Tech News: Apple Says AR Will Make You a Better Conversationalist

Let's get at it. In the ongoing story about Amazon and the company's efforts to fight against unionization, the US National Labor Relations Board ruled against Amazon in a recent claim, stating that the company illegally fired two employees who had advocated for workers rights and to call the company to

account for its environmental impact. Marin Costa and Emily Cunningham had both criticized their employer publicly before the company fired both women, a move that the Labor Board identified as retaliatory. Amazon representative J. C. Anderson said that the reason the company handed the employees their walking papers wasn't to punish them for criticizing Amazon, but rather for a quote, repeatedly

violating internal policies end quote. However, since at least one of those policies seems to be about speaking publicly about the business, according to The New York Times, this seems like circular logic to me almost like a catch twenty two. Sure you can criticize Amazon, it seems to say, but if you speak publicly about the business, you've violated an internal policy. Criticizing is not against the rules. It's then

that speaking about the business that is. But that internal policy sounds like it is partly designed to protect the company from employees criticizing it publicly, at least in any detail. Anyway, I admit as always that I am biased when it comes to this sort of stuff, as I am pro union and in favor of protections that benefit the employee over those that cater to the corporation. A couple of weeks ago we saw reports about LG getting out of

the phone business. Now it's official. The company is shutting down its smartphone division worldwide. It will continue to sell off the inventory that it does have, so all those phones made for this year will have to go. And it sounds like we are never going to see production models of phones like the rollable that was the c e s reveal of a smartphone that had a flexible

oh lad screen, and the rollable could change size. It could extend the width of the phone and go from a sort of smartphone form factor to fablet sized or tablet if you prefer, I definitely prefer The screen could actually expand by unrolling from underneath the display you're looking at, as these different sides would extend. It was a nifty design,

but I'm not sure that it was terribly practical. Moving parts always represent a potential failure point, and for phones which occasionally suffer bumps and falls, I think it would have been a bit risky. Plus, if you wanted to use the shape changing feature, you presumably wouldn't be able to put your phone in a case because the case wouldn't be able to change shape. But it was still

a very neat innovation in the phone space. And now we're not really going to see it, but if you are in the market for an LG phone, you should keep your eyes peeled because we could see some pretty aggressive sales in the very near future as they try to get rid of that inventory. The Mars Perseverance rover has dropped off the Ingenuity copter on the surface of the Red planet. You might remember that Ingenuity piggybacked or I guess really piggy bellied on the Perseverance and it

represents a high risk, high reward experiment. Mars is a tough neighborhood. The atmosphere is thin, which means the rotors on the Ingenuity will have to rotate at a rate much higher than would be necessary here on Earth in order to generate sufficient lift to get the copter off the surface. It will also need to continue to charge

its batteries. The Perseverance had been providing juice to Ingenuity since the Perseverance first touchdown, but now Ingenuity is gonna have to use its own solar panels to do the same. That electricity isn't just going to power the rotors motor, which is a fun thing to say, rotors motor. We go ahead, try it anyway. The electricity will also go to powering Ingenuitys onboard heater as the temperature on Mars plummets at night, it dips down to negative nineties celsius

or negative one thirty fahrenheit, whichever is greater. I kid, they're the same thing. The heater ensures that Ingenuity's mechanical parts don't freeze tight, which, as I understand it would be somewhat you know, impede flight soon, but no sooner than in April eleven, the Ingenuity will attempt its first flight.

This is really a proof of concept experiment with no guarantee of success, but if that first flight does succeed, NASA hopes to do a few more, as many as four more before ingenuityes batteries are drained to the point that it will just need to settle down on Mars make a life for itself however it can, or rather it'll sit on Mars and rest in a job well done and collect dust for the rest of Eternity. Will follow up on this once we hear about the first

attempts and how they panned out. Sticking with space, a farmer in the United States and fact in the state of Washington got a surprise last week when a piece of a rocket ship landed on their farm. Last Thursday, the second stage from a SpaceX Falcon nine entered into an uncontrolled descent into the Earth's atmosphere after an otherwise

successful launch. The Falcon nine is a two stage launch vehicle, and the first stage, the lower stage, is the one that is supposed to return to Earth in a controlled landing procedure, so that the stage can then be refurbished and reused, which cuts way down on launch costs, But the upper stage, the second stage, isn't so lucky. Typically

it has one of two fates. It's either pushed into an orbit where it's going to stick around in orbit for a while before eventually falling to Earth, or more frequently, it is pushed so it de orbits in a controlled manner and breaks up over the ocean. But this time the second stage lacked enough fuel to do the ocean thing, so instead it fell a bit short and broke up over the Pacific Northwest. In the US. It was quite the display, and people all in the northwestern part of

North America reported seeing multiple shooting stars. These were pieces of the second stage glowing as they fell back to Earth, and one such piece made it intact all the way down to the ground on this farm in Washington. While we knew about the re entry from last week, this bit about the piece making it down to the surface of Earth is new now. Apparently it's part of a pressurized tank which is no longer pressurized. I guess I should add it landed in Grant County, Washington, and that

is as specific as we can get about it. Because the Sheriff's office wisely decided to leave out more details in order to spare the farmer from locky lose. Google has made a big change to its policy regarding Android apps, but it might surprise some folks like like me to learn about the implications of it. So there's a command called query all packages, and this allows an app that's installed on an Android device to get a list of all the other apps that are installed on that device.

