NASA Perseveres, Tech CEOs Appear Before Congress, and the TikTok Shares Its Algo

It’s another Thursday which means another week of big tech news talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week…NASA shows Perseverance counts, $5 trillion of tech leadership sit before Congress, and the TikTok says other social networks should share. 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.

I Could Write a Lot of Material From This One Image

TECH HEAD HONCHOS APPEAR BEFORE CONGRESS

The CEOs of Amazon, El Goog, Apple, and Facebook all appeared before Congress yesterday with Jeff Bezos making his first appearance. The stakes, Congress is now scrutinizing these companies because they are being deemed too big to fail. The four companies are worth a combined $5 Trillion, that’s Trillion with a ‘T’ and are considered the Internet’s utilities. While other sectors have struggled during the pandemic, these companies are doing gang busters. Congress is scrutinizing these companies under the guise of anti-trust law, but it’s a lot trickier this time around. The anti-trust laws of the early 20th century were written for consumer protections. It’s hard to understand how consumers need protection when these services are free (Google and Facebook) are fast, easy, and cheap (Amazon), and down right convenient and easy to use (Apple). The stakes are different now, however. These companies punish smaller companies, and Amazon is known to buy companies and then crush their acquisition’s competitors using newly found information. I wouldn’t hold my breath, with need many enterprises in the mix.

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NASA PERSEVERES DURING COVID AND LAUNCHES ITS LARGEST ROVER

This morning, NASA will launch it’s latestest and largest rover, Perseverance at 750 am ET. The Perseverance rover checks in at 1,025 metric tons and is larger than Curiosity the last rover to visit Mars. Perseverance will launch from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket. This rover is carrying a new experiment that will be used to determine if humans can survive on Mars. The experiments will comprise tests to determine if oxygen can be produced from Mars’ CO2 rich environment. It’s exciting seeing NASA continue exploring our local cosmos. I think we should always keep pushing the limits. You can watch the launch on NASA Live.

TIKTOK RESPONDS TO CRITICISM AND SHARES ALGORITHM

After being labeled spyware for the Chinese government by the Senate, The TikTok’s CEO, Kevin Mayer, took to the blogosphere to say that his company isn’t the enemy. Mayer has stated that without TikTok, companies would have fewer choices to advertise their wares, and in a show of good faith, will be sharing their algorithm. (I’m interested) He also called on the other social giants to share their algorithms as well. Again, I won’t hold my breath, and I won’t download their app, but I’ll certainly try to get an invite to TikTok’s Transparency Center.

Apple Commits to Carbon Neutrality, Microsoft Makes Eye Contact, Investors Try to Appease White House

TikTok, TikTok, TikTok

It’s another Thursday which means another week of big tech news talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. In this week’s roundup, the Apple commits to being carbon neutral, Microsoft wants to make eye contact with its customers, and US investors try to move on TikTok before the US Senate bans the app. 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.

APPLE COMMITS TO BE CARBON NEUTRAL BY 2030

Earlier this week, Apple announced that they and their suppliers are committing to be carbon neutral by 2030. This means that their devices will have zero carbon impact at the point of sale. Apple’s pledge must also be met by their suppliers in which they must be 100% renewable for Apple production. Apple is going one step further by saying they will reclaim all of their greenhouse emissions by 2050. Apple isn’t the only one going greener, Microsoft is planning to be carbon negative by 2040 with other technology giants Amazon and Google following suit.

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Batterygate Ends, Celebs Get Got in Bitcoin Scam, and the Senate Wants TikTok Banned

It’s another Thursday, and Mark Starling is back! That means it’s time to talk tech with the First News 570 crew. In this week’s roundup, the Batterygate saga ends with an Apple settlement, a bunch of celebrity Twitter accounts are implicated in a Bitcoin scam, and the US Senate bans TikTok. 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.

A quick break from the silly world of technology news.

For real, for real people. We can fault leadership for not taking swift and definitive action while COVID-19 was just beginning to make its impact felt on all of us. Now, we have to take our health and safety into our own hands. This week, I’ve read reports of summer camps experiencing C19 outbreaks, cities and towns are re-entering shelter-in-place phases, and schools are pressing the issue of sending kids back to closed in spaces. I know it can sound elitist to talk about working from home, and I fully know that people need to work, but with 1% of our nation’s population having been infected, and 130k people died because of this, we have to operate on our own volition.

For Real, C19 Infection Rates Should Be Trending Downward

Personally, there have been two deaths in our family (they were older) due to covid, one of my software developers and his fiancee’ had contracted and it was touch and go, and I have friends who went on a water park trip, contracted covid, and now have ruined friendships over their behavior.

Wear a mask. Not only for your safety, but for the safety of your neighbors. Avoid large gatherings, get takeout from your favorite restaurants if you want to keep them in business (and tip well). If you want go out, practice social distancing so you decrease the chance of spread to your friends and family. And try to limit your time out and about.

This shit is real.

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New High Def Video for Slow Streamers, El Goog Cancels Great Firewall of China, IT Guys Get Busted for Weed Payments

Mark Starling is out on vacation, but I’m going to keep the tech news going. Tune in next week for the next time I’m live with the First News 570 crew. This week, we’re talking about Google’s acquisition of wearable computing company, North, how corporate America is boycotting Facebook, and a quick round up of this year’s World Wide Developer Conference. 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.

Image Courtesy of Alex Castro from The Verge

8K TV FOR 4K BANDWIDTH

We still don’t have a lot of content for 4K connections, and now 8K connections are coming right around the corner. After three years of negotiations, the major tech players and TV manufactures have agreed on a new format, H.266 Versatile Video Coding, to stream content using half the bandwidth we currently use. The new codec will allow people with slow connections to stream HD, 4K, and higher content depth. Like everything else, let’s see what the pr0n industry implements.

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Google Heads North, Apple Shops Lots of Stuff, and Corporate America Boycotts Facebook

It’s the unofficial start of the Fourth of July weekend! Yes, it’s Thursday, which means it’s time for tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, we’re talking about Google’s acquisition of wearable computing company, North, how corporate America is boycotting Facebook, and a quick round up of this year’s World Wide Developer Conference. 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.

North’s AR Glasses – Image Courtesy of Arc Technica

BIG BRANDS BOYCOTT FACEBOOK AD BUYS

Just in time for Facebook to roll out their new user experience, major corporations aren’t buying ads on the platform. A consistently growing list of companies are joining an ad buying protest on the platform, because Facebook doesn’t do enough to halt the spread of hate and racist speech on the platform. This isn’t the first time we’ve reported on Facebook not being able to stop all hate speech and whether or not it does enough. After employing tens of thousands of human moderators to halt hate, speech more than enough content still goes through. List of companies boycotting Facebook is a Who’s Who of American business spanning across all industries. The boycott is expected to last through July or when Facebook changes its policies.

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