TechTime with Nathan Mumm

EP: 243 The DOJ Makes Headlines, Gwen Way Returns with a new Gadget and Gears Segment, Scientists tease a Jurassic-style comeback, HP shakes up its policies, and YouTube reveals a new subscription tier, with Guest James Riddle | Air Date: 3/11 - 3/17/20

• Nathan Mumm • Season 7 • Episode 243

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The battle for AI dominance takes a dramatic turn as the Department of Justice abandons its push for Google to divest from artificial intelligence firms like Anthropic. While still pursuing Chrome browser divestiture, this strategic shift acknowledges the complex balance between antitrust enforcement and maintaining America's competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Customer manipulation tactics come under fire with HP's now-abandoned policy of forcing callers to wait 15 minutes before speaking with support staff. This deliberate friction point—designed to push users toward digital support channels—exemplifies how companies use pain-pleasure dynamics to shape consumer behavior, similar to streaming services increasing ad frequency to drive premium subscriptions.

Breaking language barriers might soon become as simple as sharing an earbud. The innovative Monoise PG2 translation earbuds offer real-time translation of over 100 languages directly into users' ears, potentially transforming international travel and diverse workplaces despite practical concerns about sharing earpieces with strangers.

The scientific frontier brings both wonder and warning. Colossal Lab's woolly mammoth revival project advances with scientists creating "woolly mice" to test mammoth gene sequences. Meanwhile, the integrity of research faces threats from fraudulent studies contaminating even reputable journals—a problem magnified as AI systems train on potentially flawed research, creating a dangerous feedback loop of misinformation.

Medical technology leaps forward with Forest Neurotech's non-invasive brain implant that uses targeted ultrasound to treat anxiety and depression without penetrating brain tissue. This breakthrough represents a significant advancement over competitors like Neuralink, potentially offering less invasive options for neurological treatment.

Join us as we navigate these fascinating intersections of technology, ethics, and innovation while enjoying our whiskey pick of the week, Smokey Hill Barrel Proof bourbon—powerful but perhaps not worth its premium price tag.

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Speaker 1:

Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast to the West, keeping you up to date on technology while enjoying a little whiskey on the side, with leading-edge topics, along with special guests to navigate technology in a segmented, stylized radio program. The information that will make you go mmmm. Pull up a seat, raise a glass with our hosts as we spend the next hour talking about technology for the common person. Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, welcome to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm, the show that makes you go. Technology news of the week. The show for the everyday person talking about technology, broadcasting across the nation with insightful segments on subjects weeks ahead of the mainstream media. We welcome our radio audience of 35 million listeners to an hour of insightful technology news. I'm Nathan Mumm, your host and technologist, with over 30 years of technology expertise. Our co-host, micah Day, is in studio today and is the award-winning author and our human behavior expert. He's going to have some great talk time today because we've got James Riddle that's going to be on the show. We've got Gwen that's going to have some great uh uh talk time today, because we got james riddle that's going to be on the show. We got gwen that's going to be on the show, so you're going to have lots of uh questions that you get to ask today mr gorday now.

Nathan Mumm:

Now, of course, we're live streaming on our show on four of the most popular platforms. We wish blue sky would get a streaming service because as soon as they do we'll be on there, but we are on youtube, twitchtv, facebook and linkedin. We encourage you to visit us online at techtimeradiocom and become a Patreon supporter at patreoncom. Forward slash techtimeradio. We're all friends from different backgrounds, but we bring the best technology show possible weekly for our family, friends and fans to enjoy. We're glad to have ODR producer at the control panel today. Welcome everyone. Let's start today's show.

Speaker 1:

Now on today's show Now on today's show.

Nathan Mumm:

Welcome to Tech Time Radio, where we explore this week's hottest tech buzz. Now the Department of Justice makes headlines with a major move in the AI space and Google's Chrome browser. We're going to break into that as our main story of the day. Gwen Way returns with a can't miss gadget and gear segment while we dive into the groundbreaking brain chip trials in a SpaceX rocket mishap. Now scientists are teasing a Jurassic style comeback, hp shakes up its policies and YouTube reveals a new subscription tier Plus. Of course, we have our guest, james Riddle, who joins the show, so he's going to be adding into more of the information on the medical technology side. In addition, we have our standard features and a possible Nathan Nugget and, of course, our pick of the day whiskey tasting. To see if our selected whiskey pick is zero, one or two thumbs up at the end of the show. But now it's time for the latest headlines in the world of technology.

Speaker 1:

Here are our top technology stories of the week.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, story number one Last Friday, the US Department of Justice abandoned its proposal to mandate the Alphabet's Google divestment into artificial intelligent firms, including a competitor to OpenAI with Anthropic let's go to Corinne Westland for more on this story.

Speaker 3:

Google will no longer be required to sell its investments in artificial intelligence startups like Anthropic as a remedy for its monopoly on internet search, according to a revised Department of Justice proposal. It now notes that forcing Google to sell its Anthropix day could cause unintended consequences in the evolving AI space. The DOJ is still recommending that Google be forced to divest its Chrome browser, despite the company's entreaties to the new administration for a less aggressive stance. Have fun with all the whiskey on the show today. Back to you guys in the studio.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. The Department of Justice, along with 38 state attorney generals, is still pursuing, of course, the court order that would require Google to divest its Chrome browser and implement other strategies to address what the judge have deemed a monopoly in Google's enterprise. But a Google spokesman stated that the broad proposal goes far beyond the court's ruling and would negatively impact consumers, the economy and, of course, the national security in the United States. Google holds a minority stake in Anthropic that is valued at over billions of dollars. Losing the investment could put a disadvantage to the company compared to OpenAI and its new partner partner, microsoft, as noted by Anthropic in a February court statement. Now prosecutors provided new evidence since their draft recommendations in November of last year, indicating that prohibiting Google from AI investments might lead to an unforeseen effect in the evolving AI sector. As mentioned in the final proposal on Friday, they also requested that Google notify the government about any future generative AI investments.

