Speaker 0: Hello, and welcome to the Geek News Central
Speaker 0: podcast episode eighteen fifty five. I'm tonight's host,
Speaker 0: Ray Cochran. We've got a pretty great show
Speaker 0: lined up for you folks tonight. Leading off,
Speaker 0: a bombshell three year investigation from the Associated
Speaker 0: Press reveals how Silicon Valley giants IBM, Intel,
Speaker 0: NVIDIA, Oracle, and more spent decades selling the
Speaker 0: technology that built tech China's surveillance state. We're
Speaker 0: talking facial recognition, predictive policing, and the infrastructure
Speaker 0: that enabled mass detention in Xinjiang. This one's
Speaker 0: a gut punch, folks. Also on the show,
Speaker 0: malicious Chrome extensions, stealing credentials from over a
Speaker 0: hundred seventy sites, Microsoft's ambitious plan to eliminate
Speaker 0: all c, c plus plus code by twenty
Speaker 0: thirty. This one's speculative. And then China's combat
Speaker 0: ready human robot humanoid robot that kicks its
Speaker 0: CEO to prove it's real, and scientists running
Speaker 0: the most detailed brain simulation ever on Japan's
Speaker 0: supercomputer. Let's get into it. For the first
Speaker 0: article from, the Associated Press, This one's written
Speaker 0: by a few different, authors, David Goldman, Ing
Speaker 0: Han Kuang, Felipe Dana, and, Dake Kang Dake
Speaker 0: Kang. Thank you guys very much for the
Speaker 0: article. But, it is a bit more of
Speaker 0: a photo essay, so I definitely recommend you
Speaker 0: guys tuning in to check this article out.
Speaker 0: The images are, you know, mildly chilling, and
Speaker 0: I understand that this maybe it's, seems a
Speaker 0: lot more intense when you look at it
Speaker 0: from this point of view, but it's crazy
Speaker 0: to see the infrared dot images that are
Speaker 0: scanning our faces every time we unlock our
Speaker 0: phones. But, basically, over the last quarter century,
Speaker 0: American technology companies have played a far greater
Speaker 0: role than previously known in designing and building
Speaker 0: China's surveillance state. The Associated Press conducted a
Speaker 0: three year investigation based on tens of thousands
Speaker 0: of leaked emails and databases from China's Chinese
Speaker 0: surveillance companies, confidential corporate and government documents, public
Speaker 0: marketing materials, procurement records, and interviews with over
Speaker 0: a hundred current and former engineers, executive officials,
Speaker 0: and police officers across three continents. The investigation
Speaker 0: revealed that companies including IBM, Intel, NVIDIA, Oracle,
Speaker 0: Dell, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services, Thermo Fisher
Speaker 0: Scientific, and others sold billions of dollars worth
Speaker 0: of technology to Chinese police, government agencies, and
Speaker 0: surveillance companies despite repeated warnings from congress and
Speaker 0: media outlets about how these tools were being
Speaker 0: used to quash dissent, persecute religious groups, and
Speaker 0: target ethnic minorities. The foundation of Chinese surveillance
Speaker 0: apparatus was built on American technology, particularly in
Speaker 0: the far western region of Xinjiang, where it
Speaker 0: enabled a brutal mass detention campaign targeting the
Speaker 0: Uigh Uighur population. US companies brought predictive policing
Speaker 0: technology to China, systems that analyze vast amounts
Speaker 0: of data, including texts, calls, payments, videos, DNA,
Speaker 0: and even utility usage to identify individuals deemed
Speaker 0: suspicious and predict their movements. While the flood
Speaker 0: of American technology slowed considerably starting in twenty
Speaker 0: nineteen after international outrage and sanctions over atrocities
Speaker 0: in Xinjiang, it had already laid the foundation
Speaker 0: that Chinese companies have since built upon and,
Speaker 0: in some cases, replaced. Even today, connections persist
Speaker 0: between American tech and Chinese surveillance with companies
Speaker 0: like Amazon Web Services offering cloud services to
Speaker 0: Chinese surveillance giants despite them being on the
Speaker 0: US commerce's US Commerce department's entity list for
Speaker 0: national security and human rights concerns. Yeah. That
Speaker 0: things the sick things that people do for
Speaker 0: money. This this is just awful. The AP
Speaker 0: investigation uncovered that these companies had basically supplied
Speaker 0: critical infrastructure for China's digital police state. They
Speaker 0: sold facial recognition system, AI powered cameras, predictive
Speaker 0: policing software, cloud storage, DNA analysis kits, geographic
Speaker 0: mapping tools specifically marketed for use by Chinese
Speaker 0: police and surveillance agency. IBM, Dell, and Hitachi
Speaker 0: promoted facial recognition for police use, while NVIDIA
Speaker 0: and Intel partnered with China's three biggest surveillance
Speaker 0: companies to add AI capabilities to camera systems
Speaker 0: deployed across China, including in Xinjiang and Tibet.
Speaker 0: Dell marketed a military grade AI powered laptop
Speaker 0: with all race recognition capabilities to Chinese police
Speaker 0: in twenty nineteen. Thermo Fisher Scientific marketed DNA
Speaker 0: kits to Chinese police as designed for ethnic
Speaker 0: minorities like Uyghurs and Tibetans. Oracle, HP, and
Speaker 0: Esri sold geographic and mapping software allowing officers
Speaker 0: to track when blacklisted individuals strayed from designated
Speaker 0: areas. In Xinjiang specifically, this American technology enabled
Speaker 0: the creation of a comprehensive surveillance system where
Speaker 0: administrators assigned risk scores to residents with deductions
Speaker 0: for factors like growing a beard, being between
Speaker 0: fifteen and fifty five years old, or simply
Speaker 0: being Uyghur. By twenty seventeen, the system flagged
Speaker 0: twenty four thousand four hundred twelve people in
Speaker 0: a single week, most of whom were detained.
Speaker 0: Workers installed millions of cameras and wired over
Speaker 0: seven thousand police outposts. The investigation also revealed
Speaker 0: that across five presidential administrations, both Republican and
Speaker 0: Democratic, the US government repeatedly allowed and even
Speaker 0: actively helped American firms sell technology to Chinese
Speaker 0: police and surveillance companies despite warnings about national
Speaker 0: security and human rights abuses. The revelations have
Speaker 0: prompted bipartisan calls from lawmakers, including senator Josh
Speaker 0: Hawley, to subpoena tech companies and post stricter
Speaker 0: export controls. Man, I'm sure for a lot
Speaker 0: of you long time listeners to the show,
Speaker 0: that have kind of been through some of
Speaker 0: my dad's opinions, and maybe even align with
Speaker 0: that. Yeah. You you might find this one
Speaker 0: to be pretty crazy. It yeah. Well, maybe
Speaker 0: not crazy. It's it's maybe it's something that
Speaker 0: we do a little bit too often here.
Speaker 0: Trying to get a a little bit extra
Speaker 0: dough, I guess, here in the US. Jesus.
Speaker 0: This is just but, you know, this this
Speaker 0: kind of investigation raises critical questions about, like,
Speaker 0: corporate responsibility, you know, global impact of, like,
Speaker 0: technology sales. When American companies sell surveillance technology
Speaker 0: to authoritarian regimes, aren't aren't aren't we becoming
Speaker 0: complicit in those human rights abuses even if
Speaker 0: the abuses occurred, like, across an ocean that's
Speaker 0: on our continent? It's it's really easy to
Speaker 0: take a blind eye to these to what's
Speaker 0: happening when we're the ones enabling it realistically.
Speaker 0: And I don't mean we by us personally,
Speaker 0: but we, the American people. The technology for
Speaker 0: market access bargain that Silicon Valley struck with
Speaker 0: Beijing has had devastating real world consequences for
Speaker 0: millions of peoples or people. Yeah. Especially the
Speaker 0: Uyghur population. I think that's really tragic. I
Speaker 0: think I a few years back, I saw
Speaker 0: a lot of images of just, like, weird
Speaker 0: people lined up, you know, on their knees,
Speaker 0: on, like, like, just, like, concrete floor. It's
Speaker 0: just like a horrible imagery, but I digress.
