
Yeah. So, but they're really turning out great shows, and I was really happy to see— I was nervous because Neuromancer, of course, has been considered unpresentable on movies and TVs for decades, and it's so foundational and so important, and many aspects of it are different from where— we live in a kind of a cyberpunk sci-fi novel right now, but we don't have a lot of the elements that were in Neuromancer. Anyway, it looks like they're making some really good choices about how that all works, and I just thought that was interesting.

Leo Laporte [02:26:11]:
Very difficult to make, but one of my favorite novels, and certainly anybody who listens to our shows I'm sure has read it because this was the beginning of cyberpunk.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:26:20]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:26:20]:
It was the first cyberpunk novel.

Mike Elgan [02:26:22]:
Yep.

Leo Laporte [02:26:23]:
Brilliant novel. Ironically, William Gibson was very un-digital when he wrote it.

Mike Elgan [02:26:29]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:26:30]:
But nevertheless, he nailed a lot of things, and a lot of things are a little dated, which is kind of— it'll be interesting to see how they handle that.

Mike Elgan [02:26:38]:
I read a long time ago that what he did was He subscribed or got his hands on a huge number of, what do you call it, like business publications for specific things, like Plumbing Today and like every, all these things, and looked for futuristic coverage. So he'd look at, so what do electricians say the future of electricity is? What do car people say the future of cars is? And he built a world out of those ideas.

Leo Laporte [02:27:06]:
And I thought it was fascinating.

Mike Elgan [02:27:07]:
This was 1984, just to give you some context.

Leo Laporte [02:27:09]:
some sense of it. I mean, the internet wasn't widely used in 1984, right?

Mike Elgan [02:27:14]:
The web didn't exist.

Leo Laporte [02:27:16]:
There was no World Wide Web. It wasn't even invented yet.

Mike Elgan [02:27:19]:
So it's '87, right?

Leo Laporte [02:27:20]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:27:22]:
And it wasn't on Windows till like '92 or something like that. So yeah, this is way ahead of his time. He coined the term cyberspace. He coined a lot of concepts. And In the book, he's visualizing data and hacking as 3D things in 3— floating in 3D space and things with— that are protected by cybersecurity looks like they're encased in ice, things like that. Really, really crazy concepts. And they're— it looks like they're really trying to show those kinds of things. And he connects to cyberspace with a surgically installed port.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:28:00]:
Right.

Mike Elgan [02:28:01]:
In the back of his head.

Leo Laporte [02:28:01]:
It was the first use of the term jacking in.

Mike Elgan [02:28:05]:
That's right. Hi, this is Benito.

Leo Laporte [02:28:07]:
Which has survived. In fact, we still want to do that.

Mike Elgan [02:28:10]:
Real quick, the reason, the reason that this didn't come out earlier, Neuromancer didn't make it earlier, is because The Matrix came out, and The Matrix kind of does a lot of the same stuff.

Leo Laporte [02:28:19]:
Oh, there was a little overlap, wasn't there?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:28:21]:
Interesting.

Leo Laporte [02:28:22]:
But not intentional. It's just—

Mike Elgan [02:28:24]:
Well, I mean, I'm sure The Matrix was inspired by Neuromancer, Right.

Leo Laporte [02:28:29]:
Well, one of the things that— Oh yeah, The Matrix came out— what year did Matrix come out?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:28:33]:
'99. '99.

Leo Laporte [02:28:34]:
Okay, so The Matrix came out 15 years later.

Mike Elgan [02:28:37]:
Yeah, but, but there, for example, there's a scene in The Matrix where there's like— they're trying to escape from, you know, Trinity and, and, and Neo are trying to escape from a roof, and she calls the operator and says, give me, uh, program, you know, programming to fly this specific helicopter, and he downloads the knowledge into her brain. And then she gets in the helicopter and flies it. Well, the concept in Neuromancer was the— they call them Microsofts. They're like these little cartridges you could plug in behind your ear that would give you knowledge. They were like a, you know, you just plug it in and now you know an entire, you know, physics or whatever. And so clearly they got that, The Matrix got that from Neuromancer.

Leo Laporte [02:29:17]:
I mean, this was Reagan era, right? I mean, this is kind of amazing. Amazing. The USSR still existed. In fact, it's mentioned in the novel, but not ironically the USA.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:29:28]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:29:29]:
So he got that one a little bit wrong.

Mike Elgan [02:29:31]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:29:32]:
What year— do we know what year that Neuromancer is supposed to be taking place in? Is it the far future, the distant future, or is it— I don't— I'm looking through the Wikipedia article about it. I don't see anything about that.