Nathan Mumm:

Now this significant case is among several US antitrust lawsuits targeting big tech firms. Apple, meta Platforms and Amazoncom are also accused of sustaining illegal monopolies within their market. Now, since the Trump election, google has argued that the Department of Justice approach in this case could cripple its competitiveness in the AI space, therefore endangering America's global economy and technology leadership. So it's very interesting. Let's kind of talk about this a little bit, mike. So we have Google that was told that they had to break up their Chrome browser. Now, all of a sudden, they're saying that they want to stay competitive in the AI world. Microsoft just invested millions of dollars into the going public stock of OpenAI and ChatGPT. Do you think that this reprieve for Google, allowing them to stay competitive in the AI market, is good for the US economy, or what are you thinking?

Mike Gorday:

on this. If I were an economist, I'd probably have a good answer for that, but I'm not Okay. And your feeling, though? My feeling on it is well. We all know how I feel about AI, so I kind of like who cares, who cares?

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, okay. Well, we'll see what Google does on this.

Mike Gorday:

Now anthropic. Now, I guess the biggest problem here is if, if they think that them losing their stake in anthropic is going to jeopardize american internal security. Uh, that raises some questions in my brain about okay, what are they doing? That would jeopardize security.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, that's the T2 Skynet stuff that they're worried about if they don't have the market on that. Yeah okay, whatever. Well, it's going to be interesting to see what happens here, because this is kind of the antitrust breakup like Microsoft had back in the early 90s type of deal.

Mike Gorday:

It's evident that we have several players in this space that have an overbalance of whatever market they're in.

Marc Gregoire:

Okay.

Mike Gorday:

Right, yep, and we're seeing this more and more as we have these other companies trying to come into these spaces and they're not being allowed to do so. There you go.

Nathan Mumm:

You know I can't wait for your story, story number two. We talked about this in our pre-show event. This is going to be something that you are really excited about.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, okay, what do?

Nathan Mumm:

we got going on Story number two here, Mike.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, did you know that HP yes, hewitt Packard, hewitt Packard, hewitt Packard has a 15-minute wait time policy for people who call in for assistance?

Nathan Mumm:

Well, explain that to me. It's a 15-minute policy. What does that mean? They?

Mike Gorday:

answer within 15 minutes. That means that if you call HP or you try to contact HP and get a live person to help you out with you, know whatever, maybe your printer's not working or whatever yeah, person to help you out with you, know, whatever, maybe your printer's not working or whatever yeah, uh, you have to wait a mandatory period of 15 minutes before they will allow you to start talking to a real person.

Nathan Mumm:

oh, my word did you know that I well, I only found out about it when we did the story, but I did not know that. You know what that? That irritates me, because you know I I have waited on call with companies like ringCentral and other companies and I'll just wait and wait, and wait.

Mike Gorday:

I believe that this is a standard operating procedure. Okay, they do this so that the customer is forced to look other places, like their FAQ pages or their stupid chat bot things, which I don't know if you, you know, if you play that game like, for instance, I did this, uh, what was it? The other day I was, I was on something and I tried to get on their chat bot and, uh, it was like not working, oh wow, and I couldn't find any, any alternative numbers to this. I mean, this is one of the biggest frustrating things. However, hp inc last week abruptly ditched its mandatory 15 minute wait time that it poses on customers dialing up as a telephone based support team due to initial feedback initial feedback, I guess.

Mike Gorday:

I guess a lot of people called HP and waited 15 minutes and then blessed them out for having them wait. Okay, this came into force for folks phoning up to call center but were soon went down like a lead balloon internally at HP when some staff on the front line, unhappy that they were having to deal with a decision taken by management who didn't have to directly interact with customers, left hanging on the telephone for 15 minutes. Now HP has abandoned this policy, but it does not say if it might return again. Hp started to play a recorded message to punters ringing up as call centers that warned of a longer wait time of 15 minutes and apologized for the inconvenience which we all we all know this, this little message that comes in right yep, we're sorry, we're experiencing more than usual traffic.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, yep, okay, uh. Hp decided the two inconvenience customers deliberately to make them give up and use online support, and we talked about this. We talked about this at our production meeting. This is one of the ways that companies really manipulate the customer by using pain pleasure.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, they're hoping that you leave, if you're. If your issue is not, yeah, they don't urgent that's right.

Mike Gorday:

They don't want you to. They don't want you to be on the phone, they want to. They want you to solve your problem by using and and I don't know how you feel about looking at faqs, but I they never answer the question that I, that I so I, I try faq first and then I try chatbot.

Nathan Mumm:

So if I've now gone and I and I do actually sometimes chatbot first even, and I like the chat, even though I know it may be an india person, but I like to initiate that way I only call if I've already exhausted going to their website and searching for something. I already taken their faq process, so, having me wait another 15 minutes and during the study I did a little bit more research Do you realize that 40% of people leave after five minutes?

Speaker 9:

Yeah, so when you're on a phone call, so they're they're hoping you drop off and that you're not.

Mike Gorday:

That patient and you're just going to deal with it. This is the. This is the effect of applying. This is this is technically, this is painful and human beings beings don't like pain, so we avoid it. Uh, so, by this is this is exactly the same thing.

Nathan Mumm:

That's being applied to streaming services, where all the commercials we've talked about it yeah, uh, the commercials that they're gonna be talking, if we get to the nathan that good about youtube, to house now a new premium standard that gets that gets rid of almost all the ads.

Mike Gorday:

I really 799 youtube, youtube, but not all of them it doesn't matter, it's the worst because, because it's so irritating, uh, dealing with dealing with their interruptions that it forces people to really consider paying the money to get rid of it.

Nathan Mumm:

It does, and it's a cash grab. Yes.

Mike Gorday:

And I really think this is one of the things that people should really stand up against. But you know, okay. Anyway, in a memo to staff, hp said the wait time for each customer is set to 15 minutes. Notice, the expected wait time is mentioned only at the beginning of the call. It was absolutely intended to test people's patient. It was all about encouraging more digital adoption by nudging customers to go online. And this is again. You see that word nudge. Yeah, this is the wrong way of using nudge.

