It’s Thursday, and this week has been an amazing week for technology news. We have a lot to share this week. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s news: regular people become astronauts and blast off a SpaceX rocket, the Fruit Company announces new phones and watches to burn money on, and the most powerful AI bot is…black. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

ORDINARY PEOPLE BECOME SPACE JOCKEYS

One of this week’s big news items was last night’s Inspiration4 mission. Last night, around 8 o’clock, SpaceX flew 4 astronauts who were once ordinary citizens into space higher than the International Space Station. They flew 80 miles higher than the IST to a flight of 360 miles. Onboard were a GED holding payment processing exec, a physician’s assistant at St. Jude’s Hospital, a community college professor, and a Lockheed Martin data engineer. Flights like this are the proof the industry needs to show that spaceflight is safe for civilians. The flight used SpaceX’s Falcon9 rocket as the launch vehicle, and the Resilience capsule that was used to ferry SpaceX’s astronauts to the IST last summer. Capsule and booster were refurbished for the flight, demonstrating how close we are to making Earth escaping flights a regular thing.

FRUIT COMPANY ANNOUNCES NEW PRODUCTS YOU CAN BUY NEXT WEEK

The first set of big news for the week came from Apple. We teased their latest iPhone event on last week’s tech segment, and Apple delivered on everyone’s expectations. Apple announced a plethora of new devices, but are they enough to entice you to upgrade? Apple is shipping iPhone 13s all the way from regular to Pro Max. Apple has always touted its photo and video capabilities and this year, Apple has introduced Cinematic mode. A way of shooting video that allows you to shift focus around the scene, Hollywood style. Apple is saying this: the iPhone 13 shoots in Dolby Vision HDR, and…and…you are allowed to do all of these focusing tricks AFTER you shoot the video!

I’m sharing their promo video so you can check it out.

The latest iPhones are powered by a new A15 Bionic chip. This chip is the latest Apple silicon with a mind boggling 15 billion transistors. So, that’s 3.2 billion more transistors than the A14. That’s billions more with a ‘B’. Apple’s silicon has been outperforming other products for years now and it keeps getting faster. Apple’s phones will get better battery thanks to bigger cells and better code. The big one gets a whopping 1 terabyte of storage. Which is f-ing insane. You’ll need the pro for Cinematic mode. All phones are available next week.

Watches. Apple’s getting new watches as well. The new Apple Watch 7 will have a bigger display with thinner display borders improving the performance. The watch 7 will also feature a crack resistant display and faster charging. I thought it already charged fast.

Apple’s releasing new iPads as well. The iPad isn’t as ground breaking as it once was. The latest pro model will get the A13 chip which is old hat for iPhone users, but the screens are great looking still. After 2 years, the iPad Mini finally gets an update. The iPad Mini finally gets TouchID and a new Apple Pencil.

Everything is available next week.

You can watch a rerun here.

WILL C.L.AI.R.A. BRING SASSAFRASS TO GPT-3?

Earlier this week, the Creative Lab and leadership organization, Trill or Not Trill announced a new virtual AI named C.L.AI.R.A. C.L.AI.R.A. is a bit different in that she is a Black/Latina AI and is running using Generative Pre-Trained Transformer 3 technology, also known as GPT-3. Yup. The upgrade from GPT-2. That GPT-2. C.L.AI.R.A. is bilingual, Afro-Latina, and will be debuting at schools this month. The Creative Lab is a non-profit that has a mission of helping minority and poor communities obtain technology skills. If you are a regular First News 570 listener, you may remember we reported on a technology called GPT-2. At the time, GPT-2’s scientists had said the technology was too dangerous to place in public consumption because the writing and output of the tech made it very hard to distinguish between a human and a bot’s speech. GPT-3 is even more powerful with the highest class of the product being trained on 175 billion pieces of speech. I am super geeked out and fascinated by this. With three parameters you can get a machine to give you text/speech. I love it!