Speaker 0: Sorry. It's a really heavy heavy one to
Speaker 0: lead with, but I think it's pretty crazy
Speaker 0: to think, you know, just like even over
Speaker 0: just, like, the last quarter century, you know,
Speaker 0: we we were the ones saying all these
Speaker 0: bad things about how the surveillance over there
Speaker 0: is too much, saying, you know, it's crazy
Speaker 0: to have a social score, and yet we're
Speaker 0: the ones enabling it. You know? Who knows?
Speaker 0: We probably have all that here too, just
Speaker 0: not not that we know of. Well, let's
Speaker 0: move on. Let's, let's let's hit a little
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Speaker 0: with, without tripping over all my words. Jeez.
Speaker 0: Maybe I need some water. I gotta get
Speaker 0: some water. Alright. Jesus. Okay. Alright. Jeez. Hopefully,
Speaker 0: you guys didn't have to hear all that.
Speaker 0: Let's move on. I did mention this in
Speaker 0: the intro, but speaking of security concerns a
Speaker 0: little bit closer to home, two Chrome extensions
Speaker 0: were caught secretly stealing credentials from over one
Speaker 0: hundred seventy sites. This one's from Hacker News
Speaker 0: written by Ravi Lakshmanan. Thank you very much,
Speaker 0: Ravi. But browser extensions have become a significant
Speaker 0: security threat in twenty twenty five with multiple
Speaker 0: large scale campaigns exposing millions of users to
Speaker 0: data theft and surveillance. The ecosystem's vulnerability stems
Speaker 0: from several systemic issues. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 0: enterprise users have browser extensions installed with fifty
Speaker 0: two percent running more than ten extensions. Up
Speaker 0: to fifty three percent of extensions in enterprise
Speaker 0: environments have high or critical risk permissions, allowing
Speaker 0: access to sensitive data like cookies, passwords, browsing
Speaker 0: history, and web page contents. Perhaps most concerning,
Speaker 0: fifty four percent of extensions are published anonymously
Speaker 0: via Gmail accounts with seventy nine percent from
Speaker 0: publishers who have released only one extension, making
Speaker 0: trust assessment really challenging, which I can totally
Speaker 0: understand. Now for those of you that are
Speaker 0: generally using plugins on your browsers, how are
Speaker 0: you determining that they're safe to use? What
Speaker 0: types of plugins are you guys using that,
Speaker 0: that these types of concerns are are, you
Speaker 0: know, are even coming up? It's honestly kind
Speaker 0: of freaky. I don't know. You I think
Speaker 0: all my, extensions are from trusted providers that
Speaker 0: I'm familiar with. I've never downloaded an extension
Speaker 0: from, you know, someone that only has the
Speaker 0: single extension and is unknown. So, you know,
Speaker 0: an unknown name. I feel like I've only
Speaker 0: ever downloaded, like, browser extensions from, like, official
Speaker 0: providers, like, you know, like, Chrome extension or,
Speaker 0: you know, this one's being distributed by Android
Speaker 0: or something. I I don't know. But these
Speaker 0: recent incidents highlight the scale of the problem.
Speaker 0: So, the shady panda campaign spent seven years
Speaker 0: publishing or acquiring harmless extensions, letting them run
Speaker 0: clean to build trust and gain millions of
Speaker 0: installs, then suddenly flipping them into malware via
Speaker 0: silent updates, ultimately affecting four point three million
Speaker 0: Chrome and Edge users. In late twenty twenty
Speaker 0: four and early twenty twenty five, a phishing
Speaker 0: campaign compromised developer accounts for at least thirty
Speaker 0: five legitimate Chrome extensions, allowing attackers to inject
Speaker 0: malicious code that stole cookies and access tokens
Speaker 0: from over two point six million users. These
Speaker 0: incidents demonstrate how attackers exploit the sleeper agent
Speaker 0: strategy, maintaining legitimate extensions for years before weaponizing
Speaker 0: them through updates that auto install across the
Speaker 0: entire user base. That is brutal. How do
Speaker 0: you even defend against that? It's actually brutal.
Speaker 0: Security researchers at socket dot dev discovered two
Speaker 0: malicious Chrome extensions, both named Phantom Shuttle, that
Speaker 0: have been operating since at least twenty seventeen,
Speaker 0: marketed as VPN and network testing tools while
Speaker 0: secretly stealing credentials from over one hundred seventy
Speaker 0: targeted websites. Extensions published by the same threat
Speaker 0: actor using the email, the new one, the
Speaker 0: new as in I knew, the new one
Speaker 0: dot com at Gmail dot com, have have
Speaker 0: accumulated over two thousand one hundred eighty users
Speaker 0: who paid subscriptions ranging from nine point nine
Speaker 0: to ninety five point nine Chinese yuan. So
Speaker 0: a dollar forty or thirteen fifty USD, believing
Speaker 0: they were purchasing legitimate VPN services. I don't
Speaker 0: understand you people. The malicious code is cleverly
Speaker 0: hidden by prepended to the legitimate hidden by
Speaker 0: being prepended to the legitimate jQuery library, making
Speaker 0: detection more difficult. Dude, these people are so
Speaker 0: clever. It's it's insane. The attack operates through
Speaker 0: sophisticated traffic interception. The extensions automatically inject hard
Speaker 0: coded proxy credentials. Username top fanny, password nine
Speaker 0: six three eight five two way, into every
Speaker 0: HTTP authentication request without user knowledge, running all
Speaker 0: browsing traffic through attacker controlled proxy servers hosted
Speaker 0: on Alibaba Cloud. This creates a man in
Speaker 0: the middle position allowing attackers to capture unencrypted
Speaker 0: data, including passwords, form data, session cookies, and
Speaker 0: browsing history. The hundred seventy domain target list
Speaker 0: specifically focuses on high value development tools, Docker,
Speaker 0: NPM registries, enterprise platforms like Cisco, IBM, VMware,
Speaker 0: and social media sites. The extensions maintain a
Speaker 0: sixty second heartbeat to their command and control
Speaker 0: server at phantom shuttle dot space, continuously exfiltrating
Speaker 0: user data. Most alarmingly, every five minutes, the
Speaker 0: extensions send user email addresses and passwords in
Speaker 0: plain text to the attacker infrastructure. As of
Speaker 0: December twenty twenty three twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 0: extensions remain operational in the Chrome Web Store
Speaker 0: through though socket dot dev has submitted takedown
Speaker 0: requests to Google's security team. What? Yeah. How
Speaker 0: do you defend against something like this? You
Speaker 0: know what I mean? How do you defend
Speaker 0: against something like this? This incident kinda reveals
Speaker 0: how browser extensions have evolved to the one
Speaker 0: of the most dangerous attack vectors in modern
Speaker 0: cybersecurity, particularly for developers and enterprise users. The
Speaker 0: targeting of developer flat platforms and cloud consoles
Speaker 0: is especially concerning because compromised developer credentials enable
Speaker 0: supply chain attacks. When attackers gain access to
Speaker 0: GitHub accounts, Docker registries, or MPM packages, they
Speaker 0: can inject malicious code that proc propagates to
Speaker 0: thousands or millions of downstream users. The fact
Speaker 0: that these extensions operated undetected for potentially eight
Speaker 0: years demonstrates a massive blind spot in both
Speaker 0: individual security practices and platform oversight mechanisms. For
Speaker 0: the average person, you know, this might illustrate
Speaker 0: to you why the traditional just be careful
Speaker 0: what you install advice is literally insufficient because,
Speaker 0: you know, I was talking to Mac here
Speaker 0: at the beginning, but then turns out that
Speaker 0: they were, you know, that you're using sleepers
Speaker 0: sleeper agent strategies. So, you know, these could
Speaker 0: be apps that you see them on the
Speaker 0: the the Chrome extension store and you see
Speaker 0: thousands and thousands of people have installed it,
Speaker 0: you inherently trust the the extension a little
Speaker 0: bit more. So I'm sure I'm sure there's
Speaker 0: at least one where, you know, it got
Speaker 0: flipped on its head. Who knows? But, definitely
Speaker 0: be careful installing extensions on your, browsers nowadays.