Nathan Mumm:

So why don't you just say hey, if you're trying to get done quicker, we'll answer it as soon as possible. You can find these available. Instead of just making it so you listen to music, why wouldn't you just advertise that in your call? Waiting thing.

Mike Gorday:

Well, because why would you reveal that? That's the reason.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, I mean, because if you say that two or three times by minute seven and I quit, I may actually then, if I hang up, go and take a look. Well, I don't. It's all based on cast, actually does that. So I know which is actually. I have used it.

Mike Gorday:

I cannot stand, okay. So you know, I'm one of those people that as the older I get, the less time I want something wasted. That that's across the board, okay. So if I have a problem with my xfinity yeah, and I am forced to call Xfinity by the time I get to somebody I am so angry that it becomes not about my problem with Xfinity, it becomes my problem about how Xfinity handles my problems. Anyway, Tech Time.

Mike Gorday:

Radio asked HP for a comment, but it's probably going to take more than 15 minutes for a response to Ching Ching.

Nathan Mumm:

All right Story. Number three Get out your space umbrella as SpaceX rocket explodes. Let's talk about this. Have you ever thought about having an umbrella to protect you from space debris? Well, a SpaceX rocket exploded shortly after its launch from Texas last week, grounding flights and triggering warnings about falling space debris.

Mike Gorday:

now spacex confirmed the uncrewed ship had suffered a rapid, unscheduled disassembly wow, that's a blowout, that's a euphemism, that that really puts it in perspective suffered an explosion during its ascent into space and lost contact with the ground.

Nathan Mumm:

a massive space x starship, the largest rocket ever created, spun out of control shortly after its launch. No injuries or damage have been reported, but images from the Caribbean Sea Islands nations show fiery debris raining from the sky. Furry debris, furry debris.

Mike Gorday:

That was the eighth mission. That was who was on the thing with a bunch of furries.

Nathan Mumm:

That's right To test the rocket and consecutive failure. So they're 0 for 2 right now. What happens when you go 0 for 3? You just buy yourself a new rocket. All right, as always, success comes from what we learn. This is what they said, and today's flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship's reliability, said a spokesperson at SpaceX. The statement says debris should have fallen within a pre-planned area and the rocket did not contain any toxic material. So that's bs, so it's not toxic.

Mike Gorday:

And there's a it's probably biodegradable too.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm sure that's right, so so when do you get for launching a rocket? When do you get a pre-planned area to just dispose of your waste? I mean, so you can if it just blows up in a certain area that's okay.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, no, I mean, you can pretty much tell where things are going to fall if you know the projection, how many times it's?

Nathan Mumm:

blown up before. Okay. The company also included an email and phone number for those who believe they found any remnants of the craft. So I guess if I I found something, I can contact them with an email and they'll come on out with a bunch of FBI agents.

Mike Gorday:

They'll come out and get the stuff that's non-toxic. That's right, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, that ends our top technology stories of the week. Moving on, we have our gadgets and gear, gal Gwenway on the show up next and, of course, we have our guest, James Riddle, back with an update on the journey to bring back the Willie Mammoth. We're listening to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm. See you at the commercial break.

Speaker 6:

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Nathan Mumm:

Welcome back to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm. Wow, our weekly show covers the top technology subjects without a political agenda. We verify the facts and we do it with a sense of humor, in less than 60 minutes. And, of course, a little whiskey on the side. Wow, that whiskey has got a bite. Today. Mark Redwire, our whiskey connoisseur, is back and tell us what we are drinking today.

Marc Gregoire:

Today you are drinking Smokeye Hill Barrel Proof, so it has a kick if it's the first whiskey of the day. It is. Now from Smokeye Hill's website, straight from the barrel. Four-grain bourbon delivers unmatched aroma and taste. In its most unadulterated form, it is crafted with a proprietary mash, resulting in a bold, full-flavored whiskey, Robust vanilla, caramelized brown sugar, honey, nougat, rich tobacco, leather and oak.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, it tastes like super sweet turpentine.

Nathan Mumm:

Boy, it's got a bite. So now you said this is our first whiskey of the day, it's a bite. So how many whiskeys have you been drinking today? Is it not as big of a bite for Mr Gregoire?

Marc Gregoire:

Well, no, it's my first whiskey of the day but my palate's a little bit more accustomed to the higher proof bourbons. Okay, but it's still, I have to sip it very slowly. The first few sips.

Mike Gorday:

Is this a high corn? Well, let's talk about that.

Marc Gregoire:

All right this is a hazelwood spirits company. Um, it's distilled. It's actually distilled from mgp, but it's barreled in colorado springs. Colorado, it is straight bourbon. Five plus years. It's 134.2 proof. They have different batches. Wow, this particular batch is.

Mike Gorday:

I think this is one of the highest proof whiskeys we've had on.

Marc Gregoire:

It's pretty close the highest we've ever had was 138 or 139. Okay, wow. And then the mash bill. It's an unknown mash bill. In terms of the percentages, mike's, I can't answer that, but I can tell you what the four grains are in there. Okay, it's blue corn, yellow corn, rye and malted barley blue corn corn.

Nathan Mumm:

Is there a different taste from blue?

Marc Gregoire:

corn yes, there is.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, okay.

Marc Gregoire:

And it goes for $90 a bottle. All right, it's got a bite. Now don't forget to like and subscribe. In addition, please comment, let us know if you have a whiskey you want us to review. Drink responsibly, because heaven can wait, that's right, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, with our whiskey tasting completed, let's move on to our feature segment. Today we got gwen way joining the show. She's an expert in cyber security during the day and a game board. Wow, that is a lot of proof game board geek in the evenings, as well as a producer of tech time, radio and our gadgets and gear. Gal. Let's get ready to bring her up on our comcast video stream to start our next segment what's new in our gadgets and gear. All right, gwen, let me tell you Woo-wee, be careful driving with this whiskey.

Gwen Way:

Anything that gets that much of a reaction off the first sip Wow.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, it's 160 proof, right.

