It’s Thursday, y’all!!! That means it’s time for technology talk and news with Mark Starling on First News 570. You can listen to us LIVE, point, laugh, and talk trash about tech every Thursday morning at 643am Eastern. This week was talk about the Fed snooping in on your browsing history, Apple Glass rumors, and pizza arbitrage. AND, astronauts will be blasting off from Cape Canaveral next week.
ASTRONAUTS GET READY FOR HISTORY MAKING FLIGHT
SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are working hard to privatize space. This coming Wednesday, March 27th, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the first astronauts to fly to space since the Shuttle program’s decommissioning in 2011. And they’ll be flying commercial :). They’ll be flying the Crew Dragon on top of the Falcon 9. This is really cool. It’s interesting to note that the astronauts are geeking out about the technological updates from their shuttle days. Instead of buttons and joysticks, the crafts of the future will feature touch screens and swiping. If I could go, I would. This is so cool, NASA revived the worm logo for the rocket. You can watch the launch by visiting Space Center Houston, and NASA Live.
TIME TO GO INCOGNITO + VPN AS FEDS EXPAND BROWSER SNOOPING
With the COVID-19 pandemic still making its presence known, and Americans trying to figure out when they’ll actually go back out, the Senate thought it would be a good time to reauthorize the Patriot Act and extend warrantless government surveillance to your browser history. The Senate chose an interesting time to extend surveillance powers, especially when almost all-day Internet usage has reached record levels. There’s a lot to debate here, but in the end we all have a right to privacy. We have a right to communicate freely, and keep our private conversations private. People have fought and died for these basic freedoms, we should really understand what we’re giving up. If you want to browse privately, you’ll need more than Incognito mode. You’ll also need to encrypt your packets. You’ll need a VPN.
PIZZA ARBITRAGE POINTS TO BROKEN VENTURE SYSTEM
This is an interesting story. Once upon a time, I was in the local VC scene in DC, and went to all of the wine and cheese events, and meet the VCs type of parties. Venture firms deal in funny money, and don’t really fund companies that are built on business fundamentals, but seek out unicorns. theVerge featured an interesting article where a pizzeria owner turned a profit by using Door Dash to fulfill his delivery orders. Door Dash had listed his pizza price lower than what he actually charged to Door Dash customers, but Door Dash would still pay him full price. Door Dash has run its own controversy a few times, by offering a delivery service restaurants don’t want and then squeezing them on price. In this case a restauranteur is making more money by Door Dash’s incessant need for scale instead of practicing solid business. We’ve seen many venture backed businesses struggle as their fundamentals are questioned when times are challenging. I thought the system was broken then, and it’s broken now as many companies lose billions of dollars in a quest for scale and customer acquisition.
LEAKS ABOUND FOR APPLE GLASSES IN 2022
Apple leaker, Jon Prosser has let slip that Apple will be releasing its own glasses project, aka Apple Glass, in 2022. According to Prosser, the glasses will feature an augmented reality display and if Prosser is to be believed, the augmented overlays will only be visible by the wearer, and not people looking at them. Prosser also let slip information about an Apple tv-TV and a new iPhone.
America is slowly starting to reopen, but be careful out there. In Prince Georges County, where I live, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death. Maintain social distancing, and follow the advice from medical practitioners. I get it, things are hard, and we all have to work, but I’ve known too many people affected by C19. Stay safe, be well.