Speaker 0: You know, you really wanna only have the
Speaker 0: ones that are by trusted providers. And I
Speaker 0: know that's easy to say, but but, I
Speaker 0: mean, come on. They were these people were
Speaker 0: already literally paying you on to someone. It's
Speaker 0: like, it's out of country. You don't need
Speaker 0: like, how can you trust any of the
Speaker 0: services that are being sold there? So I
Speaker 0: don't know. It's an interesting thing. It's it's
Speaker 0: really hard to be able to diagnose whether
Speaker 0: a business is trustable in the in the
Speaker 0: scope of being able to handle your data.
Speaker 0: And I think this is a big example
Speaker 0: of why you should be careful of where
Speaker 0: you sign up or what kind of extensions
Speaker 0: you pay into, you know, the types of
Speaker 0: sites you're paying into. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 0: Even just going through some of my, you
Speaker 0: know, my dad's, you know, subscriptions that he
Speaker 0: did, you know, just, obviously, like, a casual
Speaker 0: bourbon or whiskey enjoyer, but still, like, I
Speaker 0: I don't know. It just confused me that,
Speaker 0: you know, there were all all these types
Speaker 0: of random subscriptions to these random sites available
Speaker 0: online. But I definitely check this out from
Speaker 0: Hacker News. Thank you again, Ravi Lakshmanan for
Speaker 0: the article. Let's move on. This is a
Speaker 0: pretty cool, change if it's actually true. This
Speaker 0: is from thurratt dot com written by Paul
Speaker 0: thurratt. So I guess this is his personal,
Speaker 0: But so thanks, Paul. But Microsoft replaced all
Speaker 0: CC plus plus code with Rust by twenty
Speaker 0: thirty, and this is a big modernization, of
Speaker 0: a code base, which I'm not against. I
Speaker 0: for those of you who know me, I'm
Speaker 0: a huge fan of Rust. I think it's
Speaker 0: a fantastic language, very beautifully handles memory management,
Speaker 0: but I digress. Let's get into the article.
Speaker 0: For over a decade, Microsoft has been grappling
Speaker 0: with a persistent security challenge. Roughly seventy percent
Speaker 0: of the company's patches have addressed memory safety
Speaker 0: issues stemming from c and c plus plus
Speaker 0: code. These vulnerabilities include buffer overflows and use
Speaker 0: after free bugs represent an entire class of
Speaker 0: exploits that are endemic to these legacy languages.
Speaker 0: In response, Microsoft began exploring Rust as a
Speaker 0: safer alternative in twenty twenty three when Azure
Speaker 0: CTO, Mark Russ Russinovic forbid developers from starting
Speaker 0: new c c slash c plus plus projects
Speaker 0: and man mandated the use of Rust instead.
Speaker 0: Is that true? I didn't know that. The
Speaker 0: company has already started rewriting parts of the
Speaker 0: window kernel in Rust with early results showing
Speaker 0: improved performance and fewer exploitable faults. The broader
Speaker 0: software industry has been moving in the same
Speaker 0: direction. Google, Amazon, Dropbox, and CloudFlare now make
Speaker 0: extensive use of Rust for critical infrastructure, and
Speaker 0: the Linux kernel officially adopted Rust in twenty
Speaker 0: twenty five. Google even invested a million dollars
Speaker 0: in the Rust Foundation to improve interoperability between
Speaker 0: c plus plus and Rust, recognizing that the
Speaker 0: transition will require coexistence between the two languages
Speaker 0: during migration. According to JetBrains, two point three
Speaker 0: million developers now use Rust with enterprise adoption,
Speaker 0: increasing by sixty eight point seventy five percent.
Speaker 0: This industry wide shift underscores the urgency of
Speaker 0: addressing memory safe memory safety and systems programming.
Speaker 0: Hey. That's cool. I am a huge fan
Speaker 0: of Rust. I have a little tiny, TUI
Speaker 0: tool that I've put together using Rust that
Speaker 0: is quick and fast and efficient. I love
Speaker 0: it. It does all sorts of, you know,
Speaker 0: knick knack type of stuff, but, obviously, that's,
Speaker 0: like, not really the best use for that
Speaker 0: type of tool. But still, I think it's
Speaker 0: a fantastic language. I'm glad to see this
Speaker 0: change coming into place, especially if it's gonna
Speaker 0: cut out a lot of the patches related
Speaker 0: to memory issues. That is the big thing
Speaker 0: with c and c plus plus memory, memory,
Speaker 0: memory, memory, memory. This is not so bad
Speaker 0: now with a lot of the smart pointers
Speaker 0: and whatnot in c plus plus, but, you
Speaker 0: know, I'm sure that they have a lot
Speaker 0: of legacy code that they're unwilling to change
Speaker 0: because it, you know, it works. So Microsoft
Speaker 0: distinguished engineer Galen Hunt announced an ambitious goal
Speaker 0: to eliminate every line of c in c
Speaker 0: plus plus code from Microsoft by twenty thirty,
Speaker 0: replacing it with Rust using AI assisted large
Speaker 0: scale refactoring. Now this AI refactoring is crazy.
Speaker 0: I've seen some videos on it. My god.
Speaker 0: It can make something ugly turn beautiful. The
Speaker 0: company's strategy combines algorithmic program analysis with AI
Speaker 0: agents to rewrite code bases at scale, targeting
Speaker 0: a productivity metric of one engineer, one month,
Speaker 0: one million lines of code. Jesus. That's too
Speaker 0: many lines of code. Microsoft is building infrastructure
Speaker 0: that creates queryable graphs of source code for
Speaker 0: deterministic reasoning while deploying AI models to perform
Speaker 0: translation, refactoring, and specification in in inference tasks
Speaker 0: under algorithmic supervision. However, an important update clarified
Speaker 0: that this is currently a research project rather
Speaker 0: than an official goal for Windows eleven, twelve,
Speaker 0: or future versions. So yes. So okay. Yeah.
Speaker 0: This this is why I said it was
Speaker 0: speculative earlier, because I did see a, like,
Speaker 0: a, an article that was saying the opposite,
Speaker 0: that I had said that this was just
Speaker 0: a speculative. But the initiative is is is
Speaker 0: the initiative is driven by Rust's compelling advantage.
Speaker 0: It offers c, c plus plus level performance
Speaker 0: while providing memory safety and thread safety guarantees
Speaker 0: built into the language itself. Rust's ownership, borrowing,
Speaker 0: and lifetime model eliminates buffer overflows, use after
Speaker 0: free bugs, and other memory corruption vulnerabilities without
Speaker 0: imposing garbage collector overhead on low latency system
Speaker 0: code. Early conversions such as the Direct Write
Speaker 0: subsystem have demonstrated these benefits with Rust based
Speaker 0: kernel trials converting potentially AI generated code to
Speaker 0: rely heavily on unsafe blocks. Wait. Did I
Speaker 0: read that right? With Rust based kernel trials
Speaker 0: converting potentially, exploitable conditions into deterministic crashes. While
Speaker 0: challenges remain, including the potential for AI generated
Speaker 0: code to rely heavily on unsafe blocks that
Speaker 0: bypass Rust guarantees, the overall direction represents Microsoft's
Speaker 0: most serious effort yet to modernize its massive
Speaker 0: code base and eliminate a long standing source
Speaker 0: of security vulnerabilities. Now for those of you
Speaker 0: that are not super tech savvy, this might
Speaker 0: just seem like a mouthful of hogwash or
Speaker 0: however you're supposed to say it. But, to
Speaker 0: be clear, the the biggest the hardest part
Speaker 0: about switching off a c and c plus
Speaker 0: plus is the performance. The memory safety is
Speaker 0: has been a constant issue from the start.