Mike Gorday:

No, what does it say? It's 134.

Nathan Mumm:

134. Sorry, 134. Well, it could be. Yeah, You're not buzzing yet buddy, I'm not buzzing, yet I will be Unless you were partaking before.

Mike Gorday:

Until we get to James.

Speaker 9:

I'll be like, hey, how are you doing, james?

Nathan Mumm:

All right, gwen, we always love having you on the show. Now tell us a little bit about yourself for any of our new listeners. Tell us what you do in your day job and what you're doing for us today.

Gwen Way:

Certainly, certainly. I've got about a quarter century of technical experience at this point and have dug into cybersecurity. It's fascinating, it's tough and it's super important. So anybody out there who doesn't care about it, maybe you should start. That's right. Absolutely Cybersecurity. You know what? We need to be a little bit more aggressive.

Nathan Mumm:

I don't know why we're not aggressive against Russia out there. Who doesn't care about it? Uh, maybe you should start. That's right absolute cyber security. You know what? And we need to be a little bit more aggressive. I don't know why we're not aggressive against russia right now, but that was another whole segment, all right, so tell us, gwen, you have a new gadget for us. What do you have for the listeners today?

Gwen Way:

Well, you know, a couple months back we did a translator app that you could get that would allow you to download translations and talk on the fly, on the go. I've got something like that that also gives a little bit of added benefit. Okay, so this gadget is called the Monoise pg3 or pg2, excuse me. It's available on kickstarter and it's a combination of a headset, so earphones that also connect to an app on your phone to allow for some translation so it would translate directly into your ear all right, so it goes.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, your cat's joining us. She is there, you go okay, so, so, so it's called it's m-o-n, so o-i-s-e, so mo, m-o. Noise is what I. I kind of got it taken care of, so explain us this translation aspect of it. So there are regular earbuds first off, right? So there are okay.

Gwen Way:

You can connect to your iPad, you can listen to movies on an airplane any of the normal things. What? This does, is it combines?

Nathan Mumm:

all of that functionality with an application on your phone that uses chat GPT to translate and also record, so you can save. Okay, we like that. Thank goodness they mostly know English, but there were a couple of times when we went off the beaten path and in some of the smaller cities and we would go to a restaurant and we really couldn't translate. So we had to type in information into Google Translate and then we had to show them what it was and then they would talk back and then Translate didn't work very well. This has the opportunity to do what uniquely on translations?

Gwen Way:

This is actually really cool because you can split the headset, you can have one earpiece in your ear, you can hand it to somebody else and then they're actually going to hear what you're saying in their language. And you'll hear what they're saying in your language In real time.

Nathan Mumm:

In real time In real time. So if I'm having a conversation with somebody now, I guess the only barrier is having to get that person to put the earpiece in their ear convince them to put it in yeah, so that would be the the biggest part of. You know, that's a little gross, that's what I know. I kind of think that's a little barrier of entry. Right, there is is a here you go, put this in your ear after you just kind of a litmus test?

Nathan Mumm:

yeah don't ignore that little yellow wax build up there, it's no big deal, just put it into your ear. But let's say you pulled it out generically from the device. I think it'd probably work really well, right? And you say here you go, put one, one piece in the other piece in, and then we just have a regular conversation in english and it's translating it to them in the earpiece itself correct, and and I mean they've got a deal where you can buy two of them so you could keep one for, you know, use just working with somebody else and use the other for the rest of your normal use, ah, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, let's talk about pricing and let's talk about backers, right? So that's the next thing. So great, great technology. I would probably myself be interested in this, especially with that trip that we just did to Japan. This would have been nice, especially if you could have had some conversations on the trains and community transportation, which is phenomenal over there. Now you can kind of find out what's going on. So tell us what the prices is, where the backers are, where this is from Hopefully it's a reliable. I've backed one of these projects still and I'm still waiting to hear from them, so we'll see what happens. What do we got here?

Gwen Way:

Some of them. Well, it's definitely a United States-based product, so you've got that in your pocket. They're sitting at just over 260 backers. We still have until March 27th, so if any of our listeners want to purchase this, they can go out and grab it. They're sitting at right around $26,000 earned of $2,000 requested and to this point, you can still get one of the super early bird specials and pick up a pair of these for $99.

Nathan Mumm:

That's not bad for a headset the 99 bucks on a price that you have there. So the next question of course, comes that we ask you all the time Is this something that you're looking to back yourself?

Gwen Way:

I may already have backed it.

Nathan Mumm:

Did you already back it? Okay, I did I did.

Gwen Way:

This is something you know. My husband and I like to travel. This just makes sense as a way to do that and be able to understand what's happening around us.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, mike, would you get a pair of these headsets if you're traveling?

Mike Gorday:

No, no, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Is the barrier of entry for you. Would it be the sharing of the earpiece? No, I be the sharing of the earpiece. Uh, no, I just don't trust chat gpt to translate everything that I'm saying. That makes sense, you know. You know we're getting close to a universal, a universal communicator from star trek. You know that, yeah I'm real sure I was all of a sudden. You just put on a little pin and you're gonna hear it one way and what happens?

Mike Gorday:

what happens when it can't understand local dialects? What happens then?

Nathan Mumm:

How many languages does it say you support Gwen. How many does it have?

Mike Gorday:

Over a hundred Over a hundred languages, but those are base languages, they're not dialectical. You're right, true.

Nathan Mumm:

So if I go into the interior of Japan, like Bohunk over here, or even Louisiana, or even Louisiana, the interior of japan, like like uh bohunk over here. Or even louisiana, or even louisiana.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, yeah, from english to english. You may struggle, you may, you may end up, you may end up using words that even the chat gpt doesn't know, so it might spit out translations that are are funny or not very funny.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, well, at least least it's using ChatGPT instead of DeepSeek, because if it was DeepSeek, you can have everything. All of a sudden. You'd have a communication and the thing you'd be saying China is the best out of whatever thing that you do.