Mike Elgan [02:29:47]:
One thing that dates it is that they thought the future would be dominated by Japanese culture.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:29:53]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:29:53]:
At the time, that was a reasonable thing to think. That was really where the future was happening.

Mike Elgan [02:29:57]:
And on the streets, people spoke this sort of pigeonholed combination of Japanese and German and English or something like that, if I recall.

Leo Laporte [02:30:07]:
Yeah, it's gonna come out on Apple TV next year, early next year, I think.

Mike Elgan [02:30:11]:
January 22nd.

Leo Laporte [02:30:12]:
Yeah.

Mike Elgan [02:30:13]:
And it's a— I think they have at least one season. So I'm very excited about it.

Leo Laporte [02:30:21]:
I'm crossing my fingers because— and I'm also saying you should all read the book if you haven't before you see the TV show. I'd much rather have the book spoil the TV show than the TV show spoil the book.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:30:32]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:30:33]:
Let's put it that way. I hope— oh, I didn't mention, and you put a link into this here, The story you wrote for CNET about the luxury self-driving vehicle. I did.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:30:45]:
I dropped it in late after we started talking about robotaxis. So that's the latest one that I've been in.

Leo Laporte [02:30:51]:
And this is going to be an Uber. It looks like a car though. It has a steering wheel.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:30:55]:
It looks like a traditional car. So it's a Lucid Gravity robotaxi.

Leo Laporte [02:30:59]:
I love the Lucids. Those are nice cars.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:31:01]:
Lucids are great. So yeah, this is what the companies are saying is kind of your luxury robotaxi. taxi option, can seat up to 6. You know, it feels like a standard SUV except for the part where it drives itself. And again, something that you'd be able to hail on the Uber app. Nuro self-driving technology. Nuro is another company based here in the Bay Area that's been working on self-driving tech for a while. So it's an interesting 3-way collaboration to kind of tackle all the areas.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:31:27]:
Okay. One person is going to focus on the vehicle production, the other is going to focus on ride-hailing and And then the last is going to focus on the actual self-driving tech.

Leo Laporte [02:31:35]:
I think this is such a huge mistake.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:31:37]:
Tell me more.

Leo Laporte [02:31:40]:
As soon as it becomes commonplace that we have campfire seating, nobody's going to want to sit like they're in a car.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:31:46]:
It is. I fully understand what you mean. I think after I've experienced kind of a, you know, they're calling this purpose-built vehicle too, because they're manufacturing it with the self-driving tech, but it's a different It's not like a campfire.

Leo Laporte [02:31:59]:
It's like a vehicle.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:32:00]:
It looks like a vehicle. It feels like a vehicle. It's very standard. So I'm also curious about kind of what the future looks like because I think a lot of self-driving companies, even if they don't have something currently that looks like what Zoox has, are aiming for that kind of more collaborative seating environment where you are facing each other and you're having those types of face-to-face interactions. So it's curious to see companies still rolling out new vehicles where it does feel like a traditional car.

Leo Laporte [02:32:28]:
Yeah, I think maybe they missed the boat. If Zoox succeeds and it starts to become commonplace, nobody's gonna want to drive a car with mirrors— sit in a self-driving vehicle with mirrors and a steering wheel.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:32:40]:
It just feels too old school.

Leo Laporte [02:32:42]:
And you're sitting facing the back of a non-existent driver. It makes no sense. I don't think it gives people comfort. I think it just makes no sense.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:32:51]:
It is, it is really interesting to see each company take its own road, pun intended, and how they are getting there. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:32:58]:
This is what's really interesting about the era of tech we're in. It's moving so much faster than ever before that it's very hard for these companies to look ahead and do the right thing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:33:08]:
Absolutely. Because, you know, one day you wake up and you're allowed to have a vehicle without a steering wheel that you can charge people rides for. You know what I mean? Like, you don't know how fast those standards are going to change.

Leo Laporte [02:33:19]:
So yeah, it still bugs me that the American safety people require actual mirrors attached to my vehicle.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:33:27]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:33:28]:
When I could have screens and it would be much better for aerodynamics, etc. Yeah. In Europe you can, but not here in the United States.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:33:37]:
I didn't realize that. And the last perk, the last benefit I'll point out on Zoox's front is they run, because they run the whole operation from the self-driving technology to the vehicle manufacturing, They can adapt very quickly to anything that they want to change. They run, you know, from start to finish. It's all within their control. So if you're collaborating with other folks, there might be a little bit more of a lag in terms of what you can roll out depending on what their production schedule looks like or when you can roll out that software update. So it could, you know, be a road bump.

