I don’t know if there has been a more exciting week, since the week of August 21st, 1977! In one week, McDonald’s has reissued the McRib, and Mariah Carey has released a chocolate chip cookie line. It’s too much! Someone save me from myself.

Lots of suits this week in the tech world. Here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, New York and a bunch of states want to sue Facebook, Amazon announces a new device to enforce employee compliance, and El Goog is sued for spying on employees then firing them. 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.

AMAZON ANNOUNCES CORONA CORPORATE COMPLIANCE TATTLER

This week, Amazon announced Panorama, an electronic appliance that plugs into a company’s existing closed circuit TV system that enforces employee compliance. The system uses off-the-shelf AI technology to determine if employees are wearing face masks. Amazon is advertising that the system could be used to perform automated inspection tasks such as searching for product defects in manufacturing. Fender Guitar says it uses Panorama to track the amount of time it takes an employee to assemble a guitar. Potentially, there can be negative impacts to employee morale when monitoring tools are abused. My suggestion? Hire the right people. Meanwhile, Amazon IS paying its employees $500MM in bonuses.

EL GOOG ILLEGALLY FIRES WORKERS AFTER SPYING ON THEM

The National Labor Relations Board has filed two complaints against Google after learning they fired the employees after spying on their behaviors. The two employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, were fired after engaging in employee organizing and activism. Google, the former ‘Do No Evil’ corporation, have had employee relations issues these past two years. Employees have staged walkouts for Google’s work with DoD and allegations of sexual harassment. My wife has contracted for Google, and one of my colleagues told me she’d never work at the Googleplex again. Go figure.

PREVIEW: GROUP OF US STATES PLAN TO SUE FACEBOOK

Talk about telegraphing your intentions. A group of states, led by New York, are planning to sue Facebook on the grounds of antitrust violations. No one knows what is going to be listed in the suit, but it will be the second suit governments have brought against a large tech company for antitrust violations with Google being the first this year. The US Federal Trade Commission has had its sites on Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google since 2019 and Congress has interviewed the tech CEOs several times this year. Somewhere in a grove of trees in Washington state, Bill Gates is looking up from his book and thinking, “ha!”

It’s Thursday! Chris Krebs is gone after securing an effective election. So, it’s been another wild week. Here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, Apple pays up again for batterygate, a new app translates meows into English, and Google wants to be in your wallet. 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.

THE FRUIT COMPANY ENTERS $113 MILLION SETTLEMENT FOR BATTERYGATE

Yesterday, Apple agreed to a settlement with 34 states to the tune of $113 million for throttling performance on older iPhones that received iOS updates. The settlements comes as Apple agreed that it was purposefully making phones slower in a bid to preserve battery life as iPhones aged over time. Apple argued that the battery performance degraded and one way to preserve a user’s battery life was to slow the phone down. Well, the courts and lawyers disagreed, but Apple did come to terms with this payout. This settlement comes after a previous Batterygate settlement Apple made to the tune of $500 million. Personally, I hold off on upgrading iOS for as long as I can. I was forced into updating it for my Apple Watch and my phone has been acting wonky every since.

NEW APP TRANSLATES MEOWS, CATS YAWN AND TURN AWAY

Sometimes, I really think I’m working on things that are too complicated. Instead of trying to solve real problems, I should spend my time working on nonsensical stuff. Like what? Well, how about an app that translates a cat’s meow into English. Yup! A former Amazon Alexa engineer, a former Amazon Alexa engineer, is responsible for the app idea. According to Javier Sanchez, the group technical product manager at Akvelon, the software developer, the end goal is to make a smart collar that can be used to translate speech. Seems like a gimmick to me, but users on the website are pleased with the app, claiming that their cat now tells them, “I’m in love,” 90% of the time. The app uses advanced AI techniques to decipher cat meows. Cat experts say that cats don’t have a language like their human masters, but their masters don’t care.

EL GOOG GETS INTO FINANCIAL SERVICES WITH NEW PAY APP

This week, Google relaunched its Google Pay app in a bid to compete with Apple, Venmo, and other financial services technology companies. The app has moved beyond a simple tap-to-pay function and will now provide users with the ability to link bank accounts and credit cards with the app. Google is saying AI technology can provide advanced insights into spending habits and will replace the same functions users have at their banks. Google says their app will use your spending data to select the best accounts to use for making purchases. For instance, it may select a credit card for purchase if it provides the best cash back bonuses. Google is touting strict privacy rules for the app, but I’d imagine they are mining your spending data which will result in better ads.

It’s another Thursday, and here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. Fasten your seat belts, we are in for a bumpy ride. This week, Microsoft took down a hacker group launching TrickBots, Apple announced the new iPhone 12, and Jeff Bezos launched a rocket. 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.

MICROSOFT TAKES DOWN TRICKBOT NETWORK BEFORE ELECTION

We’re less than 20 days away from the 2020 US Presidential Election, and we should be prepared for the shenanigans. This week, Microsoft obtained a federal court order to disable the IP addresses of servers used by a global hacking ring. The hacking ring was selling services to other hackers as well as launching Trickbot malware attacks against companies that make products adjacent to election systems. Trickbot has been used in attacks against Universal Health Services, and Tyler Technologies a software vendor for public institutions. Tyler has reportedly paid the ransomware attackers for a decryption key that will help them regain access to their systems. Tyler has put up a public notice about the attack against them.

APPLE ANNOUNCES IPHONE 12

The world’s most valuable fruit company announced their latest edition iPhone earlier this week. The iPhone 12 harkens back to the iPhone 4 of yore with squared off corners, and comes in multiple corners. The i12 will also get rid of the LCD display in favor of a brighter OLED screen, and features a camera with a whopping f/1.6 aperture. The phone also features a ceramic heat shield that will protect it from re-entry, and 5G. The big innovation for this iPhone is MagSafe. The tech is prevalent across Macs and is used for attaching power cables to the computer. This tech could potentially remove the need for any cables, as MagSafe can be used for contact charging and data transmission. I’ve had my current iPhone since December of 2017. I think I’m due for an upgrade. Pre-orders start this Friday, and the phone will be available on October 23rd.

BEZOS’ BLUE ORIGIN SUCCESSFULLY PROVES EXTRA-PLANETARY LANDINGS

Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, successfully launched the New Shepard booster which is designed to land astronauts on the Moon and Mars. NASA wanted to test the technology before it is sent to the Moon. New Shepard was carrying sensors and running software for sub-orbital space tourism trips. The booster will be shuttling a crew capsule that features the largest windows of any craft flown in space. I want to go.