Tech News: Stealing from the Rich

Our top story for today's episode goes back to the ongoing drama with Wall Street hedge funds and a group of independent investors using platforms like Discord and Reddit to organize and drive up share prices for companies like game Stop. So as a quick reminder, the subreddit Wall Street bets took up the cause of buying shares of game Stop in an effort to counteract how some hedge fund companies

were attempting to short sell that stock. Short Selling is when you borrow shares from somebody else, a different investor, and you sell those shares that are not yours at market value. Then you hope the price goes down so that you can swoop in and you know, buy back those borrowed shares for less than what you sold them for, and then you return the borrowed shares to the person you borrowed them from, and you get to pocket the difference.

The Internet crusaders are buying up stocks, which makes the stock price go higher, and that starts to pressure those investors and companies that were attempting to short the stock, because the higher the stock price goes, the more money those investors will lose when it comes time to buy back shares and return them to the parties that they

borrow them from. The Motivations for this action among these independent investors varies and ranges from those who are hoping they can get rich quick by jumping on a trend those be kind of like speculators to those who harbor a grudge against the hedge funds in general, which typically represent the interests of people who are, let me see, let me check my notes here, um right, filthy rich, like really filthy rich. So a short squeeze is a way to really stick it to these funds, which could

stand to lose billions of dollars as a consequence. In fact, that has already happened with a couple of these hedge funds that have tried to cut their losses and get out before they saw even more money lost because with a short sell. The higher that market price goes, the more money the short sellers are going to lose when it comes time to return that stock. There's no limit to how much money they can lose, because the stock price can just keep going up, up, up and up.

There's no there's no bottom there. However, this all hinges on the investors being able to buy up those shares of games Op as those shares are hitting the market in order to keep this trend going, and that's getting

harder to do. Last Thursday, the day of our last news episode, in fact, the mobile stocks trading app robin Hood angered users when it put a temporary block on them, preventing them from buying shares in various companies that the Internet investors had targeted, including game Stop, but also including some other companies like AMC Theaters. Uh. They could still

sell stocks, but they couldn't buy them now. At one point, robin Hood had a buying ban on fifty different companies, though as of Monday, February one, that list has been whittled down to eight, and yet game Stop is still

on that list. The move prompted users to point out the inherent irony that a company naming itself after the legendary character Robin Hood, who literally robbed from the rich to give to the poor, was preventing average investors from you know, doing the equivalent action in the modern day through the stock market. Investors have filed numerous lawsuits, like more than thirty of them at the federal level against the company. At the heart of the issue is what

led robin Hood to level that ban on users. It doesn't help robin Hood's case that among its sources of revenue is a hedge fund called Citadel, leading some to speculate that robin Hood was facing pressure from revenue sources that stood to lose a lot of money if they were caught up in a short squeeze. Citadel, for its part, denies that it played any role in robin Hood's decision making.

This is building into a pretty compelling narrative that may or may not be realistic, and the narrative goes like this, hedge funds that are attempting to short sell companies aren't just betting that those companies shares are going to drop in price. These hedge funds, according to the narrative, actively

campai Hayne for that to happen. So, in other words, the independence the investors on the sub credit in Wall Street bets are saying that these big hedge funds are using leverage and market forces to help companies fail and then they reap in rewards through this short selling practice.

These companies may or may not have failed on their own, but the story that the investors are telling is that the hedge funds are actively working to cause companies to fail with only an eye on profit and no care about the consequences of failed company brings along with it, including the consequences to that company's employees and its customers. And so turning a short cell around on these hedge funds is being portrayed within these communities as an act

of heroism. That buying up the stock isn't meant to be a way to turn these investors into wealthy people. You're not supposed to be buying it to make money, but rather as a way to act as a check on these hedge funds so they can't set out to them these companies just for profit. Now, I would suggest that this narrative, while a good one, isn't necessarily the whole truth of the matter. I think there's a lot of it in there. I think a lot of truth is in that narrative, but I also think there are

a lot of other complicating factors at play. One of those is that sometimes a short cell is really just a short sell. It's not an attempt to make a company fail. Sometimes companies are just in a bad place, and sometimes the short cell recommendations are kind of an indicator, a warning flag, and it tells other investors who might have shares in those companies that maybe they want to protect their money and they should probably sell off those shares if in fact that company really is in danger.

