DOJ confirms it wants Google to sell Chrome
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What's that internet? Welcome back to the engaging podcast. I'm seen her editor, c, to make your hardwar this week, joined by pocket producer ben haben.

Everybody this we kind of all about the thing we have been expecting for while department of justice is confirmed that he really wants google to sell chrome. And this follows the news where they ruled that essentially that google had a search monopoly. Um we've been talking about that for Better part of this year actually.

Um so that decision is down. We were all kinds expecting and and also android, maybe a part of this as well will dive into all of IT also why none of this will probably ever happen, as always works. If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe us on itunes or your pot catch of choice.

Leave us a review on itunes to drop A E mail at podcast, adding gado com. We have to do a light stream thursday morning on ten forty five eastern and join us sits of fun time. I'm looking at folks right now in the chat and yet you'll find, you know we have video on demand recordings of that stuff.

Two but come, but sometimes will do q sometimes we'll show off gadgets, tes and things like that. Then we have been talking about this thing for a while, and i've been fishing around. I get some legal experts to join us at some point, but at this point we can say the department of justice is officially said they wants google to sell off chrome and google is responded a way too. Google is saying this is a like staggering proposal that would harm consumers and affect us. Uh, tech leadership, as google would say, tech leadership .

because you don't own your browser anymore because he .

would be bad for amErica and IT would be bad for the technology world if google did not own crime. Um but Terry cap folks, this goes all the way back to the ruling that google was a search monopoly and that came down to that google was paying companies billions of dollars, including apple. The report was like twenty billion dollars in one year to make google search the primary search on their Operating systems.

Um so that was you know that was the thing the government could not really abide, but this was also the you know the D O. J. And also the fcc under the biden administration, which was a lot stronger regulatory wise. We talked a lot about lacon and what she's been doing at the ftc as well.

And that stuff it's gonna away it's gonna vaporous like tears in the rain uh with the incoming trump administration, which is pretty much um there's a great piece by carl boat over a texture they think I really to should reave it's called that neutrality is dead is a door and nail under trump two point now and that's pretty much IT because we've talked about the by administration sort of a was making room the rule that could have reenacted neutrality was a thing that they restore this year. But it's been held up in court so we never actually got um proper and new trial back in this country. And that's the idea that you know I S P um there basically couldn't make up their own rules about how they manage their networks, about how they charged people was kind of mess. Do remember that whole conversation ban.

yeah oh yeah. No, I I absolutely remember IT. And the thing that i'm thinking of right now is if you were on read IT, uh, I don't know the late twenty tens or no.

Not late twenty ten, excuse me, late odds though, maybe the mid twenty tens every time people started talking about net neutrality this photoshopped like flying um from one of the telecom companies it's an imagined fire from one of the telecom companies saying you here is your bundle if you pay just five dollars more you get access to x and y websites um talking about data caps also and that never came to fruition so just to play the other side here. Why is this different? Because IT feels very much like the luni tune situation of tearing down the posters.

It's ducks ison. It's rabbit season. It's ducks season. It's rabbit season that neutrality is dead or alive. Why is this different or is .

a different this I mean, I just brought the neutrality thing in terms of regulation, but the big topic right now is regulation and what a future trumpet administration would do when IT comes to regulation of you know of big technology companies of companies in general of of the telecom industry and in general IT seems like all sciences point to regulation not being a thing anymore, I think even related to this um late to the know google diversion of chrome. Trump uh made a comment, he says, uh, you could do what you could do without breaking IT up is make sure it's more fair and quote, I don't know what that means but a fairness .

of cord sounds like self .

governance to me that sounds like the free market is everything um so that's kind of where we are right now. And just the idea of google vesting of chrome was something like we have brought up and we've talked about the like mental model of that.

And the only way that would have happened is if we existed in a country that was like very strong regulatory wise and had a ada consumer protections and basically IT seems like where we're headed is that consumer protections in general, all the good things we've been hearing about from the ftc just aren't really gonna a thing right now. Detect article like that have really good list of things I think like policing data caps. I think we're brought that, that at some point stopping companies from like a ripped you off in many ways.

The the whole thing about if you subscribe to something easier on mind, you should be able to unsubscribe from IT. All of those kinds of things are not can be a big deal because um at least from the conservative model, consumer protections just shouldn't ist. They just don't help anybody. So IT sounds scary.

I think it's yet to be seen whether or not we're going to get to a world that the imagined telecomm flare that was often posted on redit was showing us .

though I mean, probably that was just a whole scary thing. Um so the D O J S arguments for google, something off cho is essentially like they want to open up the market little bit and stop giving google so much power when he comes to to the control over the search industry in general and probably the advertising industry as well.

But google's comments on this are just so um let me see here google head like their lawyer can Walker present of global affairs in the chief legal officer, gave us like gave language that really sounds like he is speaking to Donald trump like the incoming, hey, mr. Donald trump, the d here's from his letter the D O J had a chance to propose, remember, dies relative this issue, in this case, such such distribution agreements with wires Carriers. Instead, the U.

J chose to push a radical, interventionist agenda that would harm americans and americans. Global technology leadership. D O J S. Wildly overbought proposal goes miles beyond the court's s decision. IT would break a range of GLE products even beyond search that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.