Mike Gorday:

Well, you know, this is actually one of the ways that I can get on board. The AI train is with this type of stuff, but until it's tested enough to work well in all these situations, it's still a problem for me.

Nathan Mumm:

Now I'm just reviewing this. I guess I was dogging on DeepSeek, but I guess it also works on DeepSeek R1.

Gwen Way:

It can use.

Nathan Mumm:

So I guess if you want to have the Chinese filtered AI stuff, you could put it in there too.

Mike Gorday:

Well then it's going to just run around saying I'm sorry, I don't have the ability to talk about that. That's right, it's like where's the bathroom?

Gwen Way:

I'm sorry, just ask me about Chinese history, you'll be okay, where's the bathroom?

Mike Gorday:

I'm sorry.

Marc Gregoire:

I don't know where. They wouldn't come with one companion over-the-ear speaker microphone to hand out, which is a lot of people. Would be much easier to hand that to them. I'm not going to hand an earbud to a stranger.

Speaker 9:

You're not thinking about the portability of it.

Marc Gregoire:

You can have these tiny little ones.

Mike Gorday:

You can get really handy alcohol wipes to hand out with it exactly.

Marc Gregoire:

I don't want to waste my alcohol mike?

Mike Gorday:

oh, that's right. Well, you're not supposed to be sucking on those whiskey. That's right all right, but that that does bring up an option you know what you know what gpt didn't come up with.

Nathan Mumm:

That, that's right you know, we need to come up with our, our own tech time version of this, because I totally agree, I think the earbud part is the limit of having that to give to somebody, even if it was coming out of the container and I say, here you go, put it on your ear. But if you had in a way that you could put like one of the like the jaw, what do you?

Nathan Mumm:

want Like sophomoric and childish ways of of dealing with things. They have those jaw speakers you kind of just put on the outside and you can still hear it through your bone density. Now, if you had something like that where you could just kind of put it around, but I guess not portable.

Marc Gregoire:

So I guess you know what we're trying to just to solve a uh yeah, I'm excited, I'm like mike, I'm a hesitant now, but I'm really looking forward to these as they develop, because it's not just for personal use, for traveling for vacation. This is a strong. Companies can use this for businesses.

Mike Gorday:

It would be great for businesses. We're actually having a and you could watch foreign movies without the subtitles.

Nathan Mumm:

I have a doubt about that. That actually is worth it right there. I hate reading movies, so if I could actually listen to it.

Mike Gorday:

Somehow I find it difficult to believe that you actually watch foreign movies. Wow, you know most foreign movies you can go.

Gwen Way:

We just have sold Nathan on it Most foreign movies.

Marc Gregoire:

You can go and they have a different English track that you can turn on oh, do you really?

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, they could dub them.

Marc Gregoire:

But businesses are looking at we're looking into it at our business for our plant floors. But businesses are looking at we're looking into it at our business for our plant floors? Yeah, Because we have a lot of different.

Nathan Mumm:

Like Hispanic, spanish.

Marc Gregoire:

Vietnamese. There's a lot of different eclectic people and so Eclectic people, not eclectic people.

Nathan Mumm:

No Diversity, you're very diversified. There you go, thank you.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, and that's why we needed to understand what we're talking about. Yeah, Exactly. Okay.

Gwen Way:

Will it translate for ourselves I?

Mike Gorday:

don't think it translates stupid. Wow, okay, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, all right. Gwen, where can people find out more information about you? If they wanted to find you online, when could they go?

Gwen Way:

You know, linkedin is going to always be the best place to track me down. Or, if you want to and are interested in all of the hosts here at tech time radio, go to our facebook page that's right.

Nathan Mumm:

Or you can join even our tech timers facebook group right, and you're in charge of that. So if you want to talk with gwen directly, you can just get on that and be ready to go. All right, gwen, we thank you so much for being a part of the show. We'll see you in a month.

Gwen Way:

Sounds good. Thank you all.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, now that ends our segment Gadgets and Gear Up. Next, we have this Week in Technology, so now would be a great time to enjoy a little whiskey on the side, as we're going to be doing so during the break.

Speaker 9:

When we return we could use your support on patreoncom. Is it Patreon? I think it's Patreon. Okay, patreon, if you really like us, you can like us in patreoncom and you say I'm the English guy, I butcher the English language, you know, you butcher the English language all the time.

Nathan Mumm:

It's patreoncom.

Mike Gorday:

Patreoncom.

Speaker 9:

If you really like our show, you can subscribe to patreoncom and help us out, and you can visit us on that Facebook platform. You know the one that Zuckerberg owns, the one that we always bag on. Yeah, we're on Facebook too. Yeah, like us on Facebook. Do you know what our Facebook page is? Tech Time Radio At? Yeah, like us on Facebook. Do you know what our Facebook page is? Tech Time Radio At?

Mike Gorday:

Tech Time.

Speaker 9:

Radio. You know what? There's a trend here.

Mike Gorday:

It seems to be that there's a trend and that's Tech.

Speaker 9:

Time Radio. Or you can even Instagram with us, and that's at Tech Time Radio. That's at Tech Time Radio. Or you can find us on TikTok, and it's Tech Time Radio. It's at Tech Time Radio. Like and subscribe to our social media Like us today, we need you to like us. Like us and subscribe. That's it. That's it. It's that simple.

Speaker 1:

And now let's look back at this week in technology.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, we're going back to March 15th 1995. Kevin Metnick, the hacker, was arrested. Oh, you have a little pin in front of you there, odie. It says free Kevin. You're going to understand what the story is about. So, computer hacker Kevin Metnick was arrested. At the time he was the most wanted computer criminal in the United States. He then worked as a computer security consultant of Metnick Security Consulting LLC, a computer security consultancy, which is also known to be part of a company called KnowBe4, a provider of integrated platform and security awareness training and simulated phishing tests. He sadly passed away on July 16, 2023 from cancer.

