Tech News: No News for Australia on Facebook

not doing anyone any favors. So we're going to really focus from here on out. So let's get started. Researchers with M I. T. Harvard University and E. T. H. Zurich are working on using machine learning to help treat patients with COVID nineteen. So just quickly, machine learning refers to a study a field of study within computer science where you're using algorithms that can self improve over time.

So the goal with this particular study was to find effective treatments for severe COVID nineteen symptoms within vulnerable population, specifically elderly people who have COVID nineteen. The researchers identified a potential starting point related to lung tissue, because as we age, our lungs tend to become stiffer, and that condition can make respiratory illnesses more difficult to manage. The researchers wanted to see if there are any existing medications

that might be effective for treating those symptoms. While other teams of doctors and researchers are working to develop new medications all the time for COVID nineteen and everything else, that process is very slow, and for good reason. You have to make sure that the treatment has a high efficacy, and you have to learn what side effects the medication

might have. Existing medications have already gone through this uncle testing process, so we have a good understanding of what those medications do and the potential side effects of them, but we don't necessarily know if any of them would be particularly helpful in treating COVID nineteen symptoms. So the team decided to look at genes and proteins that are related to aging in general and this tendency for lungs

to grow more stiff over time. In particular. They're using machine learning algorithms to whittle down a large list of medications that might help to address the expression of those genes, perhaps even going back several steps to the genetic root cause, because you can really think of this as you know,

a series of things that lead to this outcome. Now, the algorithm looked at how various drugs affect the expression of these particular genes and cross referenced that with another data set about how genetic expression would respond after a COVID nineteen infection, and then the algorithm looked for drugs that might have an impact on gene expression that could

in turn decrease the severity of COVID nineteen symptoms. The team is sharing their information with pharmaceutical companies, which can then begin their own clinical trials to test the results against you know, reality, and if it works, it could make an enormous difference in the quality of life of elderly COVID patients and potentially decrease mortality rates. Over at YouTube, the company recently shut down nearly three thousand channels that

it says we're part of a state backed influence operation. Now, the states in question were Russia and China. YouTube says that most of the channels were part of these Chinese programs meant to spread propaganda about stuff like US politics and the COVID nineteen pandemic, all of it buried deep in tons of videos about far less weighty matters like you know, celebrity gossip and pop culture topics. We're seeing a more proactive approach from YouTube after years of criticism

about how the company's moderation policy. These allowed misinformation campaigns to run wild, and videos promoting extremist views were able to get a foothold on the platform. Meanwhile, over at Weymo, another company in the Google family, engineers are getting ready for a really big test. Weimo is in the autonomous

vehicle business. In case you didn't know, it had previously conducted tests of self driving cars in Phoenix, Arizona primarily, but now the company is preparing to launch an autonomous vehicle testing phase in the San Francisco area. Weymo hasn't built their own vehicles. Instead, they took existing models from other car companies and then change those models to make

them self driving. The Jaguar or if you prefer, Jaguar I Pace, which is an electric vehicle suv, and the Chrysler Pacifica, which is a kind of minivan, make up the models in the fleet of autonomous cars. The goal is to build out an autonomous taxi service in the future, but Weymo reps are really quick to point out that there's still a long way to go before we get there. The tests in the Bay Area will still include a human driver or quote single vehicle operator, as a Weymo

rep told venture Beat. The company said that the test will last several weeks. It begins this week and they have already conducted and they continue to conduct tests in other parts of California. This test won't be open to the public, so you're not gonna find yourself getting into a Weymo driver less taxi just by happenstance. If you happen to be a Weymo employee, maybe then you can

participate in the study. While Weymo has been working hard to improve its technology, it also has had a small number of cases in which a human operator felt it necessary to take control of the car. It's a pretty

rare thing, however. Engadget reports that Weymo filed a report with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that explained that there were just twenty one cases and which an operator felt it was necessary to take over the control of the vehicle over a test period that included six nine

thousand miles driven by autonomous vehicles. Still, when it comes to autonomous cars and safety, the bar is incredibly high, and you could argue it's justifiably so, because we've seen what kind of tragedies can happen when an autonomous or

semi autonomous system fails to prevent an accident. Over in Australia, the government is preparing to vote on a bill that would require internet companies like Google and Facebook to pay journalistic outlets media companies for content appearing on those tech companies platforms. So the argument is that if a company like Facebook makes use of content from an Australian media company, then Facebook should pay that media company for use of

that content. The legislation would create regulations forcing tech companies to negotiate with media companies and agree upon a rate, which might be a lump sum or it might be a per click rate. It all depends on how the legislation gets hashed out. The Treasurer of Australia developed this idea after a study showed that companies like Facebook and Google receive a really big share of advertising dollars while much of the content that was appearing in Australia we're