This means, and you need to understand this, you can tell GPT-3 a subject, and GPT-3 will do the research and give you back information on the subject in a human voice. A human voice making it hard for readers to tell. GPT-2’s scientists thought this tech would hurt humans by making it easy to spread misinformation and fake news that seems to come from credible sources. They didn’t think credible sources would spread misinformation and fake news on their on accord anyway. C.L.AI.R.A. has a generated face, generated voice, and the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence. What should we be concerned about?

You may not believe it, but I actually took some time off last weekend! I have an all day release planning meeting and the rest of the weekend should be coasting down hill. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s news: El Salvador is the first country to tenderly spend BitCoin, the FAA grounds Virgin Galactic, and Elizabeth Holmes v US heats up. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

EL SALVADOR FIRST TO ACCEPT BITCOIN AS LEGAL TENDER

Yup. That’s right. Yesterday, El Salvador became the first country to accept BitCoin as legal tender. Which means businesses will be obliged to accept BitCoin as a form of payment for goods and services. El Salvadorean consumers will can submit BTC and US dollars for payments hence forward. El Salvadoreans are further encouraged to spend BTC thanks to the government’s new app which promises to give each citizen $30 in BitCoin after they’ve activated the digital wallet. BitCoin is highly volatile shifting between $20,000, $63,000, and $30,000 per BTC in the last year. Some consumers are excited, others are highly concerned about how secure their earnings will be.

THERANOS TRIAL STARTS, HOLMES PAINTS HERSELF AS VICTIM

I. Am a startup founder. *gasps* I get it. Startup founders are often high energy, high merchant, and the future is so bright individuals. Startup founders often overstate, it’s a problem, and that’s the defense Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes is using in her and Theranos wire fraud trial. US prosecution is trying to paint Elizabeth Holmes as defrauding investors out of almost $700 million in funding, versus inventing a product that wasn’t right or ready and flaming out like many startups do. Honestly, it’s hard to say if Holmes lied about the super fast and easy blood testing kits it was promising, or if she didn’t know what she was talking about. In the end, Holmes wasn’t the genius the press and investors made her out to be. But, investors aren’t the smartest people in the room anyway.

VIRGIN GALACTIC GROUNDED UNTIL FAA COMPLETES INVESTIGATION

After flying so high, it sucks to be pulled back to the ground. The FAA has grounded Virgin Galactic after its SpaceShipTwo aircraft veered off of its intended flight plan during its reentry. SpaceShipTwo is the craft Richard Branson was onboard during his flight into lower Earth orbit. Flight paths are critical for maintaining safe skies and SpaceShipTwo’s course deviated from the filed flight plan. Virgin Galactic says that the deviation was a minor, but purposeful course correction and that their flights are safe. Virgin Galactic will be able to resume flights as soon as the FAA completes an investigation into the flight and certifies VG is ready to blast off.

A big Apple event is scheduled for September 14th. I’ll be here and on-the-air next Thursday to report on what we believe will be the new iPhone 13 and possibly a new Apple Watch. Mark it on your calendar.

Hey, did you know I have a new book coming out. Subscribe to my mailing list at lessonsoncomputing.com to stay in the know.

It’s the unofficial start of the Labor Day weekend. For real, you’ve earned it. Take some time off. I will. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s news: Chinese gamer kids are limited to 3 hours of play, NASA x Joby test flying cars in Big Sur, and Arizona and Georgia get iPhone drivers licenses first. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

CHINESE GOVERNMENT DOES WHAT PARENTS CAN’T: TAKE GAMES AWAY

In a bid to keep Chinese kids at the top of the class, or as the State puts it; reduce gaming addiction among teens-the Chinese government has introduced a law restricting teens 18 years and older to 3 hours of video game play per week! Not only that, kids can only play games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights between 8pm and 9pm. Oh! They’ll also be allowed to play on holidays. The law forces companies like Tencent to enforce realtime game usage. China’s President, Xi Jinping, called gaming addiction a teenage social problem, and obviously the government cured that. I get it. I have to kick my oldest kid off video games. It’s one of the reasons I sent them to camp. But, having the government impose this type of control on media is a bit too far. It’s not like they are keeping kids away from unsafe material, they’re just cutting them off from everything.