Nathan Mumm:

Now, interesting point here, a little bit off the script that I have here, is there's many debate. There was a whole campaign when Kevin was in prison. It was called Free Kevin and it was a bunch of people that were saying that computer hackers shouldn't be hold to the same standard as some of the security processes were for enemy of the state and other aspects of hacking. Kevin Metnick is known as the godfather or the main person of hacking in the 80s and 90s. But my question for everybody that's listening today is the computer hacker that gets caught as good as the computer hacker that does not get caught. Hacker that does not get caught. So that's been an ongoing conversation on the dark web and other places where Kevin Metnick is known as kind of the big name that was arrested and he was this great hacker. But if you get caught, does that mean you're as good as somebody else or does that mean that you didn't completely have your tracks covered? So just think about that.

Nathan Mumm:

That was this week in technology. If you ever wanted to watch some tech Time history, with over 230 plus weekly broadcasts spanning over four plus years of video, podcasts and blog information, you can always visit us at techtimeradiocom to watch our older shows. Specifically, you're going to want to go back and watch a show that James was on, because we're going to be talking about part two of that today. Now we're going to take a commercial break. When we return, we have our Mark Mumble Whiskey Review. See you after this.

Speaker 4:

Hello, my name is Arthur and my life's work is connecting people with coffee. Story Coffee is a small batch specialty coffee company that uses technology to connect people to each product resource, which allows farmers to unlock their economic freedom. Try our Medium Roast Founder Series Coffee, which is an exotic bourbon variety that is smooth, fresh and elegant. At storycoffeecom that's S-T-O-R-I coffeecom. Today you can get your first bag free when you subscribe at storycoffeecom with code TECHTIME. That's S-T-O-R-I coffeecom.

Speaker 1:

The segment we've been waiting all week for mark's whiskey mumble I have a bone to pick with you.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, last year or last week's um uh day, uh, the grammar day I I got a lot of ribbon online for that. So let me just tell you, we're trying to be really positive now, so hopefully we're not doing an additional ribbon.

Mike Gorday:

I'm positive that you don't grammar well.

Marc Gregoire:

So March 11th, I am positive you have never celebrated this day. Okay, what is this National Organize your Home Office Day?

Mike Gorday:

Oh, wow.

Nathan Mumm:

Wow, wow, wow. Oh, look at that, is it?

Speaker 9:

true. Look around, well, you know, his whiskey thing looks pretty organized, yeah, but he didn't do that?

Mike Gorday:

Oh, that's right.

Marc Gregoire:

That's also not a home office thing. Your wife organized the bar she probably did Yep.

Mike Gorday:

She probably did.

Speaker 6:

She did, she did.

Marc Gregoire:

Now, just so you know what this day is about, since you have no clue on it.

Speaker 6:

Nathan Okay Wow.

Marc Gregoire:

This is a day to clean up the mess that's accumulated in your home offices and to establish a productivity and healthy working environment at home. If establish a productivity and healthy working environment at home. If you've been putting off organizing your files and clearing that tiny area where you work every day, now is the time to do it, nathan.

Mike Gorday:

You know that's a little wrong-sided there, buddy.

Nathan Mumm:

Thank you, Mike. You're defending me. I haven't had this happen in a while. I appreciate that yeah.

Mike Gorday:

I'm on board with that, because I have a disorganized area. Okay, if my area is too organized, it freaks me out. I have to have a disorganized area in order for me to work.

Marc Gregoire:

Sounds like you need some counseling, mike no, that's not how it works all right, okay, tell us about the whiskey different way of organizing, that's right.

Marc Gregoire:

well, let me tell you about some people that are highly organized. All right, arizona's legendary Smoke Hill area Okay, during the era of American Prohibition, smoke Eye Hill and its surrounding emerged as a secluded haven for bootleggers. Here they crafted and distilled their illicit spirits, attracting a clientele that extended to the glamour of Hollywood. Legend has it that a Prohibition agent with ties to the area would discreetly tip off the community about their arrival. In response, the moonshiners of Smoke Eye Hill and the surrounding areas hung bells on the necks of roaming mules as a way to warn of lawmen rounding the bend. Oh, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

So the mule would run and then the bell would go off.

Marc Gregoire:

Yeah, exactly so when they heard the bell going off, they knew the law was close. Okay, okay, that's cool, it's pretty organized, yeah, now this bottle that we are drinking today has become known to the whiskey community when it came in first place at an award event, and that same event was George T Stagg, a highly prized and allocated bottle from Buffalo Trace. Because of this Smoke Eye has become known as the Stag Killer. Let me tell you here and now it is not Okay.

Marc Gregoire:

It doesn't even beat out Stag Junior, which is now just called Stag, which is the baby bottle to George T Stag. Now don't get me wrong this is a decent pour of whiskey. However, for the price, I should not be getting a hit of ethanol or as said turpentine and grain, I get a little green which I think comes from that blue corn. Is that what, the blue corn?

Nathan Mumm:

tastes, because I haven't heard, I haven't tasted that necessarily before.

Marc Gregoire:

Very often yeah, it's also only five years roughly. It needs more time too to age out some of that grain. Now, when this bottle is done, that's it for me. You know, unless they come out with some higher aged, I would give it another try. Try, but it's good. But for 90 bucks.

Nathan Mumm:

I've had way better for 50 and 49 and in in other areas, but I don't know. I I I'm on the fence of it's a thumbs down. I think I'm probably going to trend a little bit down, but we'll see what happens.

Marc Gregoire:

Like that'd be tough for me. I don't know if I'd actually give it a thumbs down personally. I just know for the price and I can usually pick up a regular stag for a little bit less. Okay, Well, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Would you drink this on a porch in the middle of the summertime, mr Gorday? Yeah, okay, all right. Okay, there you go, all right. Well, whiskey and technology a great pairing, just like James Riddle and our technology updates in the medical field. Now we're going to move on to our next segment.

Speaker 9:

You like that?

Nathan Mumm:

There you go. James has been a longtime contributor to the program. James is our special guest here to talk about what's going on in the medical research and innovation. He has spent the last 25 years working in clinical research fields and lends his expertise to our audience to help break down what's going on in the world of research. You can also follow him on LinkedIn. Let's start our next segment with James Riddle.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the segment we call Ask the Experts with our tech time radio expert James Riddle.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, james. Welcome to our show today.