It's not manufactured danger, it's something is wrong with that company. And then there are the ripple effects of these kind of events, which can cause further market disruption. I think that, as in most things in life, the situation is actually really complicated. There are no cut and dried heroes or villains. But speaking from my own personal standpoint, it is way easier for me to side with the people who are not billionaires. I'm just saying. Also a full disclosure, I

don't own any stock in any of these companies. In related news, that narrative I was just talking about really must be compelling, because Deadline, that is, the news journal that covers all things Hollywood, reports that MGM has acquired rights to a book proposal. Not a book, but our proposal for a book called The Antisocial Network by Ben Meseric.

The book, as I'm sure you have all guessed, will be about this game stop share price, saga and Wall Street bets and hedge funds, and about the story of independent investors on the and it who are taking aim at the big entrenched, fat cat hedge fund managers. Meseric proposed the book and his agent was able to shop around the proposal, not even a manuscript, and nothing's been fully written out yet, and boom, MGM options it for

a movie. Now, folks, both of my parents are published authors, and I just have to say, this is not the way things typically work. Now that being said, Meseric already has a track record. He wrote the book that would become the inspiration for the film The Social Network, you know, the Academy Award winning movie. So do keep that in mind that while this means that MGM has the rights to make a movie about this idea for a book, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that a movie will ever actually

come out. Now. If it does, it's gonna take some time for that to happen. I mean, it hasn't even been written yet, let alone had a director attached or cast it or gone into pre production or anything. And between now and whenever all that stuff can happen, a lot more might evolve, and we might see a lot

more happened during the fallout of this initial story. So I can't promise you that in a year or two you'll be watching something like I don't know, Tom Holland leading a group of upstart investors online against someone like I don't know, let's say, Richard Dreyfuss representing the head of a hedge fund. Clearly I should be the casting director for this movie, is what I'm saying. Now that I say it all out loud, I kind of want

to see it. Well, let's stick with the Hollywood approach to the tech world, or at least, in this case, the tech adjacent world. The Hollywood Reporter says that Apple TV is producing a series called We Crashed all one word, big W, big C. We Crashed, based off a podcast from Wondering about the Real Estate Slash kind of sort of but not really tech company we Work, or to be more specific, the A WE Company, which is the parent company to we Work, along with a couple of

related ventures. You know, that's the company that would get hold of office space in various markets and then rent that office space out to various freelancers and companies that

didn't already have a physical space of their own. The Hollywood Reporter says that Jared Leto has been cast as Adam Neuman and and Hathaway will be Rebecca Noyman and the Noyman's are leaders in the Wee Company, or at least they used to be, with Adam as the former CEO of the Wee Company, and Rebecca was a and still is a founding partner fund bit of trivia here. Rebecca is also cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow. And it seems like some of the more new Agish wacky beliefs run

in that family. Okay, I admit it, that is unfair. They don't run in the family. They positively gallop to steal a joke from arsenic and old lace. Adam Neuman previously made millions of dollars by buying up real estate and then least those buildings too We Work, you know, the company he was CEO of when the Weed Company filed for an i p O in two thousand nineteen.