Because we love our google guy as everybody loves google, nobody y's pissed off about google search getting progressively worse um being hard to find finding things or how city gni is in general. Uh, there is a bunch of public point. I would endanger the security privacy of americans, a one that I found really interesting.

He would chill. Our investment in artificial intelligence. Think about google's investment in artificial intelligence .

of google's investment in putting artificial intelligence first on their google searches when IT isn't actually all that useful.

Think of the in the tens of billions of dollars that google has spent on artificial. Won't you think of that? They're saying it's perhaps the most important innovation of our time where google plays a leading role. Don't quite believe that they also think of this thing that we talked to about.

Just saw another thing that said hurt innovative services ses like mosula firefox. I was businesses depend on google. Yeah, go ahead. I was reading .

that because we have talked about this. We've talked about the idea that IT is wide, that a large chunk of mozilla's revenue, the nonprofit mozilla comes from.

When we talk about a large chunk we're talking about like nineteen eighty percent yeah like a ridiculous amount.

So basically, mozilla as an organization depends on IT charging google for the stuff. And now google can turn around be like, k, you're going to hurt mozilla if we can't if we can't charge GLE for search placement. So yeah, that's kind of world we live in right here.

And I totally see like google response and I see like the tech industry at large, like certainly the libertarians are like not super cool with the idea. Don't worry guys, it's never onna happen. IT really won't happen, not in the upcoming administration when IT comes to regulation, but also everything that we're seeing.

The trump folks are not even an office yet, but from their plans, IT does seem like the supreme court is already stacked in their favor. Uh, federal points are gonna there for a long time to coming as part of this administration. It's gonna be years, probably decades, before we can like, really wait through all this stuff.

And like, I don't know, bring actual like regulation that could help consumers back. So that's kind of a dark time we're entering. Ben, I don't know how you feel about this is not good.

I really don't like to think that I would be decades, but um IT would .

be IT would be a while and less um basically unless the opposition to conservatives, unless democrats um started really being strong about how they use power and wheeled power and push regulation in general. But there are things you can't stop right if the supreme court, which is already already like conservative pack, right, unless you expand that core or do other things to kind of give future democratic leadership more ability to regulate these companies. We're gonna have them run free rain, and that's really worked well over the past few decades.

books. I do think that is like seeing how long this this new administration is posed to be that there could be an increased appetite for, you know, very sweeping changes like packing court. But that is literally just me being optimistic perhaps so in this like list of bullets of talking about why this is like why selling chrome is bad for google, it's pretty predictable.

It's saying, look, it's going to hurt us. We can possibly do this. And the moon in the chat says literally every company would say that. And it's true.

Literally every company has said this all the way back to the trust busting movement of the twenty eighth century, all the way back to the labor movement. Also in the twenty eighth century, we can't have an eight hour work day. All of the businesses would go under that.

We can have weekends. We can have children not work in our factories. Think of the production of the american I come.

There are tiny, little hands. They are so good at getting into the machines as they're running.

This is america, like, this is, in general, the history of america, the history of capitalism. General, right? Like fighting against any rules to constrain things. So yeah, okay.

but let's to talk about the gadget angle of this. So let's say chrome is sold off. Does that mean chrome books? Let's say that android is also spun off. The android thing.

by the way, is very particularly. The android thing is if google cannot stop doing the thing where they're basically making android, where they making people pay them to make google the default in the android phones, if they don't cut that out, they're going to the governments like you should also sell off. And right? So that's more so that's a stipulation.

yes. It's like if you don't do this, then we are also going to come for your mobile division.

which I think that would be a far big or deal like android is the thing. Android is sort of a it's like the windows of the smartphone world, right? IT is the thing that powers a multitude devices from other companies.

Google absolutely took the windows PC model there to do that. Um that would be earth shattering ing for google. Chrome is just like, well, it's a browser a lot of us use.

It's a very popular browser. I also could easily see how he could just like carve that off and let that go off and be its own thing. And I think that could actually end up being Better for chrome because the problem with chrome right now, he is so bogged down with the google garbage um how does .

chrome make money then?

That's a good question. I'm not i'm not a business person. Um there are there could potentially be deals or other things chrome could do. Um I am not sure how browsers make money in general, but that's up to these companies to figure out the way google does that right now. Chrom Epace f or i tself b ecause I T l eads p eople b ack t o g oogle p roducts t hat l eads p eople b ack t o g oogle s earch a nd s erves p eople g oogle a ds.

So because how long long has he been since we had a dedicated company that does a browser and just a browser, forget the fact that mozilla is pretty much a like vessel state to google we're talking about, Opera we're talking about.

which charges people a minimal fee, I believe, for Browns. So that was the whole thing.

yes. okay. And how much market share does that have that much?

But that's the thing. If you the whole reason, a big part of what the D O J has been saying, he was like, google is so powerful. IT has also made chrome so powerful because its own searches and could put all its running into this browser, which is free, sure, but which sort of dominates the landscaping away.

That is uncompetitive and a hard argument to make to it's like the thing with microsoft in the nineties. Um that was the the any trust hearing there was about including the explorer within windows and that was in an error where netscape was like, kate, we have to try people thirty dollars. I think I remember spending thirty dollars netscape at some point when I was a teenager to get that thing and that escape like that's anticompetitive because microsoft can just dump their thing in here for free. Google can just dump in chrome for free or make IT available, make IT a core part of the android experience, right? And that just spreads its uh its footprint and doesn't really give people options is the thing like options exist, but it's hard for them to survive because you're right.