James Riddle:

Greetings, gentlemen, All right Hi.

Nathan Mumm:

James. So let me just tell you, did you hear that we had an Arizona comment about the whiskey right as we lead into our? Are you calling us from Arizona? Is that where you're calling in from us?

James Riddle:

I happen to be here in the sunny desert southwest. Okay, it has been very nice so far this spring, that's to be sure.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, we go from See it's technically winter.

Mike Gorday:

See, that's. What's nice about Arizona is that he gets to enjoy spring weather while we're enjoying not spring weather.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, we got two people here because Mike was from Arizona. He grew up there and raised there.

Mike Gorday:

So you still want to go back there? I miss the Arizona winters. Okay, there you go.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, well, let's move on here. Glad to have you back on the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself for any of the new listeners and maybe join the program.

James Riddle:

So I've been a longtime friend of the show, been around doing clinical and medical research activities for goodness better part of a quarter century, and appreciate being able to come on and talk about new and innovative stuff.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, so let's go. Story number one here. Scientists are breeding mice on their journey to bring back the mammoth. Now we talked about this in our jurassic park segment with james on episode 7 or 70 airing in october 16. So if you want to go and talk about the first part of this, go back and take a look on YouTube for episode 70. Now James explain to us what is going on with this mice in the journey to bring back the woolly mammoth.

James Riddle:

Yeah, so definitely worth going back and listening to the prior episode. The folks at Colossal Lab and Biosciences they've come a fair bit along in their quest to recreate and bring back the woolly mammoth. Okay, the basic premise of this is it's a little bit of Jurassic Park, a little bit of environmental recreation and the like, but in essence what they're trying to do is they've got some woolly mammoth DNA that they found laying around on the tundra somewhere. I don't know exactly where they got it, but they've got enough of it that they think they can use genetic engineering to recreate the woolly mammoth, bring it back, put it out on the plains, let it roam around. You know, maybe give us some woolly mammoth burgers or something. I don't know.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. So how do mice factor into this? It was very interesting to see. What. Does mice have Anything to do with a pretty small rodent versus a large mammal? What do we have going on here?

James Riddle:

Genes are complicated and it does take a little bit of trial and error to tinker around with the woolly mammoth DNA to see if you're going to be able to create a viable live organism. And much like most medical research, that starts off from the lab and then before it gets to humans there's some animal testing. Usually it's from lab mice, and so what the folks at Colossal have done here, they've taken their genetically engineered woolly mammoth embryos and they have figured out a way to gene transfer that into a mouse, and what they're trying to perfect is what we picked up on for purposes of this particular segment.

Speaker 9:

All right, so, so so.

Nathan Mumm:

Mice are used in lots of testing. Did they put a DNA sequence inside the mice? How do they make them be so furry? And a part of this process?

James Riddle:

Yeah, so they've spliced some of the woolly mammoth genes into the mouse, and so the mouse is. I guess you would call it a woolly mouth, Okay there you go.

Nathan Mumm:

It's going to be like alien.

Mike Gorday:

It's going to pop out a little tiny mammoth.

Nathan Mumm:

We're going to start selling those down at the local pet store. It's like a mouse with a Okay. Never mind.

James Riddle:

You probably aren't going to see those at your local pet store anytime soon the folks who are responsible in doing gene editing and creating transgenic strains of animals. They tend to keep those out of the population, so you don't get little Stuart Littles driving all over that's what I was exactly thinking about?

Nathan Mumm:

All right, all right. Our second item here fake studies are slowing life-saving medical research, all right. So there's fraudsters that are getting rich, and it looks like crooks are not just stealing your information through phishing attempts, but they're now actually penetrating the medical field. James, tell me a little bit about what this article talks about regarding fake papers and what's going on in the industry here.

James Riddle:

Yeah. So if you've been around in the clinical research or medical research, even just research in general, the way that you advance your career is you get published right. Some people hear the term publish or perish. Well, if you don't publish, there's a tendency to indeed perish your career and you find yourself doing something else.

Mike Gorday:

If your research doesn't work quite right, yeah.

James Riddle:

So what's been going on is that, as there's been more and more pressure to develop new and innovative things and the pace of research is accelerating, not surprisingly some people are fudging their results, and the detection mechanism for being able to get into a published journal is that you get the journal editors reviewing your paper and they're supposed to be able to detect fraud or maybe fabricated information. Well, it's hard to detect, and there's enough of it out there that it does impede future research, and so it also has the added implication I know how much you all love chat GPT. Well, if you go out to chat GPT, guess what it learns on.

Nathan Mumm:

It learns on that scientific literature.

Mike Gorday:

And if it's fake, then it's one of my biggest problems with chat.

James Riddle:

GPT off of the scientific literature what to say about the current state of affairs on some scientific question? And you get also this garbage that is out there, and so there is a and garbage begets garbage, because then of course, if you want to create a new study, you go to chat GPT or Gemini and you ask it what's the scientific literature say about the current state of this and that? And then you start to recreate the project for something that wasn't even right in the first place. So it is a problem. Uh, it's not unique to the research universe, uh, but it does tend to creep in, uh, when you get into this publish or perish model so are these.

Mike Gorday:

Are these papers penetrating the established and qualified journals and research nets? Or is this the thing where they're actually publishing through a backdoor publisher and looking like a peer-reviewed system?

James Riddle:

Yes to both. Yes to both. You're more likely to be able to put questionable science into journals that don't have a solid peer review. But if you go and look at the retraction history that's in the news article, it's tens of thousands of papers being retracted from reputable journals. Wow, now, it's a small fraction of the millions of papers that get published each year, but still it's enough that it's a problem.

Marc Gregoire:

James. What's the end game on that for them Money?

James Riddle:

You mean as far as the end game for faking your?

Speaker 4:

data is the famous eating on anything else.

James Riddle:

Right, you get done faster, you don't have to put in the effort, you don't have to perhaps publish results that don't prove your hypothesis.