The filing contained a lot of unusual stuff in it, like an inscrutable hierarchy diagram that had companies nested inside other companies and no real useful information inside of it. There was also a succession plan that seemed more geared toward making the We Company a Neuman dynasty rather than

you know, an independent company. I would do a full episode about the We Company and its trials and tribulations, including how that i p O never actually happened, how Adam Nouman was pressured by the board of directors to step down, complete with a nearly two billion dollar exit package, and how the company's valuation has plummeted by nearly since that planned i p O. But for one thing, We Work, despite the way it branded and marketed itself, is not

really a tech company. And for another, if you want to read an incredible account about that i p O, you need to go to the Verge and read Elizabeth Lapado's article We Work isn't a tech company, It's a soap opera. Because that article is equally informative and wildly entertaining. I highly recommend it. And I'll conclude this segment of our news episode with an update on the ongoing story

about employees at Google attempting to unionize. I mentioned last week that the Alphabet Workers Union or a w U, which is really hard to say because of that WU combination. Can I just say triple you just make it easier? Anyway, the a WU announced it was joining an international alliance of unions connected to Google called Alpha Global, this being unions all around the world that are related to Google

or Alphabet. The problem is that the United States members of this organization said they didn't know about any alliance until after the announcement of it had been published by The Verge, and that meant they didn't have a chance to vote on the matter, or even consider it, or even be told about it. What's more, the press release cited by The Verge had comments attributed to a WU leader, Poole Cool, who says she never actually made the comments

that appear in the press release. What followed was confusion, and along with confusion came some mistrust, which is, you know, pretty common and if you can't trust democratically elected leaders to actually represent those who elected those leaders. Everything falls apart, which really we're seeing play out in arenas much larger than the a WU, But we'll leave it at that.

Part of the problem appears to be that the Communications Workers of America or c w A, pushed out that press release prematurely and with a false attribution to cool regarding those comments. Now there are discussions within the a WU about whether the union should disassociate from the c w A entirely, and the person responsible for the press release is no longer working with the a WU teams.

If I were making a bird's eye view observation, I would say it looks like those organizing the union are relying heavily on other organizations that have proven to be a bad match, and that this in turn has actually threatened the formation of the union itself. I'm sure I'll be returning to the story again in the future. My hope is that they are able to continue their efforts to unionize. But when we see stuff like this happen, it really can cause a great deal of damage, particularly

in trust. I mean, you're asking impl yease to trust that the union will take care of them When something like this happens that trust gets eroded. We've got a lot more stories to talk about in today's episode, but first let's take a quick break. We're back. Did you guys know there was a pandemic going on? Well, it continues to be a dominating force for news in general, and one of the stories here in the United States has been about how badly the country has handled the

process of distributing and administering vaccines. It's a pretty big mess, with each state in the country largely left to determine its own processes and there being a general lack of clarity across the nation. For example, here in Georgia, we are in what is called Phase one A plus, meaning the state is currently administering the vaccine to healthcare workers, long term care facilities, citizens who are sixty five or older,

and their caregivers and first responders. After that will come Phase one B, which includes essential workers, then one C, which will include people who have, you know, medical conditions that increase the risk of them contracting a severe case of COVID nineteen, and then presumably will come the rest of us. But there's no actual timeline associated with that plan.

There's just a description of phases, but it doesn't even have a prediction of when will move from Phase one A plus to Phase one B. You can search to see where you could go to get vaccinated, but that doesn't mean that you would be eligible for a vaccination. You just know where the locations are that are administering vaccines. So that's about it. Now, that's just Georgia and every

state in the US is different. But Georgia is also home for the Centers for Disease Control or c d C, and the c d C has played a big part in why the vaccine rollout has not gone so smoothly for thousands and thousands of people. And this is what relates it to technology. It's because of a website called the Vaccine Administration Management System or VAMS v A m S. So this was developed for the princely sum of forty

four million dollars. According to the m I T Technology Review, numerous states that had planned to lean on VAMS as the official way to manage vaccine rollout didn't go so well. Things have gone pear shaped. A lot of people have reported various bugs or glitches in the system that have

failed to actually make appointments with facilities. So a patient goes on VAMS, goes through the process of making an appointment, appears to be confirmed for that appointment, they go and show up to the physical location, and that's when are told, hey, we have no record of you. There's no actual appointment on our books, so we can't see you. In other cases, the system appears to cancel appointments without rhyme or reason, although the c d C says this is due not