Speaker 0: And, you know, as we've introduced newer languages
Speaker 0: with the with the the the thing called
Speaker 0: a garbage collector in it. These languages are
Speaker 0: easier to manage or don't have as much
Speaker 0: memory issues, but they're also a little bit
Speaker 0: slower due to the garbage collector in the
Speaker 0: system. So it's kinda cool to see how,
Speaker 0: how they've optimized or they've worked on optimizing,
Speaker 0: managing memory and how successful the ownership system
Speaker 0: has been in, the Rust ecosystem. So it's
Speaker 0: a yeah. I think it's cool. I don't
Speaker 0: think it's a bad goal to eliminate every
Speaker 0: line of c and c plus plus for
Speaker 0: Microsoft by twenty thirty if they have as
Speaker 0: many memory issues as they're saying. But at
Speaker 0: the same time, yeah, doing all of it
Speaker 0: algorithmically via, you know, AI driven migrations might
Speaker 0: not be the best choice. That's all I
Speaker 0: can really say. Yeah. I don't I don't
Speaker 0: I don't particularly agree with that, that one.
Speaker 0: Let's move on. We got this year's most
Speaker 0: influential open source projects by the GitHub blog.
Speaker 0: This one's written by Lee Riley. GitHub universe
Speaker 0: twenty twenty five featured an open source zone
Speaker 0: showcasing twelve standout open source projects that represent
Speaker 0: the current state of innovation in the ecosystem.
Speaker 0: This annual event brings together maintainers, contributors, and
Speaker 0: developers to highlight projects that are shaping how
Speaker 0: software is built and maintained. The twenty twenty
Speaker 0: five cohort spans diverse categories from back end
Speaker 0: platforms and release automation to security frameworks and
Speaker 0: developer tools, reflecting reflecting the breadth of challenges
Speaker 0: the open source community is tackling. And, you
Speaker 0: know, with this note, I was thinking about
Speaker 0: doing, like, a, like, a false segment at
Speaker 0: the end of every episode. So who knows?
Speaker 0: I might try that out next, next episode
Speaker 0: that I do. Just do a little a
Speaker 0: FOSS introduction on on a free and open
Speaker 0: source software, tell you guys what their mission
Speaker 0: is, what they're doing, and how you guys
Speaker 0: can get involved if you're if you're a
Speaker 0: developer. But I think, FOSS tools really align
Speaker 0: a lot with the, you know, the ecosystem
Speaker 0: of podcasting as well and and what it
Speaker 0: means to be a podcaster, today. So I
Speaker 0: think that's something that we should all talk
Speaker 0: about and check out. So I'm probably gonna
Speaker 0: bring that into the show starting, my next
Speaker 0: episode. So new new New Year format, we'll
Speaker 0: call it that. But, let's move on. So
Speaker 0: the timing of the showcase is significant as
Speaker 0: the open source landscape undergoes major shifts. And
Speaker 0: I did talk about this a few weeks
Speaker 0: ago. TypeScript recently surpassed Python as the most
Speaker 0: used language on GitHub for the first time
Speaker 0: in over a decade driven by AI assisted
Speaker 0: development and frameworks that develop that default to
Speaker 0: TypeScript. Meanwhile, Python continues dominating AI and data
Speaker 0: science with two point six million contributors. This
Speaker 0: reflects a broader trend towards hybrid stacks where
Speaker 0: Python handles data pipelines and machine learning, while
Speaker 0: TypeScript powers user facing applications and APIs. And,
Speaker 0: again, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, if
Speaker 0: I remember correctly. I personally don't think I've
Speaker 0: played around with TypeScript, at all, so I
Speaker 0: definitely have to check it out. I'm definitely
Speaker 0: a huge fan of that vanilla JS despite
Speaker 0: the that that controversial idea, I could say.
Speaker 0: But I guess maybe if I like vanilla
Speaker 0: JS, I might like, TypeScript too. So the
Speaker 0: feature projects at Universe twenty twenty five demonstrate
Speaker 0: how open source is evolving to meet modern
Speaker 0: development challenges. AppWright provides developers with an open
Speaker 0: source back end platform that eliminates boilerplate code
Speaker 0: with ready made APIs for databases, authentication, and
Speaker 0: storage. Wow. That's cool. It's basically a template.
Speaker 0: And then Go Releaser has become the go
Speaker 0: to release engineering tool for Go maintainers, automating
Speaker 0: the entire process of packaging and publishing and
Speaker 0: distributing projects with over fifteen thousand stars and
Speaker 0: paying customers worldwide. Oh, no. This now I
Speaker 0: need to check that one out. I've I
Speaker 0: have a Go tool that I've, I have
Speaker 0: hosted on a cloud service that I use
Speaker 0: at my other job. And, I always have
Speaker 0: to run my own personal scripts to get
Speaker 0: everything running back up running up again on
Speaker 0: on the production side. So this might be
Speaker 0: something that really helps me out. See, okay.
Speaker 0: Cool. Go releaser. But, yeah, the Open Source
Speaker 0: Project Security Baseline, OSPSB, and OpenSSF initiative addresses
Speaker 0: the critical but often overlooked aspect of security
Speaker 0: by providing maintainers with a practical, actionable checklist
Speaker 0: of minimum security requirements that any project any
Speaker 0: project can implement regardless of team size. And
Speaker 0: let me tell you, yes. Security is a
Speaker 0: hard thing to, you know, bake into your
Speaker 0: code when you're building it. It is good
Speaker 0: to do habitually, but oftentimes, you know, you
Speaker 0: you're more focused on the general flow rather
Speaker 0: than worrying about someone trying to bust into
Speaker 0: your machine. But, I mean, we we talked
Speaker 0: about those Chrome extensions earlier. It's a valid
Speaker 0: concern. But the broader ecosystem has experienced rapid
Speaker 0: growth in AI enabled development tools and low
Speaker 0: code platforms. Projects like ShadCN slash UI have
Speaker 0: become foundational for web applications due to their
Speaker 0: flexibility and accessibility or accessible copy paste component
Speaker 0: architecture. I've I think I have that on
Speaker 0: my computer. I've seen that updated before. So,
Speaker 0: you know, things that I don't even realize
Speaker 0: I'm using is in my system. And then,
Speaker 0: Mitosis is solving framework lock in by allowing
Speaker 0: developers to write components once and compile them
Speaker 0: to React, Vue, Svelte, Angular, Solid, and mobile
Speaker 0: frameworks. The low code movement is thriving with
Speaker 0: n8n showing explosive growth in workflow automation, while
Speaker 0: Supabase, AppFlowy, and Anocodb remains or maintain strong
Speaker 0: momentum alongside newer contenders like NoCoBase and Windmill.
Speaker 0: And I do I do have a little
Speaker 0: bit of experience with Supabase. That's a pretty
Speaker 0: fun, what did they use? PostgreSQL database cloud
Speaker 0: service. That one's a pretty cool one. But
Speaker 0: the shift towards supa or TypeScript the shift
Speaker 0: towards Supabase is not but the shift the
Speaker 0: shift towards TypeScript as a dominant language on
Speaker 0: GitHub, I think, really signaled a fundamental change
Speaker 0: in, like, how developers are approaching building software.
Speaker 0: And I think it will kinda change how
Speaker 0: you guys start to experience software in the
Speaker 0: coming future. I do think that it is
Speaker 0: a little bit obvious when, a site or
Speaker 0: component has built been built with AI. You
Speaker 0: can kind of tell it uses a similar
Speaker 0: styling, but who knows? That might change in
Speaker 0: the future. I do like that there are
Speaker 0: now a lot of frameworking tools or templating
Speaker 0: tools that allow you to that give you
Speaker 0: the basis that you can extend upon, really
Speaker 0: making software be released at a much quicker
Speaker 0: and more efficient rate. We might start seeing
Speaker 0: downscaling of businesses and the increasing the increase
Speaker 0: of the amount of businesses, with all these
Speaker 0: efficiencies being introduced. But who knows? I don't
Speaker 0: even know. It I think this is awesome.