And how does the brothers make money? I don't think we've seen that in the modern era. So I don't know if we had a like definitive answer. Do you think this would include chrome books if we're looking at the gadget angle?

Yeah yeah a chrome power.

okay. So that is how chrome makes money. Then chrome the browser sales maybe like they they make some big push into um becoming more of a consumer technology company.

That's hard. That's innovation. If happen.

i'm sorry, going to innovate.

The robots are debt. Like if that if this actually happened, chrome books are probably dead because hardware requires a lot more experience, like if they are if they're covering the stuff and they are just going to be okay. Your chrome is its own separate thing.

The hardware people are at google, you know. So the people who make the chrome books and design the chrome books are google. The people who design the software, maybe on the chrome side, I don't actually don't know how that works up.

But either way, you would not want to sell these things because um the the market for selling laptops right down is kind of tough. Even even big companies like apple and like half trouble at times doing the stuff like building the heart. We are getting IT out there doing consumer supporting things like that well.

And then there's a question of OK. Does chrome spin out on its own and become chrome ink or does IT potentially get sold to something else? Is a possibility that I don't know a bunch of other tech companies could form some kind of consortium to buy chrome and I don't know fight over IT via like that financial instrument or something that that .

may be another way to may like google cuts off a lime, right. And the other start fighting over IT. I was thinking like you don't want like microsoft to just go and buy this, right? You want to have some like stipulations in the two.

And microsoft is also very wary about anymore like antitrust stuff. So these are open questions. I would love to see IT. I would love to like know how A A company like that could survive, but also that this stuff like the breaking up of t mobile into like baby bells, was that in the eighties that definitely help to spread um IT helps lower Prices that increase competition like IT made IT easier for people to get long distance service.

I believe in just phone service in general there when we talked about that, there were arguments that, that may have held back innovative, little bit like the ability to make phoneline faster for internet was maybe slow down a little bit because IT wasn't like a giant eighty anymore. But at the end of the day, like we survived. And I think overall, people had more options.

And if you listen if you hear like one thing from our podcast and that we keep talking about, competition always makes the stuff Better, right? Um IT helps apple to have google in the android side of things, uh doing what their doing with android to push what iphone could be doing or what their products could be doing. IT helped when we had other competing platforms to like windows phone, the sort of like glorious moment when we had windows phone and android and iphone ever was, just like trying to figure out the mobile web IT was so cool and so exciting and people were taking features from each other that made these products Better.

That's evolution, right? Yeah um but I also can't help but think that this is like a halfway measure. And what actually should be broken up is google add business because yeah when you break up mobile, you're breaking up.

Yes, like a whole telecom monopoly, the actual monopoly that exists on the internet is okay. Maybe there are two. One is how you access the internet, and chrome has an enormous market share there.

But two, I frequently talk about that figure. I saw where something like three out of every four dollars in online advertising is spent at either google or facebook. So the real thing you need to break up there, especially if you want like just a Better ecosystem of um advertising to support other ventures online.

Other smaller websites maybe break up the big advertisers online. But that would be really, really hard. Well.

that you're sounding like a straight up socialist ban, like the most impressive thing to do. I think that would be the little things to do. I think chrome was the easy target to be like, hey, it's just the browser, right? IT is just google browser.

Google's a real businesses advertising. So we have found, yes, google search definitely monopoly. Maybe we could help to like stave off that influence a little bit if we if we at least push google to sell off chrome and also stop these deals where google can make itself the default on all these other platforms. So I think was like a low hanging fruit thing, you know yeah.

exactly exactly.

So it's funny that people are reacting like, oh, my god, could you believe google could do that? Probably I mean, potentially, and that probably would have helping to. But we will never know.

We will probably never know what IT would be like if google had to sell off chrome because it's just going to be just all a big technology ward guys. It's all did you even who's spend that? I think when google CEO called the trumpet administration to say, congrats right? Um ella musk on the line oh.

I didn't see the thing about elon.

Go, yeah. I mean that I think that was a story I saw, but that is also where we are never forget about llamas being such an a crucial part of this like administration, at least right now. But he poured two million dollars into IT. He is there at trumps here. And you've got big tech literally just controlling the rains of government and regulations soon.

So and the funny thing is that the folks who are running these companies like mosque and like teal, don't see themselves as big tech. They see themselves as maybe in the middle layer because they're not amazon, they're not google or maybe facebook or something. And there like a well, i'm just describe the little business founder.

I don't know about that. No, no, no. Like elon him as the future of humanity.

his children, he sees himself as the future of humanity. But the reason that he has such, such a victim complex is because he's not jeff bazas don't .

know he's still he still ritual than jeff bazo. So he's still win on paper.

on paper and I think that that's what bothers him that it's all like it's not all paper wealth, but IT is significantly more paper wealth for musk than IT is for um basis and that's how they measure to yeah I mean, they're all they're .

all kind of like dig measured at this point. But there's also the thing where I think there's a good argument that socially the culture started to turn against elon musk when he started leaning more into a right wing politics. Um being more of me ord online, I think the train point for a lot of people was the whole um the kids being trapped in a cave thing where he just lost his mind online and started calling like the dude was he was actually trying to .

help a pedophile and just like he's like why are you even in thailand like only weirdos go to thailand.