to a flaw in VAMS but rather user error. Uh. There are also reports that it locks people out as they try to use the system, or it only locks them in as a patient, not an administrator, and that's a big problem for those who are trying to actually administer the system. You know, it's also not just about creating appointments, but but managing that information and tracking that information so you know who has received the vaccine, who needs to come in for a follow up, all that

sort of stuff. So it's really a failure of the whole system. And the whole point of VAMS was to take the burden off of individual states so that they didn't have to build out their own management systems. But these various issues have led a lot of states to kind of do that anyway, rather than rely on something that other states have said has been a pretty big mess. Some local governments, like counting governments in Florida, have even

repurposed online services like event bright. You know the website you would use in order to send out invitations to your kid's birthday party. They're using that in order to make appointments, which, y'all, that is messed up. Moreover, the m I T piece, which is titled What Went Wrong with America's forty four million dollar Vaccine Data System, lays

out more problems. For example, the layout of the vam's site, even when it's working correctly, doesn't sound like it was made to be friendly for senior patients, and since seniors are the early focus of a lot of the vaccine programs, that's a huge problem. And it also points out the overall issue of creating systems that are accessible to a

wide audience. This stuff is important. There are companies that have entire departments dedicated to this kind of stuff, and as the peace in the m I T Technology Review points out, there's a real problem with the procurement process when government offices are selecting companies to carry out these big projects, and that the process itself can eliminate a lot of different valid choices from consideration. Even if those

choices are more suitable. They may be more suitable, but because they don't fit these other criteria that are required in the procurement process, they aren't even eligible for consideration. Clearly, managing such a massive effort is a huge challenge, and they are bound to be big problems along the way, But it seems like these challenges are made all the more difficult because of the nature of how the US government partners with the private sector in general, and the

tech sector in particular. By the way this sort of thing is nonpartisan. We see messages like this no matter who happens to be in charge, because the policies themselves are so restrictive that it almost doesn't make a difference whether or not you have a conservative administration in power or a liberal one. The policies themselves persist, and that

ends up being an issue. And speaking of the US government, one of the effects of an administration changing hands is that sometimes long term projects get disrupted, and one of those projects appears to be NASA's planned returned to the Moon under former President Trump. NASA was to aim to get astronauts back on the Moon by four, including the first woman astronaut to go to the Moon. Now, that

timeline was pretty ambitious and aggressive. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was impossible, but it was going to be really hard to do and really expensive, and there is uncertainty about where the plan now stands. In the wake of Joe Biden winning the US presidency. With a new ends stration in charge, there are questions about whether NASA will get the funding needed to stay on target, particularly for that goal. We're already seeing some results of this, with NASA pushing back when it will

announce lunar lander contracts. Originally, NASA was to announce which two of the three companies that had been under consideration would be awarded a pair of contracts for lunar landers, so one contract per company. We don't know which of which two of the three we're going to get these. We were supposed to find out later this month in February. Now NASA has told the contractors that the announcement has been pushed back to April. This was probably a necessary step.

The agency had requested a budget of three point two billion dollars in order to stay the course. But in December twenty twenty, Congress approved a much more modest budget of eight hundred fifty million dollars. And yeah, it feels weird to call eight hundred fifty million dollars honest, but then we are also talking about trying to keep people alive and safe as we shoot them off to the Moon,

and that ain't cheap. We're still waiting to hear who the Biden administration will choose to head up the agency and what priorities the administration will stress. It's all but certain that the Artemis project of returning to the Moon is going to get pushed back beyond if it sticks around as an official project in the first place. And

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I feel like the initial timeline was probably unrealistic and you really have to define what are your goals besides just going there. Going there's great, it's really a fantastic achievement. I don't want to downplay that, but is that the best use of resources? Uh? But on the other hand, I also think that a Moon mission does have a

lot of potential. You can find ways to perhaps harvest resources from the moon, though that's a very delicate matter. You have to figure out a way of doing that. It isn't too damaging or dangerous or we'll have long lasting consequences. But then you can also pursue a challenge that would undoubtedly inspire countless others to really dream big and become the next generation of pilots and engineers and scientists. That's a that's a big thing in itself. So, like