And that seems like that could be a little excessive at least in some cases, right I mean, for example, if you have an app that gives you a weather report, should that weather report app also see which games you have on your phone? Or if your apps related to stuff like banking or your personal health or a real estate app or whatever are also on that phone? Because that that seems like that that's probably not necessary, right Well, Google, after more than a decade, seems to have reached the

same conclusion. Now for devices running on Android eleven or later, and all apps coming out from this point forward half to target Android eleven or later. These apps can't just have blanket access to the query all packages command. Developers will have to defend why their app would need that level of access, and in some cases you can make

an argument for it. For example, I have a password vault app on my phone, and if I want that app to work alongside other apps so that when I open up some other app that requires a pass I can use this little option to just fill it out automatically, like say a banking app. Well, then the password vault is going to need to know what other apps are running on my device so that that interoperability will work. But I probably don't need a food delivery service app

and a podcatching app to know about each other. That's probably not necessary. So this change means that developers will no longer know quite as much about the apps that their users have on their phones, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for the users. It cuts down opportunities for developers to target people directly without their permission, or sell information about them, and so forth. I think it's a long overdue move on Google's part, and I am glad

that it's finally happening. I'm just surprised it took this long to happen. Kara Swisher conducted an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook for The New York Times recently, and in that interview, Cook talked a bit about how Apple used the proces spect of augmented reality. He said that a R could enhance conversations and give people the chance

to integrate other stuff into live conversation. For example, maybe you're arguing with that friend of yours who just refuses to admit that they are totally full of crap, and you could pull up charts and graphs to back up your point showing that they are in fact full of crap. It sounds like a lot of fun to me that conversations will be way better in the future. I also don't anticipate a ARE applications being a threat to security or privacy at all. I'm sure they're perfectly safe. Now.

I've been on the record as being pro a R, but it's within specific contexts. I actually get a bit squeamish when we talk about a R as a component in person to person interactions. Sure, it could be helpful if while chatting with a friend, I get a little digital reminder in my view that says that this friend's birthday is coming up, or maybe they've got a dietary sensitivity, and since we're talking about restaurants, it's just reminding me of that, so I don't end up making, you know,

suggestions that wouldn't apply or whatever. But you could see where that stuff could actually really go wrong very quickly. Granted, this is not the use case that Cook was making to care Swisher, and you can make a very valid argument that I am creating a sort of straw man argument. I just see it as a potential slippery slope. And let's face it, having a conversation with me is already boring enough without me bringing charts and a bibliography into it.

I just think of all those online message boards that are full of people demanding that other folks cite their sources and stuff like that, and how that could become a part of conversations moving forward, and that all of that just makes me want to go back to bed.

A blind woman will receive one point one million dollars in damages after having Uber driver's ditcher and her service dog on fourteen different occasions, leaving her stranded and preventing her from getting to important events and destinations, including just

getting to her office to do work. In sixteen, Uber reached a two point six million dollar settlement for a similar legal case, but some of the incidents that this particular woman, Lisa Irving experienced happened after that settlement was reached, which showed that Uber hadn't actually addressed the underlying problem. It represents discrimination against Irving because of her blindness, which is against the law. Irving will receive around three twenty

four thousand dollars. The rest of that one point one million is going to cover legal fees. This illustrates why the system in America is kind of screwy, because big companies can afford to go through this sort of thing. It takes a lot for a private citizen to take on a big company a lawsuit. Uber has since created a support form that customers can fill out should they

experience similar issues in the future. Doesn't prevent it from happening, but it gives customers a chance to specifically address UH an instance of the problem. And the very first question asks if a writer was denied a ride because of a service animal. So not truly a solution, but at least a move to try and address the issue. And finally, The Independent reports that researchers at Brown University have created

a brain computer interface with wireless connectivity. And what's more, they say that this interface provides quote single neuron resolution and full broadband fidelity end quote. Brain computer interfaces are fascinating devices now. As the name indicates, this is a technology that allows a person to interact with a computer system through thought alone. It's like having telepathy that works

with computers. And typically this procedure includes intercranial surgery and doctors have to implant electrodes into the brain of the recipient, which is an incredibly invasive procedure obviously, and it has its own set of risks, including potential infection, which is a huge risk factor. So this process is required in order to get very precise readings on brain activity, because our skulls make it a bit tricky to detect brain waves with accuracy unless we're actively in an f M

R I machine or something like that. In addition, we usually see these technologies in the form of wired connections between the interface that's attached to a patient and the related computer system they communicate with, and that creates more limitations. So this new approach removes the need for those physical wires. There could be wireless communication between patient and computer, which the researchers say opens up new possibilities and use cases.

Getting a system like this to work requires a lot of adjustments because you're training a patient on how to use the technology, but you're simultaneously training the technology to learn how the patient thinks. The interface software has to learn how to interpret brain waves and map those brain

waves to specific outcomes. It's a fascinating area of research and development, and the researchers hope that by removing these tethers they will be able to create more scenarios in which they can have more examples and gather more data and learn more about brain computer interactions and thus designed better algorithms to create more seamless connectivity, ultimately giving paralyzed

patients more agency and communication capabilities. By the way, there are also private companies and a lot of business folks who are also researching this technology, though arguably for less noble reasons. I personally remain convinced that Elon Musk is mostly looking to find some sort of electronic means to preserve his consciousness indefinitely. For example, it's just a feeling I get and again, I have a bias, and it really comes out in these New News episodes, doesn't it.

I make no apologies for it. It's who I am, but draw your own conclusions. I'm not saying that I am correct in this, It's just the feeling I get, and I fully admit I could be wrong. But that wraps up the news for April six one, and I hope you are all doing well. If you have any suggestions for things I should cover on future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter. The handle we use is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an

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