That's that's pretty much IT and a dude bot twitter to be king twitter you know ah so everybody likes this stuff and gets mad when biden got more legs or engaged me that in the post and he did. So that's kind of where we're at.

There is some significant evidence that he thought that the walke mind virus turned his daughter trans, and he'd wanted to buy the place where the world mine virus lived.

It's it's the warn book books. Anyway, drop us in the mail pocket and get a com. Let us know, what do you think about this? I mean, this thing that will never actually happen, but the idea of government regulation of over power technology companies, what a concept.

Let's move on to some other news also kind of related to corporate. Uh, we adjustments a comcast announced that he is spinning out with tomatoes and the cable networks its owes into a separate company. Those cable networks include USA network remembred them C M B, C M S N B C oxygen e size I golf channel.

They are gone to have a new home in a spin off company which does not have a name at um that's kind of interesting. Uh, congress is hanging on to N B C universal stuff. So that is N B C proper, which is a broadcast network p ock. The streaming service film and TV studies toronto and the parks and problem IT seems like .

it's holding on to everything that makes them a lot of money and letting go of everything that makes them only a little money.

Or cable cables. A tough thing to to hold right now. I don't know what you do.

Throw ten to me is at this point two, which was such a cool, useful service when IT launched and has now become an ARM of the TV of the like movie industry, right? Like rotten tomatoes are, they also owned a fan angle? Fan danger s can be a part of the spin off company.

IT is really wild to think that the company where allowed people buy tickets from is also owning the same thing that owns review accurate, or that tells people which movies to go see. That was a weird thing. That was a weird thing when to happen.

It's vertical integration.

Vertical integration. I know people who worked at about intiative. I know they tried hard to like keep editorial, like some editorial separation there, but it's it's stuff like when you're just own by a company, they just want people to go to the movies or you know make money off that investment.

So kind of an interesting thing. I wonder what they'll do with this been off what's evening to be called? Uh, yeah.

this spin off company has the potential to have a profoundly stupid name if we know anything from the quippy of the world, the .

quippy, the go nineties of the world, they're all terrible folks. I mean, listen, I am also a big fan of moby, moby, which is the subscription uh you know service that uh also brought some cool movies to theatres like the fall. They brought the fall and substance uh but there is also a free version that they do called tube.

So it's just really hard to keep all these things in track, but we'll be following this to I saw the story about um this is kind of how we framed that zones reportedly in talks to buy the elden ring and dark souls developer um because essentially uh they are in talks acquire kotak a which is the japanese publisher. They own a majority stake, like seventy percent stake in from software creators of the souls games. But they also owe a bunch of things.

They own the enemy news network. They own other developers to like um was IT acquire. I believe that acquire is the company that met ten to and a bunch of other games.

Um there's a whole bunch of anemia person and other things as part of this to. So the story here is less about elden ring. I'd say I think the'd be a nice get for SONY. It's more about like this is SONY potentially doing like a marvel deal, like when disney bot marvel, like there's all the stuff underneath this brand, this brand owns that could be really useful for them. So we have been investing more and enemy, too.

of all kinds. c. sensory. I have a feeling that people are going to be very mad about this, and I hope that IT doesn't get bogged down in like corporate bureaucracy because I think that that's what the fear is.

I mean, who who knows? Who knows what this can do? They have forget also, SONY anny is part of SONY now which is a big enemy and they're role from a because a again in twenty twenty .

one it's a SONY owns county rule.

I was not aware of that yeah yeah sone officially bought them. I don't know there has not been any update pond that but yet they bought grunter al for one point two billion dollars at the towards to the beginning of the pandemic. This is more about enemy that is about a elden ring, I would say. Did you see the story bent about a undersea internet cables data cables being cut um in the bullish sea?

Yes, yes. And I here I wonder .

what's happening there. Yes.

I wonder what major power city is on the bulk sea. Could he be Petersburg? Where is the same? Petersburg. So yeah, there's a non zero chance that this could be russian medal.

But I also want to leave IT up to you know leave a little chance for there to be that IT was just some other concern that was annoyed about um you know that they didn't get to lay these undersea cables. Maybe IT was like an an actual corporate actor or something. I am defending russia here. I am not defending russia here. But um sometimes silly little things like that happen and people are like weight IT is an an international incident that .

so confusing if we would be that good like a 475d chest right where you're like， um yes, the everybody is looking at rationales if we do a thing and blame them, probably easy to make IT A A whole thing. That is the entire plot of the diplomat on netflix. So yes, that is definitely good.

Subterfuge upon subterfuge exactly like just .

point to an easy villain um let me see here so yeah so the story is germany says he's undersea cut uh the cables were definitely sabotage. IT wasn't some sort of error and another cable connecting lithia ivanian and sweden was also cut on sunday. The timing here, especially when you're looking at rushes a war against ukraine and kind of the news that the, U.

S. Would be allowing for, uh, more powerful missiles to be you like a sending more missiles, ukraine like that, all seems like a response to that whole thing, maybe response to delay any other sort of action until the trumpet administration comes in and all the sudden that whole war is over, right? Like ukraine has .

gone for ant. Yeah I don't know about that. Like we would really have to say because on one hand, like yeah the a trumped administration would really like to roll over and show its belly like a dog um putin but on the other hand, there is a lot of a nationalist verver coming in there, especially if heg zeh ends up actually as the secretary of defense and so there might be some people who are like, actually nationalism is good and ukraine has a lot of nationalism right now. They are fighting for their county so yeah.