NASA AND JOBY AVIATION TEST FLY AIR TAXIS

NASA is raising the profile of flying cars by testing Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing vehicles (eVTOL). NASA is conducting test flights of eVTOL cars with newly IPO’d Joby Aviation. The test flights started this past Monday and will continue through to September 10th in Big Sur. The flights are part of NASA’s National Advanced Air Mobility campaign. NASA will be collecting performance analytics and noise data to measure the impact of the flying cars. The idea is that these vehicles will perform well and be quieter in highly populated urban areas.

APPLE SIGNS UP ARIZONA AND GEORGIA FOR DIGITAL DRIVERS LICENSES

Yesterday, the Fruit Company, announced that Arizona and Georgia will be the first states to support digital drivers licenses via the iPhone and Apple Watch’s Wallet app. Users will be able to add the licenses to Apple Wallet the same credits cards are added today. DL issuing states will provide verification of a valid license after the user enters the information. The really clutch move is that TSA will also support drivers licenses stored using Apple Wallet at select airports. Flyers can now tap their phone at a TSA identity reader to ID verification. Apple and States are saying users will have full privacy. States WILL NOT KNOW when and where users showed their ID, DL data is fully encrypted by Touch ID and Face ID, and DL storage is based upon ISO standards. No dates on when licenses go digital yet. I like the idea. I really do. But…anything and everything electronically shared can be snooped. There…I SAID IT.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I won’t be celebrating until tomorrow. I’m also back from my vacation working in Florida. I saw the Saturn V at Kennedy Space Center and I’ve come back inspired. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s news: everyone has finally caught wind of Pegasus, and Taco Bell wants you to run for the touchless border. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

NEW IPHONE EXPLOIT HAS PEOPLE SHOOK

When Mark Starling sends me a news story on my birthday about millions of iPhone users being exposed to an exploit, I click the link. TechCrunch has done an extensive story about how NSO Group, an Israeli security company, has released software that can be used to exploit users iPhones. The software is called Pegasus, and is a zero-click exploit, meaning that the user doesn’t have to click on content in order to start the attack. Zero-click attacks work because the Apple iPhone attempts to load and display hyperlinks in its iMessage app. iPhone users intuitively know this by being preview webpages, Instagram, and Facebook pages shared in iMessage. Pegasus is an actual application purchased and used by nation states to spy on activists, human rights supporters, and enemies of the state. The software has also been known to have enabled the kidnapping of one Dubai princess. The software has also evaded privacy protections Apple has written in their software. Let’s not get it twisted, this software isn’t useful technology even if it’s been bought for spying on enemies of the state. It’s just another attack vector to exploit people.

Key Tips

Don’t click on weird or foreign links. There are a number of AT&T and Verizon scams going around right now saying that you’ve over paid on your last bill. The links look weird AF. Don’t click them.

If you’re really nervous, you can turn off iMessage previews by going to Settings > Notifications > Notification Style > Messages and switch off ‘Show Previews’.

TOUCHLESS TACO BELL DEFIES HUNGER

Running for the border in Summer 2022, Minneapolis/St. Paul will get the first, touchless Taco Bell Defy. Taco Bell Defy is Taco Bell, but without face-to-face human contact. The restaurant features a drive thru layout that’s more akin to a bank branch than the traditional drive thru lane. Food will be delivered to drivers via proprietary lift system from an elevated kitchen, and mobile pick up orders can be retrieved by having a QR code scanned. You won’t see a human being, but you can talk them in realtime via a two way radio if you need to. We all know, there will be bots working in there. It’s only a matter of time.