Tech News: Trump's Interview on X Gets 74 Million Views. Sort of.

TV versus online. So last night, the Republican candidates who are vying for the party's nomination for the upcoming general election, with one quite notable exception, all appeared in a debate on Fox News. I haven't seen reliable figures about how many people actually watch the deb I did see one piece that said it was twenty three point nine million people, but I haven't found any corroborating reports on that, and this was not a site I was familiar with, so

I'm not comfortable actually using that as a benchmark. So I don't know how many people were watching it. However, we do know how many people saw although maybe they only briefly saw the counter programming to the debate former President Donald Trump appeared in an interview with Tucker Carlson, and this was posted on X formerly known as Twitter, So that interview gathered seventy four million impressions. But here's

the thing. If you scrolled past the interview, if it just showed up in your feed and you went right past it, that still counted as an impression. If you watched three seconds of it before you said nah, I don't want to see this, that still counted as an impression. If you watched it on your phone, then turned it off and switched over to a tablet and started watching

it again, that actually counted as two impressions. So what I'm saying is that even if the GOP debate on Fox News quote unquote only got around twenty four million viewers, the seventy four million impressions of Donald Trump's interview on X doesn't actually mean that seventy four million people tuned into the thing. So this really drives home the double edged sword of online content. Content providers can sometimes count the briefest of impressions the same as they would for

someone who watched a piece from beginning to end. If they say it's a view. Even if you only saw ten seconds of it, and it's like an hour long program. That's an issue, right. It doesn't come across as being very honest and on it. I believe in the long run it ends up being a huge liability. But it is the way things have been done online for quite some time. And what do I know, I just make the stuff. The Taiwanese Semiconductor Fabrication Company TSNA is in

the news again here in the United States. You might recall that TSMC is building out a facility in the US, specifically in Arizona. So earlier this summer, TSMC officials said that this facility is being delayed because, in their own words, they could not find suitable workers in the United States

to build out the facilities. They didn't have the highly trained people they needed, according to TSMC representatives, They said they would need to bring over experts from Taiwan to manage and build out this high tech, precise facility, and this prompted US workers and politicians to object. Some said TSMC was really more concerned with bringing over a workforce that would work longer hours and essentially follow orders without putting up a fuss about it. North American workers connected

to the project are now voicing concerns and objections. They have said that management at TSMC is really to blame for these delays. The workers so, according to multiple although unnamed workers, TSMC management has failed to provide critical information that the workers needed in order for them to do their jobs. They said, well, the reason it's taking so long that we're not making progress is it because we're

not trained to do this work. It's that we're not getting the information we need in order to do our work. They also said that the construction site itself is unsafe, that there are lots of safety violations going on, and that TSMC's management have been directing construction workers to violate international building code because, according to what the workers are saying, the managers claim, this is how it's done in Taiwan. TSMC has denied any wrongdoing and says the company is

dedicated to health and safety. So I'm sure the story is far from over. It is true that there are parts of at least China where substandard building code has led to some truly dangerous buildings that are not built to last the test of time, whether or not that's actually the case at this Arizona facility. I can't say, but I'm sure the way things are going, it's going

to lead to like an investigation at some point. While a lot of stories I cover in the show tend to fall into the let's warn you about AI category, one company is absolutely raking in the cash thanks to the intense interest in artificial intelligence. So there's one company that, without question is really benefiting from the AI craze, and that company is in Nvidia, which is best known for creating stuff like graphics processing units or GPUs, or like

gaming rigs and stuff. Nvidia reported that in Q two of this year it generated thirteen point five billion with a B dollars in revenue. But that's revenue, right, That's an impressive amount for revenue. But let's talk about profit. What do you have after you've subtracted all the costs of doing business? While on that note, Nvidia saw six point one eight eight billion dollars in profit in the second quarter of twenty twenty three. That is a lot

of profit. It's also a pretty big jump from last year. And by a big jump, I mean an increase of eight hundred forty three percent. And this is despite the fact that while there was a surge in GPU purchasing during the pandemic in twenty twenty. There has since been a big move away from buying GPUs for a few reasons. One, you had the cryptocurrency Ethereum move away from proof of work to proof of steak, which meant there no longer was this cryptocurrency need to buy up all the GPUs,

so that demand and went away. And then of course we have all the economic concerns, the inflation and things like that that have meant that a lot of people have cut back on their spending. So we've seen GPU sales dip a bit, but the AI chip market has clearly gone in the opposite direction, and in Nvidia expects this gravy train is just going to keep on chugging along,

at least for the near future. Anyway. The company projects that it will generate sixteen billion dollars in revenue next quarter, primarily due to the demand for AI chips in things like data centers. Now, assuming AI isn't going anywhere, which seems like a pretty safe assumption, I mean, maybe we'll see a cooling off period from like the hype cycle, but I don't think AI is just going to disappear.