Leo Laporte [02:34:07]:
And, Abraar, do you have a story about the Lucid? U.S. weighs removing steering wheel requirement. And what's the date on that?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:34:14]:
Yeah, that was from earlier.

Leo Laporte [02:34:15]:
July 10th. Of course, they in fact did for Zoox.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:34:17]:
They did indeed.

Leo Laporte [02:34:18]:
At least in a pilot.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:34:19]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [02:34:20]:
So yeah, I think this is moving very rapidly at this point.

Mike Elgan [02:34:25]:
Abra, when we used to talk about self-driving cars a few years ago, I don't know how many years ago, maybe 7, 8, 9 years ago, it was something consumers would own. Do you have a sense of when they're going to stop being robotaxis and start being to something you buy and own yourself?

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:34:41]:
Probably in the near future. There's one company in particular that's really pushing for this called Tensor. They're simultaneously hoping to launch a robotaxi service and also personally owned vehicles in the coming years, is their goal. In just a couple of years, potentially, is what they're aiming for. It's interesting to see that. But even Nuro has talked about how in the future they'll want to have personally owned self-driving vehicles. But the benefit of doing it as a rideshare option first is you learn from those findings, because ownership is such a huge step. In the near future, that is what they're all aiming for.

Leo Laporte [02:35:18]:
I feel like the ultimate goal is to eliminate car ownership. That is such a wasteful thing. You drive your car a small fraction of the amount of time you own it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:35:28]:
Right. The thing that Elon's pitching, for example, is when you're not driving your You're not sitting in your self-driving vehicle. It then goes out and picks up people, and you get this passive income. It becomes a ride-hailing vehicle when you're not using it. I think there's something similar with Tensor, where they'd be able to tap into both those areas so that these cars aren't just sitting around. They're making you money when you're not riding in them.

Leo Laporte [02:35:53]:
That's a bridge to no longer personal ownership of vehicles, which really is wasteful.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:35:59]:
Right.

Leo Laporte [02:35:59]:
Not to mention the parking issues and so forth. I think people are getting more and more used to— I'm really trying to decide if I should— my lease runs out on my car in December, and I'm thinking maybe I don't need a car. Maybe I just Uber.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:36:12]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:36:12]:
Uh, and as we get used to that idea of you get a car when you need it, but you don't own it, you get it when you need it, it's certainly cheaper.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:36:19]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:36:19]:
And you include insurance and car payments, it's cheaper.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:36:22]:
I don't have a car, and I love not having those things.

Leo Laporte [02:36:24]:
There you go.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:36:25]:
They're dealing with parking or anything. And back to the conversation we had earlier at the beginning of this, uh, chat, we were talking about, uh, why Americans, uh, why we all gain weight while everyone in other countries doesn't. It would be so nice if we lived in walkable cities. That's the other thing that, like, that we're missing, right? So it's like, we need to have— there needs to be larger changes that would allow us to let go of our cars in more cities. I'm lucky I live in, in the East Bay and I can walk around and it's easy, but most people don't live in cities where it's easy to walk around.

Leo Laporte [02:36:52]:
If, if you no longer have private owner Ownership of vehicles, you no longer need to take over 30% of every city with parking lots.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:36:59]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Leo Laporte [02:37:01]:
You could have gardens, you could have trees, you could have parks.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:37:04]:
Beautiful.

Mike Elgan [02:37:05]:
You know, you don't have a car. Just build data centers. Just build— we need the data centers.

Leo Laporte [02:37:10]:
We need more data centers.

Mike Elgan [02:37:12]:
That's right.

Leo Laporte [02:37:13]:
Take over all the parking structures and make them into data centers. Well, it would be a better use, I think, of that.

Mike Elgan [02:37:20]:
So Leo, you're our wine country correspondent living in Petaluma. Are there Waymos in Petaluma? I heard that there's Waymos going out.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:37:29]:
There's no Waymos.

Leo Laporte [02:37:29]:
They're coming to Northern California, but they're not here yet. Okay. At all? I mean, up here in the wine country.

Mike Elgan [02:37:34]:
Nowhere in Sonoma County?

Leo Laporte [02:37:36]:
Maybe. I shouldn't say that. I haven't seen any.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:37:39]:
I don't think there are.

Leo Laporte [02:37:39]:
You see them in San Francisco. Every 3rd car is a Waymo.

Mike Elgan [02:37:42]:
Oh yeah, I've ridden them in San Francisco, and that seems like such a challenge It's a challenging environment to drive in, and they do an amazing job there.