Speaker 0: I love that GitHub is doing this. I
Speaker 0: would love to go to GitHub, you know,
Speaker 0: or universe GitHub universe. One of these years,
Speaker 0: that'll be definitely a goal for me to
Speaker 0: to check it out, but check this website
Speaker 0: out. A lot of cool open source tools
Speaker 0: here. I'm definitely gonna be trying out the
Speaker 0: Go Releaser. I think that, that one will
Speaker 0: definitely help with my own personal, my own
Speaker 0: personal business. So, yeah, let's move on. This
Speaker 0: one kinda sounds straight out of science fiction,
Speaker 0: but, Engine AI unveils t eight hundred, combat
Speaker 0: ready humanoid combat ready humanoid targets mass production
Speaker 0: for industry. Now this one's from New Atlas
Speaker 0: by Stefan Ionescu. And we did talk about,
Speaker 0: the what was it? I can't remember what
Speaker 0: the name of the robot was, but they
Speaker 0: just released another automated robot in China, unless
Speaker 0: this is the same one. But the humanoid
Speaker 0: robotics industry is experiencing explosive growth in twenty
Speaker 0: twenty five with the global market projected to
Speaker 0: surge from two point nine two billion to
Speaker 0: fifteen point twenty six billion by two thousand
Speaker 0: and thirty, representing a staggering thirty nine point
Speaker 0: two percent annual growth rate. This acceleration has
Speaker 0: driven by fierce competition between the United States
Speaker 0: and China, with China emerging as a dominant
Speaker 0: force through aggressive government support, massive investment, and
Speaker 0: a commanding lead in patent fill fillings or
Speaker 0: filings. Wow. In just the first nine months
Speaker 0: of twenty twenty five, China's robotics sector extracted
Speaker 0: six hundred ten investment deals totaling fifty billion
Speaker 0: yuan, about seven billion dollars, and which is
Speaker 0: a two hundred fifty percent year over year
Speaker 0: increase. Major players like Tesla, Agility Robotics, Boston
Speaker 0: Dynamics, and Figure AI are racing to scale
Speaker 0: production with Tesla targeting five thousand Optimus units
Speaker 0: in twenty twenty five and plan to reach
Speaker 0: hundred thousand by twenty twenty six. You know,
Speaker 0: I I don't wanna be a hater, but
Speaker 0: why they gotta use the the name Optimus?
Speaker 0: Like, come on. We all know you're referencing
Speaker 0: transformers. Like, get your own original name. This
Speaker 0: I hate that. I'm sorry. I hate that.
Speaker 0: Like, you couldn't even be creative enough to
Speaker 0: come up with a freaking different robot name
Speaker 0: for your first company's robot. You're gonna name
Speaker 0: it Optimus. That's crazy to me, man. What
Speaker 0: an insane lack of creativity. I have no
Speaker 0: other comment for that. An insane lack of
Speaker 0: creativity. Cost barriers are collapsing at unprecedented rates
Speaker 0: disrupting industry expectations. Chinese mac manufacturer Unitree shocked
Speaker 0: the market by launching its r one humanoid
Speaker 0: at just fifty nine hundred in July twenty
Speaker 0: twenty five, a price point previously thought impossible
Speaker 0: for years, and yet fifty nine hundred dollars
Speaker 0: is dirt cheap for a freaking humanoid robot.
Speaker 0: What? The industry is converged on a unified
Speaker 0: strategy. Build a single general purpose humanoid body
Speaker 0: that can learn many jobs through software and
Speaker 0: data then deploy at scale. The humanoid form
Speaker 0: factor is favored because it fits existing human
Speaker 0: environments, including stairs, doors, elevators, and tools designed
Speaker 0: for human proportions. In the in short or
Speaker 0: in the short to midterm before twenty thirty,
Speaker 0: the automotive industry is expected to lead humanoid
Speaker 0: adaptation with companies like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Tesla,
Speaker 0: Xiaomi, and XPeng, all deliver developing or deploying
Speaker 0: humanoid robots in their production facilities. Wow. So
Speaker 0: for this specific humanoid robot, the t eight
Speaker 0: hundred, Chinese robotics company, Engine AI, founded in
Speaker 0: late twenty twenty three and based in Shenzhen
Speaker 0: officially unveiled its twenty eight hundred humanoid robot
Speaker 0: in December twenty twenty five backed by one
Speaker 0: billion yuan in financing. Standing a hundred seventy
Speaker 0: three centimeters tall and weighing seventy five kilograms
Speaker 0: with battery, it's at, like, about a hundred
Speaker 0: fifty pounds. The t eight hundred features twenty
Speaker 0: nine degrees of freedom in the body, excluding
Speaker 0: hands, each hand with seven degrees of freedom
Speaker 0: and five kilogram payload capacity with integrated tactile
Speaker 0: sensing. The robot achieves a maximum joint torque
Speaker 0: of four hundred fifty nanometers and can move
Speaker 0: at speeds of up to three meters per
Speaker 0: second. Built from aviation grade aluminum panels for
Speaker 0: strength and lightweight, the t eight hundred includes
Speaker 0: an active cooling system in leg joints, enabling
Speaker 0: continuous high intensity operation for up to four
Speaker 0: hours powered by a seventy two quick seventy
Speaker 0: two volt quick release modular battery. The Pro
Speaker 0: and Max versions are powered by NVIDIA Jetson
Speaker 0: THOR chips capable of two thousand TOPS f
Speaker 0: p four processing. Not sure what that means.
Speaker 0: Combined with an Intel n ninety seven controller
Speaker 0: and NVIDIA AGX Orin module offering two seventy
Speaker 0: five TOPS of AI computing performance. For perception,
Speaker 0: the t eight hundred uses Intel RealSense d
Speaker 0: four one five and d four three five
Speaker 0: I depth cameras, three hundred sixty degree LIDAR.
Speaker 0: Wow. It even has LIDAR in it. Stereo
Speaker 0: cameras and an AC one sensor suite for
Speaker 0: navigation and obstacle detection. We are entering into
Speaker 0: some iRobot age level stuff right here. This
Speaker 0: is I mean, even just the image that's
Speaker 0: on here, and it obviously looks AI generated,
Speaker 0: but but, man, man, oh, man, expect to
Speaker 0: see humanoid robots in, you know, warehouses and
Speaker 0: workplaces within the next ten to fifteen years,
Speaker 0: guys. I it they're already shipping. They're already
Speaker 0: shipping. Another fantastical article, I guess. This one's
Speaker 0: from Yahoo Tech. Aviation startup shares incredible video
Speaker 0: of prototype EVs' maiden takeoff flight. Yes. It's
Speaker 0: true. A flying car. This one does not
Speaker 0: really look what I would have expected a
Speaker 0: flying vehicle to look like. I I don't
Speaker 0: even know how it flies. This this what?
Speaker 0: Okay. Wait. Let me put the video on.