But this could mean that we're right now witnessing the moment when Nvidia gets propelled into the next stage of becoming a corporate powerhouse, so to speak. Apple did a very not Apple like thing the week the company sent a letter to California State Senator Susan Egman in support of a bill that's under consideration by the state. It is SB two four four that probably doesn't help you out very much. It's a right to repair bill, so

quick recap. The right to repair movement aims to force companies to make it possible to perform maintenance and repair on products without first having to go to some authorized or licensed repair shop. So the philosophy behind right to repair is that once you buy something that is yours and you should have the freedom to repair it and to maintain it without having to stay inside the manufacturing

company's ecosystem. And if you were to stay in the ecosystem, that might require you to schlep dozens or even hundreds of miles to get to the closest authorized repair shop, which is an unnecessary hardship. Traditionally, Apple has sort of, while not outrite a pose right to repair, effectively done so the company likes to keep everything in house. But Apple in the past has said that this is mostly

for the consumer's own good. It guarantees a level of service that you wouldn't get elsewhere, and it protects the customer, but critics have said it's really more about trapping the customer in a system that just keeps generating revenue for Apple. Anyway, tech Crunch received a statement from Apple, and the company says, quote, Apple supports California's Right to Repair Act, so all Californians have even greater access to repairs while also protecting their safety, security,

and privacy. We create our products to last and if they ever need to be repaired, Apple customers have a growing range of safe, high quality repair options, and I should acknowledge that last year Apple introduced the self service repair program, which kind of eased off the company's tradition of requiring customers to go through official Apple channels for

maintenance and repair. Now you could argue this is just the company seeing the writing on the wall and getting ahead of it, but either way, it's great for consumers, especially in the state of California. Hopefully you will see this kind of adopted throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Okay, I've got some more news items to cover, but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. We're back. Tesla has been having

a rather dramatic twenty twenty three. According to Yahoo Financed, Tesla's stock price was at two hundred and ninety one dollars a share back on July nineteenth, but in the weeks following, the stock has lost nearly twenty percent of its value. Just as a note, as right this episode, the stock is currently trading at around two hundred and thirty three dollars per share, So this also means the

market cap for Tesla has taken a hit. If you listened to yesterday's Tech stuff, you know a market A company's market cap is the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the price of e share. So a twenty percent decline would mean that Tesla saw a drop of nearly two hundred billion dollars in market cap. And here's the thing. A bunch of the factors that did this are outside

the company's control, like inflation and interest rates. But according to some analysts, Tesla manufacturing facilities are filling up with cars that are not getting sold. Customers aren't buying the cars, and so while the manufacturing facilities have been making them, they haven't actually been rolling off of lots, and that could potentially lead to Tesla having to make a decision

like to cut costs on Tesla vehicles. Again, I think it's only fair to point out this is by no means the lowest that Tesla's stock has been this year. So late last year the stock actually hit more than three hundred dollars per share, but by early January it was down to one hundred and thirteen dollars. So it has been a rocky road for the car company and it's continuing to face economic pressures and increased competition in

the EV marketplace. There's a hacker group called Lapsus that's Lapsus Dollar Sign that has targeted some major companies, among them in Nvidia, Ubers. Also another company, Rockstar Games that's the video game company behind the Grand Theft Auto series. And it turns out these hackers are a bunch of teenagers in the United Kingdom. Their attacks have proven to

be pretty darn effective. Some members allegedly carried out hacking attacks while they were actually out on bail for charges of other hacking attacks, and while the group pulled off some attacks that seemed on the surface to be ransomware employees, they weren't particularly dedicated to seeing those plans through to

the point of, you know, actually collecting a ransom. They were more frequently doing stuff like infiltrating a company systems, stealing a whole bunch of data, and then dumping that data on the web somewhere. According to investigators, the attacks that the hacker used were not particularly complicated, although they were often said to have been creative, but they were really really effective, and that doesn't speak highly of corporate security practices. A couple members of the hacker gang are

already in custody. In one case, a judge has already ruled that that particular member is not fit to stand trial. So we'll see how this continues to unfold. For old folks such as myself who have fond memories of developing hand cramps while holding an Atari twenty six hundreds c X forty joystick, I got good news. The upcoming Atari twenty six hundred plus console is now available for pre order. It is one hundred and twenty nine dollars in ninety

nine cents. It will also come with a game cartridge that will contain ten classic Atari titles, including Yars Revenge. Fun fact, the game designer who created Yurs Revenge would go on to make Et the Extraterrestrial, sometimes referenced as one of the worst games of all time, though it was not really his fault, but that's a story for another time. Other titles include the classic adventure Missile Command

Is on There, Combat Is On There. Plus, the Atari twenty six hundred plus console will be able to play any Atari twenty six hundred cartridge. So if you happen to have an old box full of Atari twenty six hundred cartridges, guess what, they will be playable again on this machine. But if you have your collection in storage, no worries. You could go out and buy a Harmony cartridge.