I said, I do feel uh complicated about this. Moving on, Microsoft, which has managed to dodge a bullet in the United States as the US government has discussed the fate of big companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple, is going under the magnifying glass. Over in the EU, antitrust regulators have until March five to decide if Microsoft's proposed acquisition of ZeniMax Media is acceptable or if the EU regulators will prevent it or require concessions before the acquisition can

move forward. As it stands, the deal is valued at seven and a half billion dollars. Holy cow, makes that forty four million dollar website really look like small potatoes, right, So what is it that zenni Max does? I mean, it's got to be important for that kind of money, right, Well, Zenny Max is the parent company of Bethesda, the video game studio responsible for things like the older Scrolls games,

the Fallout titles, and the Doom titles. Though the story is behind Fallout and Doom stretch back to other studios before Bethesda. But that's that's a matter for a different episode. And yeah, video games are a huge business, and I

don't want to downplay that. It's just one of those weird facts of life that I really find bizarre that we're talking about money for a video game company acquisition that is orders of magnitude larger than the money that's put forward as part of an effort to administer vaccines against a deadly pandemic. But that's enough of me on my soapbox. I get it, you all don't need to hear it. If Microsoft's acquisition can move forward, it will put the company on more equal footing with Sony and

the PlayStation platform. For a long time, one of the big strengths PlayStation has had against the Xbox platform is a list of really good exclusive titles. Now there's a chance Microsoft would be able to create new titles with Bethesda's work that tie in with those those big popular franchises and have them be exclusive to Xbox in the Windows platform, as long as they don't end up like Fallout seventy six, which the Gaming World at Largest categorized

as a let's see here says here a total disaster. Now, it's more likely that the games will still be available for Sony's console, but that Microsoft will then include them with their Xbox Game Pass service. That's one of the big selling points for the Xbox series of consoles. Essentially, you subscribe to that and you get access to dozens of different video games idols that are included in the subscription price, so you don't have to pay extra to

get access to them. So that's probably where this is going. And and and honestly, that's kind of the best of all worlds because Microsoft can still make money selling games that are going for a competitor's console while they also build up the library of games in their own exclusive subscription service. It's kind of a no brainer, really. And we have a couple of short Facebook stories to mention. Three of them actually. First up is the newly appointed

Oversight Board at Facebook. This is an independent group that is reviewing Facebook's moderation policies. Ours Technica reports that this group recently ruled against four of the five substantive rulings that Facebook provided them, and reading over these rulings, I'm kind of floored. It's five different cases in which Facebook chose to remove a post for the interpretation of the post violating Facebook's rules, and the board agreed with four of those five decisions. But I'm not sure that I

fully agree with the board in every case. Though to be fair, I'm working from summaries of what these cases were. I don't have the full context, but it really illustrates how complicated moderation actually is and why it requires a lot of work and it's not something you can just

hand over to an algorithm. And by creating this independent oversight board, Facebook also kind of has an excuse when someone gets mad at a post that Facebook didn't take down, because the oversight board is sort of setting the precedent and Facebook and say, hey, we got an independent board of experts who make these decisions, so go blame those people. Now. Related to that story is another one that Facebook is kind of navigating some super tricky territory when it comes

to anti Semitism and use of the term Zionist. This issue shows how difficult things can be due to context and language. For example, some Jewish people who criticize the Israeli government's polo sees use the term Zionist when talking about specific policies that they don't agree with. But there are others who use the term interchangeably with other terms, and they all end up being part of expressions of

hate speech. And so this is a really challenging situation in which some uses of a word might fall into the category of hate speech, something that clearly violates Facebook's policies and should be removed. But in other cases it's being used in a way where it's a part of a legitimate criticism of Israeli government actions. When I say legitimate criticism, I mean sincere as opposed to whether or

not you agree with the point of that criticism. The Jewish Voices for Peace organization circulated a petition calling for Facebook to avoid classifying zionist as hate speech outright. Facebook reps have said that the company allows the term when it comes to political discussions, but then removes it in cases where it's quote used as a proxy for Jews or Israeli's in a dehumanizing or violent way. End quote.