I don't know, I don't know. But first of what, we don't know that I need those nominations. That guy at the recent story about his background is I don't think that's onna fly, but also tilsa gabbard, who was nominated to lead U. S. Telling a good god tusa gabbard, I have so many feelings about indian americans who go into politics and always just show their asses very much that she's arrest in asset, basically.

So I feel yes, that feels like the headline is wolf wearing silly little costume of a sheep nominated to be the head of head .

of the sheep security so you know that again, none I don't think actually go through. But who knows what this congress will do now um to me that is the worrying thing like the here we know trims alliances and we kind of know that more and more people are very russia pilled within russia because they're getting IT doesn't IT doesn't matter not about country, man, like they are. They are getting money from these people and that's kind of just the way that's what's going to lead them. That's what's going to lead this entire going be scary to see folks.

So the moon in the chat says trumps appointments are just means to gas, light the progressives and keep everyone distracted. 是， that would be a great idea if we haven't already seen that this administration does not think about step one and a half IT is all is you are putting more thought into IT.

If you're thinking it's a mean just to make sure you are putting more thought into IT, then I think this administration is where literally it's just who who are my friends, who are my loyal supporters like that is the fascist uh you know playbook is essentially you want realty relevant expertise in among the people in charge around you. And he is picking the loyalist people around him so they're insane choices uh frickin frickin the cofer, the W W E. Head of education.

Linder mic man.

we are falling onto the ocracoke ooks full on to the ocracoke.

Ah seriously.

I don't think it's just strolling like these are the legions they may not ever actually come to pass but these are the legitimate things that they are trying to do and I have to say every time someone was like, oh yeah they are just joking ya I don't know that that kind of that still ended up with a lot of people being um hurt and ended up with being um families being separated at the border IT ended up with kids in uh no immigration camps at the border. The stupidity still leads to like really, really a painful outcomes for people, even if you think it's a joke.

So the yeah the only thing that I have to like only advice that I have for listener's going into this new era is don't pay so much attention to the palace intrigue of the next four years especially all of the msnbc like, oh, I hope you know everyone in the White house has a headache and diary and like, because there is there is a lot of like, I just wish these people are having a bad day. Look beyond that and just look at the vector of where policy is going. Cast your mind in that direction rather than spending so much time watching the like tiny little details dribble out of an administration where everyone hates each other and they come from a culture where CoOperation is not valued.

It's going to be I want to be a thing to watch. Um I knew you want to talk about this. Then the whole pokemon go thing or the niantic essentially saying that they use the data from pokemon go in their other games to create a large geospatial AI power model of the world.

This is spooky, but not surprising. Let's remember the fact that niantic IT was part of google .

for a while too. IT was part .

of google for a while. He was founded by john hankey. And in two thousand one, and IT got money from the ci's venture capital fund.

So if he wasn't an intelligence guy before he went into this with intelligence aspirations, IT was purchased by google in two thousand four the original nyoni or the original name for nyoni que was keyhole ink and then from two thousand four to about twenty sixteen um IT was part of google and IT focused on games and then IT spun out as nyanza twenty fifteen. Talk on go. Summer was twenty sixteen while IT was at google.

Let's be really, really cognizant of what was happening at google at that time. They wanted to turn users into a mechanical turk. Think about how they were also very enthusiast with Louis fan on and all of his work that he did with recaptured because they were trying to digitize all the books and recaptured was really instrumental in um getting humans to figure out a word that their optical software couldn't figure out.

So this is very much like they're taking a lot of information from the google playbook and saying, okay, well, what if we just had the users to work for us? Von, on later company, dual lingo runs on that same idea. Um I was a like very part time producer for a show called the genius dialogues.

I think that came out through audible, and these were a bunch of people who had won macArthur genius grants. One of the interviews was Louis van on, and he's like, yeah, that's actually one of the big things that I brought to google and brought to computer science period. I've wanted to use users you know five minutes a day or so to be a Better computer than the computers that they had at the time.

So that makes so much sense that nyanza now using all of the information that IT gathered via poke mongo via um the Harry potter like pokemon go, similar game. Now they also have this picture game where people are just walking around, you know creating maps and now all phones have lighter wo wow. So yes, they are doing this large geo spatial model um similar to an LLM.

And I think the thought among a lot of people is that this is going to power, you know, maybe the boston dynamics robot dogs of the future or something. They get much, much easier for them to navigate in like large spaces. I know this is yeah again.

they've been doing this from the start to like so i'm not too surprised about this model because forever, forever niantic tics has been talking about like we just want to gather a lot of location data and that's been through the lens of poke monca and love the games save said um I wrote up something that they did um let me see here there a campfire they had like something called camp fire which was the social APP they wanted to make a sort of like a disco al alternative.

They are trying to get people to like think more about the the stuff that they're doing locally. But yeah, they just kind of fully make sense. In twenty two, they announced thing called lightship V, P, S, or virtual positioning system.

IT was a new platform that let developers accurate learn the position and orientation of users with centimeter level precision. So this is an idea. They've been governing the data for a while. The idea of turning into like an AI model, I guess, is sort of new. But this is the thing they've wanted to sell this data to do more accurate stuff around location based task.