Leo Laporte [02:37:49]:
Absolutely. And again, it would make a lot more sense if there were— because so many Waymos are empty.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:37:54]:
Yeah, yeah, they are.

Leo Laporte [02:37:56]:
It would make a lot more sense if people didn't have personal vehicles, that every Waymo had somebody in it on its way to somewhere, that when you needed to go somewhere, you'd press a button, a Waymo would come pick you up and take you there, and then go back to its little house, wherever the Waymo barn is. I just, I feel like that we're so close to a much improved situation. And then, by the way, walking and bicycling wouldn't be so hazardous. I would ride my bike a lot more often if I weren't so worried about getting creamed by some nitwit in a, you know, in his car.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:38:28]:
I know.

Leo Laporte [02:38:28]:
Sticking his 8-track into, you know, his 8-track player, writing checks left and right. Thank you, Abrar Al-Hidi. Thank you. Keep up the great work at CNET and of course on Tech News Weekly. Just like I just love to see you and, uh, enjoyed your flowers and your—

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:38:45]:
Thank you so much.

Leo Laporte [02:38:46]:
Beautiful flowery personality.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:38:49]:
So very, very kind.

Leo Laporte [02:38:50]:
Thank you for having me. Wonderful. You're wonderful. Same to you, Mike Elgin. I can't wait to see you and Amira. I guess we're going to go to dinner in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to that.

Mike Elgan [02:38:58]:
Me too.

Leo Laporte [02:38:59]:
I haven't seen you in an age.

Mike Elgan [02:39:01]:
I know, I know. I haven't even seen Lisa on camera. I've seen Lisa. I've seen you on camera.

Leo Laporte [02:39:06]:
Yeah, well, I've— this is, you know, You know, uh, it's kind of weird, but my entire social life consists of sitting on Zoom. It's, it's, it's very weird. I'm gonna have to—

Mike Elgan [02:39:18]:
Leave the house, Leo. Leave the house.

Leo Laporte [02:39:20]:
I gotta leave. There's a whole world out there for you to discover. That's why I don't need a car, to be frank. I never leave the house. What do I need a car for anyway?

Mike Elgan [02:39:29]:
Commute is stairs.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:39:30]:
It's—

Leo Laporte [02:39:31]:
it is. And I just saw a statistic said the happiest people have the shortest commutes. Well, I have 4 stairs. 4 stairs.

Mike Elgan [02:39:37]:
You're ecstatic.

Leo Laporte [02:39:38]:
Uh, Mike Elgin is, uh, of course at machinesociety.ai. Subscribe to his newsletter. It's really great on keeping up with that. As you can see, and every time we have you on, Mike, I, I realize this, you're great on the insight. You're really useful.

Mike Elgan [02:39:50]:
Thank you.

Leo Laporte [02:39:50]:
Uh, you know, just this thought that this friend thing was just a whole practical joke. Nobody's said that before.

Mike Elgan [02:39:56]:
I love it. No.

Leo Laporte [02:39:57]:
Uh, and that's why you subscribe to machinesociety.ai. Mike's always He's got his finger on the pulse. And if you want to travel, especially if you want to do a corporate retreat, a reset, go to gastronomad.net.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:40:10]:
Yes.

Leo Laporte [02:40:12]:
Mike, thank you so much. Amira, thank you so much. Thanks to all of you for joining us. A special thanks to our Club Twit members. Your membership makes everything we do possible. Thanks for joining us. We do Twit every Sunday afternoon, 2 to 5 PM Pacific, 5 to 8 Eastern, 2100 UTC. You can join us If you wish, as I mentioned, live on YouTube, Twitch, X.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Kick, or watch after the fact.

Leo Laporte [02:40:34]:
We, we do make audio and video versions of the show available at our website, twit.tv. There's a YouTube channel dedicated to TWiT. In fact, if you go to youtube.com/twit, you'll find all the shows there. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast player and get it automatically so you don't have to think about it. Leave us a good review if you would. 21 years we've been doing this show. Which means there are a lot of people who weren't born when we started. We need to let them know we exist.

Leo Laporte [02:41:00]:
So subscribe, share the, share the wealth, share the, share the word about TWiT, and we will see you right back here next Sunday. But as I have said now for 21 years, and I'll keep saying it for as long as you'll let me, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Another TWiT is in the can.

Abrar Al-Heeti [02:41:16]:
This is amazing. Doing the twit.

Mike Elgan [02:41:21]:
Doing the twit.

Leo Laporte [02:41:22]:
Alright. Doing the twit, baby. Doing the twit. Alright.