This is one that's created by hobbyists, and this cartridge plugs into Atari twenty six hundred just as any video game cartridge would, but it has a port for an SD card, So what you can do is actually go and find the RAM that's essentially the game files for any Atari twenty six hundred game you own, download it and save it to that SD card. Put that into the Harmony cartridge and plug that into your Atari twenty

six hundred plus and then you can play the game. Now, technically you can do do that with any realm of Attari twenty six hundred games, not just the ones you own, but you're only supposed to do it if you own the game already, because doing so means that you're essentially making a backup of your media. That's legal. Just taking any realm not legal, because that's essentially piracy. The other alternative is you can go around to garage sales and you know, eBay and that kind of stuff and look

for cartridges in order to build up your collection. The cool thing also about the twenty six hundred plus is that, unlike the original Atari twenty six hundred, it can connect to a modern television through HDMI, so you don't have to find some weird janki adapter to make it all work. This does not mean that the games are suddenly going to look better than they did. It'll probably look worse because they've got to be on a much larger screen,

but it will mean that they're playable. I think it's pretty cool, although I suspect if I were to actually get one of these and play it. I might touch it maybe three times before never touching it again unless I had Pitfall or River Raid, because those games slap. This week, Sony gave us more information about the PlayStation Portal, a handheld gaming device that will retail for two hundred dollars. It has an eight inch screen with ten ADP resolution.

It's got a refresh rate of sixty hurts, and it kind of looks like if you took this screen, you know, and you had it in landscape mode, and then you crammed the left side and the right side of a dual sense controller on either side of the screen, and you might be saying, hey, Jonathan, how many games can this handheld device hold? Or can I take this with

me everywhere and thus play PlayStation games? And the answers to those questions is a bit disappointing because the PlayStation Portal can only stream games from your PS five that's using remote play, so this is really just a portable second screen for your PS five at home. As Kyle Orland of Ours Technica points out, this is pretty disappointing since you can already get the PS five Remote Play app for both iOS or Android devices, so you can use your own phone or tablet to access the same

stuff that the portal can do. You just need to pair it with a game controller and you're good to go. You get your own DIY portal that way. Plus, hey, your DIY version of the portal can do other stuff like if it's your smartphone, you can make calls with it, or smartphone or tablet you can watch your tiktoks on it.

So I think it's a good idea to look into the PlayStation portal before you put in a pre order, so that you understand what it can do, what it doesn't do, and then make the decision of doesn't make sense to drop two hundred bucks on this peripheral. I got a couple of article recommendations for you, but before I get to that, I have one final story. I am flush with excitement about this one. I am, of course talking about the ARST that stands for the abrasion resistant,

super slippery flush toilet. Also, I bet ARST sounds a bit like how some people would sound while using the gadget. Okay, so some folks in China developed this material using a combination of plastic and hydrophobic grains of sand, which then they injected a silicon based oil into this mixture, and what they got was a very, very slippery surface. They used all sorts of different stuff to try and stick to it, like honey and porridge and muddy water and fake poo, and it just slid off of this like

water off a duck's back. They even subjected the surface to abrasive treatments. They use sandpaper and a knife and a file, and they really went at it to try and scuff up the material, but it still retained its slipperiness. There are a lot of jokes I could make about this, but the innovation has some pretty cool implications. A toilet bowl that is resistant to stuff sticking to it will be easier to clean and to keep clean, and it could require less water for fleshing, which is a big

deal with conservation efforts. So maybe in the future we'll see most toilets made from material like this. That'd be pretty slick. Okay, now for article recommendations where you're not going to get top notch potty humor like you do on this show. So first up, Ashley Belanger of Ours Technica has an article titled YouTube may face billions in

fines if FTC confirms child privacy violations. So Berlanger details how some advocacy groups say YouTube has failed to prevent targeted advertising on children's programming despite a mandate to do that, while YouTube executives say the allegations are based on an incorrect assessment of how the platform operates. You should read the piece. It's very well written and explains the issue well.

Next up is another Ours Technica article, this one by Ron Amadeo, and it's titled Project Muhan is Google and Samsung's inevitable Apple Vision pro clone. And while the article does go into Project Mouhan, I would say that it's really more about how the engineers who are working on various Google AR and VR projects have encountered lots of internal obstacles while doing their work, mostly stemming from management that has failed to settle on a solid plan of action.

Both articles are a great read, and as always, I have no connection to either the authors of these pieces nor to Ours Technica itself. And that's it for the Tech News for Thursday August twenty fourth, twenty twenty three. I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you again. Really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.