And generally like if I don't if you have ever used google maps when you're walking around, then but the idea the thing have yeah the thing like where you actually get turn by turn directions. So one thing that niantic mentioned in their blog post around this news is that essentially they're talking like A R glasses too, where you're wearing air glasses and you get like a really, really granular uh, directions and instructions. And this model could help to, you know, power some that stuff.

It's an entirely evil thing. I think IT, it'll help a lot of people because it's really I remember life of driving before GPS was a nightmare. Um being able to like walk accurately when if you're wearing smart ogles could be useful but yeah it's I could see why people could be fixed about this. How are you feeling .

about the idea of this thing? So run digging. The chat says, let's not forget that niantic founder and CEO john hankey was also on the google geo team. So yeah.

this i'm sure google has been .

capable less around the time when keyhole was acquired. This was when google was really trying to build up google maps. And so this makes so much sense. He's just a maps guy. Um what I have to say about this is that if there is a new nanci game that wants you to scan the interior of your house or apartment or office building, absolutely don't download IT.

You're doing IT already, but you're doing IT already when you're looking for pokemon in your house, right? They don't have to ask you to just go around scanning. They could just hate. Or here's the thing you want to collect, take out your light, your personal light are, and give us that data. You know.

what you give us is very granular information on how to allow a boston dynamics robot to kick in your door. And you get picture.

you get pick. Another thing we brought up is that ital teach the models of things about things they haven't seen, sort of like if there is enough, uh, if you you're like behind a church and IT doesn't have like accurate data and round that specific church IT can interpret what the back part of a church would be like based on the data of collected thousands of their other, such as they have see, so they could like interpret what what the architecture could be or something like that.

So it's a way this step could fill in the gap for information they don't have either. That is kind of interesting. But yeah, I don't know what this is gna lead to. I don't know if smart glasses will be a thing.

Oh, okay, so decline in the chat is saying, I wonder if amazon is doing the same thing. With that, see in your room option on their APP. So if you wanted to use augmented reality to see how like a couch would fit in your room, but what you're actually also doing is exactly what they want you to do.

You're showing them. The problem before was they have all this data. It's really hard to do anything with that if you just have a ton of data.

But with A I models, there is more of a chance where you could use an element to kind of train the idea of what is what do living room look like now? What kind of devices would fit ideally in a living room today um that sort of thing you could train and want to eventually do and I don't know it's unescapable unless you just don't use those tools. Edl w you know anything that involves your camera or specially the three d mapping of your space? Um that stuff is potentially dangerous .

of your no one L G M not LLM because G S spiel and two lets connect this with the .

idea of what was .

IT um a year ago or maybe a couple years ago when um roomba they were talking about, maybe IT was mapping the inside of your house because just by like running into all of the corners and the walls in the room, IT is developing a map, the general sense of yes, a map of your room and everything um so yeah, men made horrors beyond comprehensions coming soon.

If they have the data that they will try to sell IT. I'm I I think in general, we can seem these companies want to collect the data, the questions, what do they do with IT, you know, and that is more of what i'm worried about. And if you're worried about this stuff, then just be careful about these types of devices .

that you use. Yeah, yeah. So bring IT down to much more petty news. The bit for next jacker longer hair razor on Morgan was razak, on was sentence to eighteen months in prison.

Gotten love to see you, got to love to see IT because these people live, noted me first along.

But in twenty sixteen, her husband hacked bit fenix SHE helped launder a hundred twenty thousand bitcoin, which was worth a lot then in is worth a lot more now. But still, I think we were talking about millions of dollars even back in twenty sixteen. And then what did they do with IT? They did the most, got wonderful new money ship. You could imagine the resell con moniker. If you don't know about IT, you will know sometime soon, because netflix is coming out with a documentary about this whole bitcoin heist and SHE shot a music video she's looking at very burning man in these big glasses and like to print um jacket um I think he was shooting IT down in lower manhattan like in front of the stock exchange talking about SHE said that SHE was like the bitcoin crocodile or something in this rap that was terrible IT was bad.

Everybody I remember I remember I was so dumb and that was certainly the peak of like I just hate all the cyp to people um I think there was a point where I was like men I would have been very smart to mind one bitcoin in two thousand nine when all the stuffer two thousand and ten when he was all very, very early. But now just like these are the worst people, which is IT sucks because some people did make a lot of money like this stuff did materially.

I know someone who paid for the dawn payment on their house in crypto. O they didn't transfer Crystal to the bank, but they had crypto. They sold IT for us. D and they paid for their apartment or their condo in boston.

That is, I guess, the dream. But also like that was before we knew more about the material cost of of cyp do and kind of I think especially the environmental costs like that was something that people did not fully understand early on. And I think that became more and more gross as is holding like any gold rush any any like you know new money uh rush to power and money like IT is IT is growth to see ah there is an netflix document coming out and I tried watching the trail for that thing but and good god, I don't think me good that this makes a lot of .

bad documentary. Yes, they're very sensational. Um I think they've learned netflix in general has learned a lot from like forty eight hours mysterious and not um quite enough from ether adleman fully well.