And as I said, this is a really complicated matter, and I feel we're seeing the beginning of a lot of very difficult conversations within Facebook and between Facebook and its critics, as more people demand that social networks take a firmer stance when it comes to moderating user content.

And finally, the Wall Street Journal reports that internal memos within Facebook revealed that researchers had pointed out to executives that there was a rise of hate groups and misinformation campaigns in the summer of twenty twenty, including calls to violence. So that doesn't look great considering how extremists use platforms like Facebook to organize ahead of the assault on the

US capital. And it also doesn't look great for organizations like the FBI that at least initially stated that there just wasn't any real heads up of any issues, when in fact, it appears that there were a lot of warning signs months in advance. We have some more tech stories to cover in just a moment, but before we get to those, let's take another quick break. We're back. Ford has announced that starting in twenty three, the company's vehicles will incorporate Android Auto, and this is a six

year partnership Ford has made with Google. Android Auto is a platform for well, I mean, it's kind of obvious car systems, and it means that Ford vehicles will have certain Google apps like Maps and even Assistant incorporated into their entertainment systems. And I have to admit that could be kind of neat being able to talk to your car to have it do things like give you directions, or play your favorite station, or give you an update

on whether or make schedule changes to your calendar. All of that seems like a decent way to keep your eyes on the road instead of on your phone or on the dashboard of the car. The two companies also announced that they were forming a new R and D group called Team Up Shift, which would explore all sorts of of uses of technology in the car world, like

improving the experience of buying a car. Hey, you know, if I think if this means that a salesperson doesn't get up and leave you waiting for half an hour to try and you know, kind of put the screws to you, that's a good start. Anyone out there who has had the experience of buying a new car from a dealership likely has their share of really bad stories.

But the partnership is also going to look at stuff that happens behind the scenes with the aim to improve processes and manage supply chains and all sorts of stuff that customers rarely think about, but they really have a

real impact on the bottom line of a business. And according to reps, with the companies, there will be no harvesting of personal information, so you don't have to worry about forward and Google logging every time you go to that greasy spoon or you like, or if you haven't hit the comic book store every week, or you know, whatever it is other people do. Don't judge me. I

like greasy food and I like comic books. Anyway, this could be an interesting partnership, But I do think it's good for people to ask tough questions about data management and privacy because we have seen how that information can be misused or even just collected and bartered without our knowledge or consent. And hey, that leads me well into the next story, which is that sixty Minutes reported that China may have stolen the personal data of around eighty

percent of all adults in America. That is staggering. Imagine you're with a group of four friends and for this hypothetical situation, we're saying that everyone's been vaccinated. It's all safe, yea, except you look around at your friends and you think, hey, only one of us has not had their personal data stolen by China. That I mean, yikes, guys. And the information stolen is personal information that apparently includes bio data

like DNA and stuff, which is truly wild. According to the International Business Times, the purpose of doing that kind of thing might be to feed that information into China's medical industry in an effort for that industry to dominate the global medical treatments and technologies markets, essentially giving China a scientific edge on all things medical. But you know, without going through that whole nasty business of asking people

for permission to harvest and use their personal and biological information. See, that's the kind of thing we have to be on the lookout for. And guys, if you were looking forward to going to Coachella, have some bad news. For the third time since the pandemic started, Coachella is canceled. Coachella was supposed to happen in April of but by that point the pandemic was in full bloom in the United States,

and so the organizers postponed it to October twenty. That turned out to be a bit too ambitious as well, as we were sliding toward another terrible surge in COVID cases, and so twenty twenty was called a loss, and the plan was to hold Coachella one in April, but seeing as the vaccine rollout it's likely to still be in the early stages for most of the population even by that point in time, April isn't a guarantee either, and

now the show has been canceled. There are rumors that it might get pushed to October again, but as I record this, there's been no official word on that. Obviously, the live events industry has been absolutely hammered by COVID, and it appears that the vaccination rollout this year will really determine when we can expect some of those big events to return. So in the meantime, stay home if you can, key social distancing, wash your hands, and be safe.