Speaker 0: Let's see. Let's see. There's so there's a
Speaker 0: video here that you guys can tune in
Speaker 0: to The Blackbird has taken flight. We are
Speaker 0: proud to announce the successful maiden flight of
Speaker 0: our Blackbird And the car looks cool. It
Speaker 0: looks like it has, like, wheels, but the
Speaker 0: wheels, I believe, are what allow it to
Speaker 0: fly. But, yeah, the electrical vertical takeoff and
Speaker 0: landing air, eVTOL aircraft makes it experiencing explosive
Speaker 0: makes it what? The electrical vertical takeoff and
Speaker 0: landing aircraft market is experiencing explosive growth in
Speaker 0: twenty twenty five valued at approximately one point
Speaker 0: one nine billion and projected to reach four
Speaker 0: point three six billion by two thousand and
Speaker 0: thirty. So obviously not the same growth as
Speaker 0: the, the robots, I will say, but still
Speaker 0: pretty significant. It's expected to grow about four
Speaker 0: times. The surge is driven by increasing urban
Speaker 0: congestion, environmental concerns, and the aviation industry's pressure
Speaker 0: to reduce carbon emissions by forty five percent
Speaker 0: before twenty thirty. Austrian aviation company, Cyclotec, has
Speaker 0: emerged as an innovator in this space with
Speaker 0: its unique cyclo road cyclo cyclorotor propulsion technology,
Speaker 0: which differs fundamentally from conventional eVTOL designs by
Speaker 0: using barrel shaped rotors inspired by maritime prepare
Speaker 0: propellers. The company's approach enables three hundred sixty
Speaker 0: degree thrust vectoring, allow aircraft to move precisely
Speaker 0: in any direction without needing to reorient their
Speaker 0: body. Wow. The the the the like I
Speaker 0: said, it looks like it's got four wheels
Speaker 0: and a jetpack on the back. It it
Speaker 0: looks cool. As of early twenty twenty five,
Speaker 0: the urban air mo mobility infrastructure is expanding
Speaker 0: rapidly with a hundred fifty six Verti points
Speaker 0: operational globally and another hold on. Let me
Speaker 0: reread that because that that was a mouthful.
Speaker 0: As of early twenty twenty five, the urban
Speaker 0: air mobility infrastructure is expanding rapidly with a
Speaker 0: hundred fifty six Vertiports operational globally and another
Speaker 0: three hundred fifty under construction. What is a
Speaker 0: Vertiport? Is that, like, where one of these
Speaker 0: would fly and land from? Major players like
Speaker 0: Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation dominate the market,
Speaker 0: but companies like Cyclotech are pushing the boundaries
Speaker 0: with alternative propulsion systems that promise unprecedented maneuverability.
Speaker 0: The race to commercialize eVTOL technology is intensifying,
Speaker 0: with most industry observers predicting commercial passenger services
Speaker 0: to emerge as the dominant sector, accounting for
Speaker 0: approximately forty five percent of the total market
Speaker 0: value. Commercial passenger. So maybe like buses, airbuses.
Speaker 0: I would not be against airbuses. Yeah. That
Speaker 0: would be cool, especially with this type of
Speaker 0: design on it. That'd be sick. We'd rather
Speaker 0: ride the bus than sit in traffic. But
Speaker 0: Cyclotek successfully completed the maiden flight of its
Speaker 0: Blackbird eVTOL technology demonstrator on March twenty twenty
Speaker 0: seven twenty twenty five, marking a significant milestone
Speaker 0: achieved just eleven months after initial concept design.
Speaker 0: The three hundred forty kilogram Blackbird is the
Speaker 0: world's first aircraft powered by six advanced seventh
Speaker 0: generational cyclo rotors, featuring four mounted horizontally and
Speaker 0: two vertically to facilitate vertical takeoff and landing.
Speaker 0: During its inaugural unmanned flight, the aircraft demonstrated
Speaker 0: hovering capabilities and validated the operational readiness of
Speaker 0: Cyclotec's electrical prop propulsion, battery system, flight controls,
Speaker 0: software, and avionics. I'm I'm just so blown
Speaker 0: away right now. It literally looks like an
Speaker 0: airboat, like an airship. And if and if
Speaker 0: that's if that's how it works, by by
Speaker 0: propelling itself through the air like we propel
Speaker 0: our boats through the water, then I'm gonna
Speaker 0: be blown away. The cyclorotor technology represents a
Speaker 0: paradigm shift in eVTOL propulsion using barrel shaped
Speaker 0: roll rotors with blades that change angle as
Speaker 0: they spin. This design is the only propulsion
Speaker 0: system capable of controlling thrust vector strength and
Speaker 0: direction in a full three hundred sixty degree
Speaker 0: circular path, enabling advanced maneuvering capabilities, including mid
Speaker 0: air braking, hover with pitch control up to
Speaker 0: thirty degrees, precise landings, and even lateral movements
Speaker 0: like parallel parking. The Blackbird serves as technology
Speaker 0: demonstrator for Cyclotec's larger project, the Cruise Up,
Speaker 0: a two seat personal air vehicle designed for
Speaker 0: urban and suburban travel with a top feet
Speaker 0: of ninety five miles per hour and a
Speaker 0: range of sixty miles, slated for market debut
Speaker 0: in twenty thirty five or later. Cyclotec now
Speaker 0: has now launched an extensive flight test campaign
Speaker 0: to fully characterize the performance envelope and flight
Speaker 0: dynamics of its cyclo rotor based architecture. So
Speaker 0: cool. Just so cool. Hey. But hey. For
Speaker 0: you guys for you technology enthusiasts and those
Speaker 0: launching the future of transportation, Cyclotec's successful demonstration
Speaker 0: represents more than just another eVTOL prototype. Again,
Speaker 0: this is a paradigm shift. This is the
Speaker 0: first of its kind. It showcases an entirely
Speaker 0: different approach to solving the challenges of urban
Speaker 0: air mobility. While most eVTOL companies are pursuing
Speaker 0: conventional rotor or propeller designs, CycloTech's Cyclorotor technology
Speaker 0: offers capabilities that could fundamentally change what's possible
Speaker 0: in personal aviation. The ability to move instantly
Speaker 0: in any direction, break mid air, and maintain
Speaker 0: stable hover even in gusty conditions addresses key
Speaker 0: safety and practicality concerns that have plagued traditional
Speaker 0: vertical flight systems. This could make urban air
Speaker 0: taxis more viable in real world conditions where
Speaker 0: weather and tight spaces are constant challenges. Man,
Speaker 0: who knows? Fifteen years. Maybe fifteen years, we'll
Speaker 0: we'll start well, we'll start seeing Airbuses or
Speaker 0: something. They're saying that the cruise up vehicle
Speaker 0: isn't isn't even expected to twenty thirty five,
Speaker 0: actually. So, never mind. The two man, sixty
Speaker 0: mile vehicle that goes up to ninety five
Speaker 0: miles per hour, it's only gonna be available
Speaker 0: in twenty thirty five or later. So I
Speaker 0: I we're still at the beginning phases of
Speaker 0: this, but this is some epic, epic, epic
Speaker 0: stuff in my opinion. I think this is
Speaker 0: really game changing. Alright. Next article up tonight,
Speaker 0: we're gonna head back down to Earth with
Speaker 0: some more consumer tech. We've been talking a
Speaker 0: lot about phones this year, and Android Central
Speaker 0: has released their best of twenty twenty five
Speaker 0: phone list. This one's written by, Shruti Shekhar
Speaker 0: with contributions from Harish Janalogdha Janalogdha, Derek Lee,
Speaker 0: Nicholas Sutrick, and Andrew Myrick. Thanks, guys. Android
Speaker 0: Central has released its annual best twenty five
Speaker 0: twenty twenty five awards for smartphones, marking a
Speaker 0: significant year in the Android ecosystem characterized by
Speaker 0: substantial advancements in AI powered photography and battery
Speaker 0: technology. The The awards come at a time
Speaker 0: when OnePlus has successfully transformed from a niche
Speaker 0: enthusiast brand to a mainstream flagship competitor, earning
Speaker 0: its second consecutive top spot in Android's central
Speaker 0: rankings. This year's competition was particularly notable for
Speaker 0: showcasing devices with groundbreaking features like seventy three
Speaker 0: hundred mega what is it? Mega amperes? Mega
Speaker 0: I don't know how they measure the what
Speaker 0: what are the what is the the metric
Speaker 0: is used to measure, battery life, m a
Speaker 0: h batteries, and then a hundred sixty five
Speaker 0: hertz displays, which which is crazy because my
Speaker 0: personal monitor, I think it only goes to
Speaker 0: a hundred hertz. I mean, it's ten years
Speaker 0: old, but still. And then Gemini powered camera
Speaker 0: coaching systems that teach users photography principles in
Speaker 0: real time. Oh, that's kinda clever. The smartphone
Speaker 0: landscape in twenty twenty five has been defined
Speaker 0: by a clear shift towards AI integration and
Speaker 0: practical longevity improvements. Google's Pixel ten Pro introduced
Speaker 0: camera coach, a Gemini powered feature that provides
Speaker 0: step by step guidance on lighting and composition
Speaker 0: while teaching foundational camera skills. Meanwhile, manufacturers like
Speaker 0: OnePlus have focused on delivering exceptional value propositions,
Speaker 0: combining flagship tier specifications with competitive pricing and
Speaker 0: extended software support commitments of up to six
Speaker 0: years. The competition between traditional camera leaders like
Speaker 0: Google and emerging challengers like Oppo's Find x
Speaker 0: nine Pro highlights how global availability and market
Speaker 0: access continue to play crucial roles in determining
Speaker 0: category winners. But yeah. So Android Central crowned
Speaker 0: the OnePlus fifteen as the best Android phone
Speaker 0: in twenty twenty five. I guess, it's the
Speaker 0: fastest available processor with its Snapdragon eight Elite,
Speaker 0: three day battery life, which is insane. Three
Speaker 0: day battery life. And then ultra fast charging
Speaker 0: capabilities, the hundred sixty five hertz display, and
Speaker 0: and the advanced eye care features that are
Speaker 0: built into that. So I think it's kinda
Speaker 0: cool. We've really seen the device represent, like,
Speaker 0: OnePlus OnePlus's evolution of it's, like, it's never
Speaker 0: settle philosophy, offering flagship tier features, including excellent
Speaker 0: build quality with IP sixty nine k water
Speaker 0: resistance, haptic feedback, six years of software updates.