It's more like the people who make documentaries for that flicks and know that they could do kind of a sub part job. They could just make like a shitty thing oh .

yeah because they're making stuff for like yeah USA network yeah it'll get a decent .

amount of views on that flicks. And then like you don't have to really put put as much effort as like the arrow Morris of the world .

is to you know yeah but I mean, and ezra leman actually does having netflix documentary about prince, an enormous thing that is now held up by prince estate.

go look ups and all about .

that because I was so much fun read. I want to see that so badly. And he might be fully gray by time that comes out. If IT comes out.

that's that's a shame. And that also goes something like princess, a state princess, whole thing around his own image. And everything like that was just who he was. That's even less of a netflix problem, you know but ban would love to see that eventually .

yeah so one last word on raz kon um the prosecution noted on reading from a uh coin desk article now the prosecution noted how deeply involved SHE was in seeking to conceal and use the millions her husband stall sharing examples of her subterfuge including personally berrying gold coins acquired with the cypher currency SHE was the one that doug the whole a lawyer from the prosecution said he jumped in the conspiracy and all he has to say for herself is a video tweet on x where she's looking very much like heather and very much not like raza con in perl necklace and everything saying guys i'm so sorry.

so sorry, so sorry um I did not want to hear about these people again but okay can I get to hear like there's something some sort of punishment for this thing.

There is going to be a lot of people that don't get come up and in the next few years. So let's take a second to appreciate when that does.

What do you mean then? I think the justice of and entire system is working perfect.

Let's move into working on um I just wanted shout I D D A A review right up about dragon age, the veil guard I put about twenty hours into that game so far good game. Good dragon age um also a good time to be like a building iraq tag group of people fighting extreme evil against stall odds and seeming doom. So you know that kind of works that really well. Do you? D play dragging aged alban.

no, I actually can't remember the last by a where game I played I have been mass effect was probably, yeah, was mh factory.

Mh factory, that was a while ago. What is a decade now? If IT .

wasn't a decade, IT was like a IT feels like .

twenty years ago at this point.

But OK, so tell me, why should I be playing dragon age?

Why should I be getting back in the while? It's good stuff. Like it's it's pretty much a really fun. They've turned IT more into like an action. R, P, G.

Almost like the combat now is very much like the newer got of war, which itself is lifted a little bit from the souls games. So there's more like direct combat. You could still have your you know your your friends kind of issue spells and what not but IT feels good.

IT looks incredible. Um as I said, my review like this is something the best retracing i've ever seen. So you know, sometimes you just want spectacle.

Sometimes you just want like realistic lighting of magical effects being deployed across huge environment. IT looks good. IT feels good.

And you get the wonderful like companion stuff to like just hanging out with people. IT feels good. And this game has been in development for ten years.

It's been reputed several times. Um yeah yeah so i'm i'm surprised like it's been ten years since dragging inquisition. This directly follows the story of inquisition and the deal cy of that um there was a major revelations that came out from the D, L.

C. In that game. So I just i'm digging and not like the biggest ragon age fan, but for what I am doing, like for where I am right now, IT was really nice to spend a couple hours is in a fantasy world doing fun.

R, P, G, things. And yet boyer still got IT. I hope some of this translates to whatever new mass effect things they're doing because I I love mass fact. The trilogy and dramatic happened, and I don't know what the hell happened there.

I mean, and drama a was mass effect, the quest for more money. And I think that's what's sunk the entire series because in so many cases, like with halo, they want to eventually come out with a halo or mass effect, you know, two k twenty four, two k twenty five. So they can keep this going.

But I think what a lot of the like business people in these game companies don't really understand is that the brands actually appreciate in value sort of like wine. So imagine there was a five, six year or longer time between now the end of the massive cc trilogy and the next massive ect game. I think people would be like, wow, i'm so looking forward .

to this world the verse of stuff like you get to miss you a little bit to really want IT again yeah yeah yeah.

Kevin says in the chat that these games are um basically big budget movies now yeah sure but I think that um big budget movie I P also appreciate if you aren't having um you a new mission in possible movie every two years. We saw that for marvel especially and we were literally just talking me about that.

Um so anyway, good game, good dragon age I think you'd like IT been is a good entry plan into the series, but you should probably go watch some lower videos. You can know what the hell is happening in the .

world of dragon age and do like lower videos.

It's a good, it's a good bit of lower stuff there to and what is something you want to show? I'm not quite working on IT, but I am. I just picked up a new receiver from my home theater system.

And h, after I reviewed placation five pro, I realized, like I got, I have basically one from ten years ago that can do four k but I can't do the newer stuff. I can't do four k one, twenty F, P, S. I can't do.

I don't care about A K but if I ever test A K devices, i'm like not in the situation to to deal with that. And this has some aston's new um immersive surrounds and technology too. I wanted to play round with some that self so i've picked up SONY S C R A and one thousand receiver which came out.

I think last year, it's been heavily discounted. They likely have a new thing coming in during CS. But I just want to say like what what an upgrade this was for my home theater because I had a really nice harmon carton receiver before.

But I don't know it's the calibration or what um but this thing is like pumping my speakers and my subway for harder in a way that feels more cinematic. And I just could be so one processing sort of like that way with tvs to like SONY will often um use the same panel to LG uses on their OS. But sony's image processing does more work and some people tend to prefer IT.

So at least on this receiver, I can really feel the difference with stoney's audio technology this point. And my walls are shaking. So my wife loves that and .

you're happy about that.

right? I love to have my walk shake. And yeah, it's a good thing. Good receiver. And we're preparing for CS.