Our last couple of stories are about Vigia Games. First up is the game everyone loves to dunk on for some pretty legitimate reasons cyberpunk. The latest is that PC

gamers should take some precautions before installing any mods. Now, for those not up on gaming lingo, mods are modifications, and in this case, it refers to stuff that's been programmed by other people who don't work for the video game company, with the purpose of creating different effects or opening up new features once you download it and install it into the code of your game. Some games natively support mods, and even have marketplaces where users can shop

around for different types of mods. And a mod might make a game look better, or it might create weird and silly effects, or it might allow you to do stuff like make edits to the game while you're playing it so that you know you don't have to do that irritating thing where you play a game to progress. I mean, come on, right, who has time for that anyway?

Forbes reported a subreddit post that indicated that there were some vulnerabilities in the PC version of the game that could allow for malicious mods to integrate with the game and then compromise the PC running the game. So you might think you're getting, you know, a cool mod that's gonna make Keanu Reeves your best Friend Forever BFFs, but in fact it ends up creating a back door for

a hacker to take over your computer. Apparently there are some workarounds to protect your PC to patch those vulnerabilities on your own, but as of this recording, there's no official patch from the video game company CD project to fix things. And finally, we have some good news, at least for Nintendo. The company had projected it would sell twenty four million Nintendo Switch consoles in the current fiscal year, which lasts through March, so Nintendo's fiscal year doesn't follow

the calendar year. However, the company has already sold twenty four point one million units, and looking at the calendar, we still have a little bit to go before March is over, so that's prompted Nintendo to adjust its projection upward to twenty six and a half million units. Now, clearly the pandemic has had a big effect with this, with lots of people buying a Switch console during lockdown.

In fact, I'm one of those people because I bought one for my wife, and honestly, I should probably get one of my own because it looks like a lot of fun and she won't let me play it. Also the fact that the company has exceeded its projected sales also helps explain why sometimes it can still be a challenge to find a switch console in stock depending on where you live. Um, it's hard to find those in

inventories at times. But good news for Nintendo and there's some big titles that are coming up in the in the months ahead. That's what's really got them excited about the potential of hitting that tway six and a half billion unit benchmark. So that's good for them. Bee beep, beep beep, breaking news. I had already finished recording this episode and just as I was about to jump into sending it off to super producer Torii, I saw the

news today. Oh boy, and it's more of a a video games So we're just tagging this onto the very end. Apparently Google is now shuttering. It's in house Stadia Games Development studio. That headline comes straight from c NET and Shelby Brown. So Shelby, big thanks to you for getting that out there. Just before I was going to send this off. It's awesome that I get to talk about this only in the sense that it is breaking news.

It is said I'm also a Google Stadia user, I got a chance to get hold of a Stadio system, and it's kind of interesting. I haven't really played with that much, to be honest, but I thought it was an interesting idea. However, Google has now decided that they're not going to really get into the business of developing video games. They will instead continue to act as a platform supporting video games, So you can still have video games on the Stadio platform, just that Google won't be

making any of those itself. So I thought I would update that before this episode goes out because I had the chance to do so. Back to Jonathan. Thanks Jonathan. All Right, guys, that wraps up this episode of tech Stuff News. We will be back on Thursday with more news episodes. Tomorrow you will get a brand new episode of tech Stuff Proper. That one's going to be all about Discord, So if you're curious about the platform I talk all about history and tomorrow's episode, be sure to

tune into that. If you have any suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, let me know. Discord was a user suggestion. Maybe you can make one of your own. The best way to get in touch with me is over On Twitter, the handle is 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 my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.