from Australian media organizations. But the tech companies have objected to the wording of the proposed legislation, and now Facebook says it will not allow Australian users and media companies to share links to news articles on Facebook. The managing director of Facebook Australia and New Zealand wrote, quote, the proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and

publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice attempt to comply with the law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allow news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the ladder end quote. The sarcastic tone is purely editorial. Further, Australian users will not be able to see posts that include links to international news sources, and international users won't be able to

view or share Australian news content on Facebook. Effectively, Australian Facebook users are in a media blackout while they use Facebook. Now, this is a really complicated issue, one that actually goes beyond technology, but I do think this move might add more fuel to the fire for criticisms that companies like Facebook and Google are monopolistic or anti competitive. And it also kind of devalues Facebook's news feed if no news is allowed to be in it. Huh hey, do you

remember the Sony Pictures hack? Back in quick refresher, a group of hackers who identified themselves as the Guardians of Peace infiltrated Sony Pictures systems and stole a crap ton of data, including copies of unreleased films, emails, and personal information about Sony Pictures employees. The group indicated that the hack was a response to Sony Pictures producing a movie called The Interview. Uh. The plot of that comedy revolves around an assassination attempt on Kim Jong un, the leader

of North Korea. Sony ultimately canceled the theatrical release of that movie and switched to a digital delivery method of distribution. And here we are seven years later in the U. S. Department of Justice has charged three hackers that they say were involved in the Sony Pictures hack, as well as some other cyber criminal activities like the development and distribution of the Wanna Cry ransomware, malware, and hacks on various

cryptocurrency exchanges. The d o J says that the three hackers all belonged to hagging units that fall under the authority of the North Korean military. In addition, the d o J revealed that a Canadian American citizen has pled guilty un charges of money laundering on behalf of North Korean hackers. Now, if you did follow the Sony Pictures case when it happened, you probably remember that North Korean officials denied that there was any connection between the North

Korea government or military and these hackers. You probably also remember that a lot of cybersecurity experts were, let us say, skeptical of that claim. These charges continue to reject North Korea's objections to them, and as for the charges, it's very hard for me to imagine a scenario in which North Korea would ever agree to extradite those charged to stand trial for the allegations. So really these charges are

more of a name and shame approach. In the world of tech conferences, there are a few standouts that merit special attention. Ce s as a big one as his E three, but a third one is the Mobile World Congress, which holds events in different parts of the world throughout the year, but it reserves its main exhibition for Barcelona, Spain, and as the name implies, the tech trade event for focuses on mobile devices and apps for those devices. Now, in a normal year, more than a hundred thousand people

attend the event. The g s m A, which organizes the conference, canceled the Barcelona event in due to the COVID nineteen pandemic, but plans are in place for the twenty one event to happen, though it is going to take place later in the year by swapping places with

the Mobile World Congress Shanghai event. In addition, attendees won't be required to receive a COVID vaccination prior to going, probably because there's still a lot of uncertainty about who will be able to receive a vaccine win in many parts of the world. Instead, attendees will have to test negative for COVID nineteen within seventy two hours of the event kicking off on June. The g s m A also says that it will limit attendance and expects no

more than fifty people to go. Now I mean, I sincerely hope that this event and the Shanghai event are safe for every one concerned, but I have to admit that these kind of big events still make me a little nervous in a time when we're not really sure what the status is going to be for vaccinations. And finally, engineers with the University of California, San Diego showed off a really cool soft robot. It uses pressurized air to provide the needed to move around, and most astonishingly, it

has no electronic components on board. Everything relies on tubes and valves to send pressurized air to specific limbs. The robot has four legs. The team based the robots motion off of an African side necked turtle, utilizing quote diagonal couplet git patterns end quote. Now, that essentially means that the turtle walks by moving diagonally opposite limbs at the same time, like if it's taking a step forward with its right front leg, it also moves its left back

leg forward at the same time and vice versa. Now, the robot does this with a valve system controlling which limbs receive air, causing them to extend. The valves have a delay, so the air flows into pairs of limbs at different times, and the coordination of this results in the robot walking. Although walking is a generous term, it's more of a coordinated wobble. But then most days that's all I can manage too, So who am I to talk?

Soft robots could have a lot of really cool potential uses, including interacting and human environments where a soft robot poses less of a risk to we squishy humans. Think bay Max from Big Hero six. And that wraps up this quick fire news round for Thursday, February twenty one. We'll be back next week with more episodes of tech Stuff and more news. If you guys have suggestions for things I should cover on tech Stuff, please let me know.

The best way to do that is on Twitter with the handled text Stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.