Marc Gregoire:

So it's more researchers and scientists taking shortcuts, trying to promote themselves versus something malicious like cybersecurity, it's a degradation of the scientific method.

Mike Gorday:

Okay.

James Riddle:

And it's pervasive enough to get mentioned in the news. It's been a problem forever, but it's exacerbated by the AI learning models, where the learning models are learning from things that they don't know aren't right.

Nathan Mumm:

And see, I guess that's a huge problem.

Nathan Mumm:

Where a discerning scientist might be able to detect that a particular paper had, uh, something that might be questionable because as you create a large language model for chat, gpt, and then all of a sudden you have china with deep sea, go and steal that information. If they don't, because they don't go back to the most current large language model, they go to the one that they published with the information. So if they don't go back to the newest information and you have that language model with all those fake papers, now you know you may have something that will be completely false. That is proven in one or two or three different versions of AI systems that are out there.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, but this is also compounded by the brutal, dark side of research science. Okay, all right, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, well, let's see, james, that we're gonna have to be drinking even more after that. All right, last question that I have here the uk plans for human trials on the world's most advanced brain chip for anxiety and depression. Uh, what is this chip going to do and what's going on with this? This is, this is exciting. I've been watching severance season two, so tell me a little bit about what we got going on here.

James Riddle:

Yeah, so if you're a Severance fan, this will resonate.

Speaker 9:

Okay.

James Riddle:

After the down article we talked about with the fake papers, this one's actually super cool. And so the folks at Forest Neurotech have devised a new type of brain implant that uses targeted ultrasound to change your behavior and your mood, and it's being researched over in the UK right now with the National Health Service. And unlike most of the other neuro implants you've heard Neuralink from Elon Musk and all that this one doesn't have to penetrate into your brain matter in order to work. It sits inside the skull and it uses a brain computer interface and what it does is it uses targeted ultrasound in various parts of your brain to change your mood and your behavior less invasive way to impact people's health rather than drugs or surgeries or implantable brain implants.

James Riddle:

If you've ever been to the Seattle Science Center, I suspect that many of the listeners in the Seattle area have. They have this game there where you put on a cap and then the person on the other side of the table puts on a cap and you basically think the ball across to the other side of the table. That's using this basic technology, although the folks at forest neurotech have figured out how to make it really small and more, much more accurate and put it inside, in underneath the skull, but not in your brain matter super cool all right, oh great, that's a huge leap in technology over musk, yeah yeah, well, yeah, it would be, because if you don't have to go in and start attaching stuff to the skull itself and you just put it underneath, that would be perfect or crash rockets all right days are out of time.

Nathan Mumm:

Tell us how people can get in touch with you offline after the show. We got to have you back because we have one subject that we didn't get to talk about. That, I think, would make great for our next time.

James Riddle:

How can people?

Nathan Mumm:

contact you.

James Riddle:

You can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just go look me up there. That's where I do all of my social media stuff.

Nathan Mumm:

James thanks for being a part of the show. If you want to go back and hear all about the Woolly mammoth, you can go to episode 70, aired on october 16th 2021, and find out what we got going on for there. We thank james so much yeah he's.

Marc Gregoire:

He's one of my all-time favorite guests you have we like james.

Nathan Mumm:

James is fantastic, so all right. Well, now we're going to move right now into our uh last commercial break. When we come on back, we have our nathan nugget.

Mike Gorday:

We'll see after this how to see a man about a dog. It combines darkly comic short stories, powerful poems and pulp fiction prose to create a heartbreaking and hilarious journey readers will not soon forget. Read how to see a man about a dog. Collected writings for free with kindle unlimited ebook available on kindle. Print copies available on amazon the book pository and more and more.

Speaker 1:

This is your Nugget of the Week.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Youtube is expanding its pilot program for its new premium light subscription in the United States. The company announced last week that the prices for a $7.99 per month plan instead of the $13.99 will allow you to skip most videos without ads, including gaming, fashion, beauty news and more. But if you're listening to music, it will not be ad-free. Are you interested in spending a little less, at $7.99 per month, to skip through commercials on YouTube? Mike Bad YouTube, all right, mr Gregoire, would you do that? No, no, all right, neither would I. So best of luck for your guys' non-premium ad music. Whatever you're trying to do, all right, let's now move on to our pick of the day whiskey tasting.

Speaker 1:

And now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings. Let's see what bubbles to the top.

Marc Gregoire:

What we are sipping on today is Smokeye Hill Barrel Proof. It is a straight bourbon, five plus years. This one, this batch, is 134.2 proof. It's a mash bill of four grains, with one of them being blue corn, and it is $90.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, and we think the blue corn adds to that little kind of turpentine taste, not the turpentine, more of the grainy, the grainy sweet taste.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Well, I'm going to give it a thumbs down. Wow, you know what? The price point. If I throw in the price point in there, I just think there's a whole lot better that I've tasted. And I don't know if I would See I would have a $50 bottle of something I enjoy, versus a $90 bottle is something I wouldn't. So I'm saying thumbs down. What are you going to go with, Mr Gorday?

Marc Gregoire:

I'm going to give it a thumbs up. Okay, I agree with both of you. So without the price it'd probably be a thumbs up for me, okay, but with the price it goes thumbs down. It goes thumbs down, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, there you show, so it should be great segments for everybody to talk about. Mike, we're about out of time. We want to thank our listeners for joining the program. Listeners, we want to hear from you, so visit us at techtimeradiocom. Click on the Be A Caller and ask a question on technology in our TalkBack recording system. We wanted you to remember that the science of tomorrow starts with the technology of today. We'll see you guys next week Later. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio. We hope that you had a chance to have that hmm moment today in technology. The fun doesn't stop there. We recommend that you go to techtimeradiocom and join our fan list for the most important aspect of staying connected and winning some really great monthly prizes. Thank you From all of us at TechTimeRadio. Remember mum's the word. Have a safe and fantastic week.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Nathan Mumm

Host
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Mike Gorday

Co-host
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Gwen Way

Guest
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James Riddle

Guest