Speaker 0: It's it's just great. I think I think
Speaker 0: especially knowing that you're gonna be getting getting
Speaker 0: those guaranteed six years of maintenance. Knowing that
Speaker 0: your phone is not gonna stop receiving updates
Speaker 0: for the next at least six years is
Speaker 0: just fantastic in my opinion. But, yeah, I'm
Speaker 0: not shocked to see the OnePlus dominating the
Speaker 0: markets right now. They've the release was high
Speaker 0: profile, and it was really successful. So I'm
Speaker 0: just I'm just not surprised. Congratulations to them,
Speaker 0: on such a successful release. But this next
Speaker 0: one is a fun one, fun fun in
Speaker 0: a sense. For the pirate archivist groups scraped,
Speaker 0: Spotify's three hundred terabyte library, and they post
Speaker 0: free torrents for downloading. And, you know, this
Speaker 0: one's by Hassan Nasir. I think we've had
Speaker 0: an article by by him before here on
Speaker 0: Tom's Hardware. Thank you again, Hassam. But I
Speaker 0: think I'm I'm I'm I'm on two sides
Speaker 0: with this. So Anna's archive, an open source
Speaker 0: shadow library search engine primarily known for its
Speaker 0: archiving books and academic pagers, has acclaimed responsibility
Speaker 0: for scraping and archiving nearly the entire Spotify
Speaker 0: music library. The organization emerged in twenty twenty
Speaker 0: two immediately following law enforcement shutdown of z
Speaker 0: library and has since aggregate aggregated records from
Speaker 0: z library, the Internet archive, library genesis, and
Speaker 0: Scihub. As of December twenty five, Anna's archive
Speaker 0: hosts more than sixty one million books and
Speaker 0: ninety five million papers and has been banned
Speaker 0: in several countries for repeated copyright violations. Google
Speaker 0: removed nearly eight hundred million links to Anna's
Speaker 0: archive from its search engine in twenty twenty
Speaker 0: five after publishers issue after publishers issued takedown
Speaker 0: requests. The group positions itself as a preservationist
Speaker 0: of human knowledge and culture, arguing that digital
Speaker 0: content needs to be archived and made freely
Speaker 0: available to ensure long term preservation. And on
Speaker 0: this note, I agree. I am strongly in
Speaker 0: line with, sites like the Internet Archive and
Speaker 0: places that make knowledge free for people to
Speaker 0: access. For those of you that, do, you
Speaker 0: know, a little bit more research into some
Speaker 0: of these, you know, businesses, you know, things
Speaker 0: like the educational, you know, research business is
Speaker 0: one of the most profitable profitable businesses in
Speaker 0: the US. You know? Who's paying or, I
Speaker 0: guess, in the world, who's paying those researchers
Speaker 0: to do the research? You know? We submit
Speaker 0: these articles to the to these massive journal
Speaker 0: companies that publish them. And, yeah, you get
Speaker 0: your article published, but you didn't get paid
Speaker 0: for that. Oftentimes, the journal company can now
Speaker 0: or the publishing company can now, you know,
Speaker 0: freely distribute that under their name. And libraries
Speaker 0: and universities pay massive fees every year to
Speaker 0: gain access to these, to these libraries, basically,
Speaker 0: these online archives that allow their students to
Speaker 0: do more research. So it's it's it's a
Speaker 0: self self profit or a self growing industry
Speaker 0: where they get to collect the research for
Speaker 0: free and publish it. They maintain what's actually
Speaker 0: good research, and and being published is is
Speaker 0: a is an amazing thing, but at the
Speaker 0: same time, it's like you're not getting paid
Speaker 0: for that. And this is something I learned
Speaker 0: from, one of my former professors who went
Speaker 0: through this whole publishing process just to prove
Speaker 0: that just to prove that point. But, prior
Speaker 0: but but I think for something like this
Speaker 0: where we're stealing people's music, maybe not the
Speaker 0: best, thing to be, you know, doing as
Speaker 0: a preservationist group, as this is people's personal
Speaker 0: creative works. And on top of that, I
Speaker 0: think making these making that freely downloadable and
Speaker 0: available for potential AI training is also extremely
Speaker 0: problematic because, you know, those people never consented
Speaker 0: to that level of analysis. But, hey, it's
Speaker 0: online. What's stopping someone from recording, you know,
Speaker 0: having a recording of your recording and and
Speaker 0: doing the same thing? Right? So it's it's
Speaker 0: hard to argue for or against. I don't
Speaker 0: think it's right to the people that would
Speaker 0: are are gonna lose money from this in
Speaker 0: terms of, like, the actual creators. Spotify, I
Speaker 0: don't care. They they don't pay their, creatives
Speaker 0: enough, and I think that's been outlined thoroughly
Speaker 0: this year. And, for those of you who
Speaker 0: have listened to the show a long time,
Speaker 0: I'm sure you understand, my father's former stance
Speaker 0: on that as well. But, I mean, I
Speaker 0: I think shortly after he passed, I saw
Speaker 0: a like, one of those hearings with the
Speaker 0: Spotify CEO. And the the whole thing was
Speaker 0: that, you know, they had created a platform
Speaker 0: to make it so that anyone could freely
Speaker 0: try to create you know, make creative works
Speaker 0: and and potentially live off of it. But
Speaker 0: some abysmally low amount of people are actually
Speaker 0: profiting off of their works from Spotify, and
Speaker 0: not many people are actually able to have
Speaker 0: a living wage while the CEO is making
Speaker 0: hundreds of millions of dollars a year. So
Speaker 0: it it it really is kinda interesting. I
Speaker 0: think the the number was, like, hundred seventy
Speaker 0: four million was his salary, which if you
Speaker 0: if the people that you you are claiming
Speaker 0: to support aren't even making you know? Like,
Speaker 0: it's an average of, like, eleven bucks or
Speaker 0: something for the creators. If, like, they're if
Speaker 0: that's average, your your comp your company and
Speaker 0: your platform is supporting, I think you can
Speaker 0: move some of those funds towards the creatives
Speaker 0: and out of your your pockets. That seems
Speaker 0: to make a little more sense to me,
Speaker 0: but I digress. But NS archive claims to
Speaker 0: have scraped Spotify's entire music library, acquiring metadata
Speaker 0: for approximately two hundred fifty six million tracks
Speaker 0: and audio files for eighty six million songs,
Speaker 0: totaling nearly three hundred terabytes of data. According
Speaker 0: to the group's blog post, this archive covers
Speaker 0: around ninety nine point six percent of all
Speaker 0: listings on Spotify, representing what they call the
Speaker 0: world's first preservation archive for music, which is
Speaker 0: fully open. And the largest publicly available music
Speaker 0: metadata base with two hundred fifty six million
Speaker 0: tracks and hundred eighty six million unique ISRCs,
Speaker 0: The music files are being distributed via torrent
Speaker 0: with most tracks preserved in Spotify's original OGT
Speaker 0: Vorbis one sixty kilobytes BPS format. The songs
Speaker 0: with a popularity rating of exactly zero have
Speaker 0: been re encoded to seventy five kilobytes ps
Speaker 0: to save space. Currently, only the metadata has
Speaker 0: been fully released with the actual audio files
Speaker 0: being distributed gradually, starting with the most popular