So I wonder if this means like they have something else cooking for C S time. Uh one of my favorite its to C S. We will all be going actually for the first time since before the pandemic.

Wow, they seeing the stuff, seeing the TV, hearing the speakers and it's rare to actually be surrounded by that stuff until like relate to you all what IT actually looks and feels and sounds like. So it'll be interesting to see what SONY and samsung and everybody has cooking there. Alright, let's move on to our public culture picks. What he had been.

I am. So, magi, pilled devendra, do you know about this musician? Okay, this is american. Miki, no, this is. And it's definitely not magi or no mic g the direct no, this is uh, M K dot G E E. A musician first saw things about this guy on tiktok.

And I am very suspicious ous of anything that I see first on tiktok because I also like, i'm not sure if it's you know a big record concern that's trying to push this to me or if this is someone who had you know a popular song in you, a teen movie on netflix or something and that's not the sort of thing that I would like I just saw. Okay, here's a guy. IT seems to be like very vocal forward IT sounds a little bit like an eighty's heartbroken magazine.

And i'm like, all right, maybe i'm not sure if I would. I'm not sure if I would like this. But then I started seeing him everywhere I follow hay Williams on instagram and you know she's posting instagram stories about like, oh I just got back from tour you know they were paramore was opening or um Taylor swift on the europe errors tour dates and he was like, oh i'm so sad that I didn't get the sea magian nash fill you know i'm finally back home now like, okay, that's a coast sign from someone that I respect I then I see a headline just a few days later.

Eric clapton is like, oh yeah, this this new musician M K dot G E E. I'm messing with him. I really like him and i'm like, alright, that's definitely something to pay attention to.

And so I listen to his, not deb album. I think this is his second album, two star and the dream police. And oh my god, if you like genesis, if you like the police, people are comparing this .

guy a little bit .

to print new again. I'm surprised that I took this long for like the eighty style of production to come all the way back around this going.

I'm looking he was born in one thousand ninety seven, so it's very much like he's looking at the retroactive sic to him.

Yes, yes, no. This music is retro to him and this .

is a sheep l rowing being too like her music that feels .

very true very yes no IT feels kind of maDonna IT feels kind of um kate bush. This guy is also like a fantastic guitarist and like really, really intriguing producer. If you're interested in anything like this, go check out magie, go check out two star in the dream police, and also check out this other album. I think it's called absolutely by R N, B. Artist design.

I let me down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

mr. Michael gordon, A K magi, did a lot of production and a lot of guitar work on that album. So check that out.

I think it's worth IT. Very cool, very cool. Think, well, you know, I have a whole new sounds that had been so i'm looking for things to test IT with and what I like when I get new audio gear, like new speakers whatever is just like crank this stuff I know but also find new thing so i'm going to check this out. Um I was recently doing like fk twigs .

is most talking about and go and listen to rock man by again. I haven't heard vocal harmonies like that honestly, since like genesis is or the police. It's really impressed.

awesome. Some things that I want to shed out. I rereview wed a gladiator over the film cast, and so I say that movie still rips a movie.

IT feels really weird to watch. Glad dator like twenty four years after came out and to remember like a what a cultural phenomenon IT was the score everything wrestle. Cw, in IT, it's not a perfect movie. I think there's a lot like silly bits, but he is so like a memorably written there are some great quotes, just like great or ripping or an story. We're gearing up to review glad eight or two, which I have not seen yet.

I hope it's good but recent really Scott movies have made me very worried about like what he can do now um but he later still kid guys glad you're still rips that homes and score um I actually need to we watch the opening scene with the new receiver noted mental thing I need to do now because the gladiator of the opening fight was like for the longest time if you had a home theater that was you're like demo that was like, what does that fight sound like uh, as you get these speakers or whatever. So glad you, or still rips also want to quickly shed a dune propac's, which is kicked off on A H B O max. Uh, this is the prequel series, said ten thousand years before the whole story of poetry ties and everything is about the sort of formation.

Of the been adjusted in the beginning of the plan to make like an ultimate do leader or something. Ah IT suffers from prequels because you know kind of work this will all lead but I say it's vegal watchful and talking about like um how we're worried about A I and everything minor spoiler, but we do get a glimpse of the A I war that they often talk about and why they don't use thinking machines in the dune uh universe. In the very first five minutes it's an opening that feels like terminated to almost and even that scene feels like a terminator thing um but I really brought me back into this world.

I love the lead actors Emily watts and ananda livia Williams are starting in this. Mark strong is the emperor of this time around. Um it's interesting kind of just like existing in the doing world and seeing this production like IT looks like the movies that doesn't feel like a cheap TV show.

Um but I don't aware this is something I don't have this season will be worth watching overall. But I dig the vives and I dig like just seeing more of the universe, if you like doing. I see more doing. Watch at least the first episode, least the first couple minutes of due, professor.

All right, that's IT for us. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Our theme music is by game composer dale north.

Our ultra music by our former managing editor, terrans uba. The podcast is produced by me, ban elman. You can find div draa online divider.

a blue sky and massed on and wherever. And I put movies and T V. At the film cast, the film cast 点 com。

I have a shiny new blue sky account that the vira doesn't follow. You can find me at, hey, bellman, dot blue sky social, send email at podcasts a and gaddi come leave us review on itunes and you can subscribe on anything that gets podcast pocket cats overcast is that still thing? And spotify.