Speaker 0: tracks. Spotify has confirmed the breach and stated
Speaker 0: that it has identified and disabled the nefarious
Speaker 0: user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping and
Speaker 0: implemented new safeguards for these types of anti
Speaker 0: copyright attacks. The company characterized the perpetrators as
Speaker 0: anti copyright extremists who've previously private pirated content
Speaker 0: from YouTube and other platforms. Emphasizing that since
Speaker 0: day one, we have stood with artist community
Speaker 0: against piracy, and we are actively working with
Speaker 0: our industry partners to protect creators and defend
Speaker 0: their rights. We'll pay them too instead of
Speaker 0: just defending their rights. Spotify indicated that there's
Speaker 0: no evidence that non public user information was
Speaker 0: compromised with the only user related data involved
Speaker 0: relating to public playlist created by users. Beyond
Speaker 0: immediate piracy concerns, the music industry is worried
Speaker 0: about potential implications for AI training as similar
Speaker 0: datasets from YouTube have been used unlicensed have
Speaker 0: been used by unlicensed AI music generation services
Speaker 0: to train their models, which could undermine licensing
Speaker 0: efforts with a with AI firms. Exactly. But
Speaker 0: I again, so if if it is available
Speaker 0: online and it it just because it's it's
Speaker 0: hard to to to to justify because you
Speaker 0: you will never be able to stop someone
Speaker 0: from being able to save or or steal
Speaker 0: this type of data. Right? The music or
Speaker 0: or an art piece. You know? A picture
Speaker 0: is enough. Right? And it although it's not
Speaker 0: the the original, the the the techniques and
Speaker 0: intent that are built into the piece are
Speaker 0: are there. So kind of a interesting, and
Speaker 0: I'm I'm sure we're gonna see a lot
Speaker 0: of this, in the next few years in
Speaker 0: terms of, you know, more data being stolen
Speaker 0: and, at the same time, the concern being
Speaker 0: the AI training that is going, on behind
Speaker 0: the scenes with these, stolen datasets. Let's move
Speaker 0: on. This one's a little bit mind bending.
Speaker 0: This breakthrough brain simulation captures a true brain
Speaker 0: at work. So this one's from Popular Mechanics
Speaker 0: written by Stav. Oh, Dimitropoulos Dimitropoulos. Alright. I'm
Speaker 0: horrible at saying these last names. I'll try
Speaker 0: harder. But for decades, neuroscientists have dreamed of
Speaker 0: creating detailed digital models of the brain to
Speaker 0: unlock its mysteries and develop better treatments for
Speaker 0: neurological diseases. However, the brain's complexity with billions
Speaker 0: of neurons and trillions of connections has made
Speaker 0: this vision extraordinarily challenging to achieve. Early brain
Speaker 0: simulations were either too simplified to capture realistic
Speaker 0: behavior or so computationally expensive that that they
Speaker 0: could only model tiny fragments of brain tissue.
Speaker 0: The gap between what scientists wanted to simulate
Speaker 0: and what was technically feasible has been enormous,
Speaker 0: limiting our ability to study brain functions, test
Speaker 0: treatments, or understand how diseases like Alzheimer's and
Speaker 0: epilepsy spread through neural networks. Recent advances in
Speaker 0: supercomputing power and neuroscience data collection have converged
Speaker 0: to make unprecedented brain simulations possible. In November
Speaker 0: twenty twenty five, researchers from the Allen Institute,
Speaker 0: in collaboration with Japan's University of Electro Communications
Speaker 0: at RIKEN Center for Computational Science, announced one
Speaker 0: of the most detailed virtual brain simulations ever
Speaker 0: created. Using Japan's Fugaku supercomputer, one of the
Speaker 0: world's fastest with over seven point six million
Speaker 0: cores and capable of more than four hundred
Speaker 0: quadrillion operations per second. They successfully simulated an
Speaker 0: entire mouse cortex comprising nearly ten million neurons
Speaker 0: and twenty six billion synapses across eighty six
Speaker 0: interconnected brain regions. This represents the largest biophysically
Speaker 0: realistic model of the mouse cortex to date,
Speaker 0: marking a critical milestone towards eventual whole brain
Speaker 0: simulations of larger animals and potentially humans. Wow.
Speaker 0: That's cool. That's really cool. The breakthrough simulation
Speaker 0: runs on all one hundred forty five thousand
Speaker 0: seven hundred twenty eight compute nodes of the
Speaker 0: Fugaku supercomputer, creating a fully digital mouse cortex
Speaker 0: where millions of neurons fire and electrical signals
Speaker 0: cascade through billions of connections just as they
Speaker 0: would in a living brain. What makes this
Speaker 0: simulation remarkable is not just its scale, but
Speaker 0: its biophysical accuracy. It follows the brain's actual
Speaker 0: biological rules rather than simplified approximations. Researchers can
Speaker 0: pause the simulation, rewind it, zoom into single
Speaker 0: synapses, and replay moments of neural activity with
Speaker 0: unprecedented detail. The Allen Institute provides the virtual
Speaker 0: brain's blueprint and biophysical properties, the real data
Speaker 0: from the Allen cell types database and Allen
Speaker 0: Connectivity Atlas, while Japan's Fugaku com provided the
Speaker 0: computational power to bring this data to life
Speaker 0: using specialized neuron simulator software called New Light.
Speaker 0: This achievement opens new possibilities for neuroscience research
Speaker 0: and medical applications. Scientists can now simulate diseases
Speaker 0: like Alzheimer's or epilepsy in the virtual world
Speaker 0: and watch in detail how damage spreads through
Speaker 0: neural networks, test potential treatments without risking living
Speaker 0: subjects, and conduct experiments that would be impossible
Speaker 0: or unethical in real animals. According to doctor
Speaker 0: Anton Arkhipov, an investigator at the Allen Institute,
Speaker 0: this work demonstrates that very detailed microscopic level
Speaker 0: simulations of larger brains may be possible sooner
Speaker 0: than previously expected, suggesting that a simulation of
Speaker 0: a whole macaque monkey brain with six billion
Speaker 0: neurons could fit on the full scale Fugaku
Speaker 0: system. Long term goal is to build whole
Speaker 0: brain models eventually, even human models, using all
Speaker 0: the biological details the institute continues to uncover.
Speaker 0: This research connects to broader developments in in
Speaker 0: digital twin brain technology, where AI powered models
Speaker 0: can predict brain responses to stimuli and enable
Speaker 0: personalized medicine approaches from neurological conditions. That is
Speaker 0: crazy. Hey. If you wanna live in a
Speaker 0: computer, I'm sure they're gonna have brain mapping
Speaker 0: and transference in the next twenty five years.
Speaker 0: And then you could be a virtual man
Speaker 0: forever or a virtual woman. But this I
Speaker 0: think this is fantastic. It's amazing. This is
Speaker 0: amazing use of science and our time, but
Speaker 0: really, really, really impressive. I think this breakthrough
Speaker 0: represents a fundamental shift in how we can
Speaker 0: study the brain, you know, develop treatments for
Speaker 0: neurological diseases, actually understand how, yeah, Alzheimer's and
Speaker 0: other brain diseases develop. This is cool. Really
Speaker 0: impressive breakthrough by The Allen Institute and Japan's
Speaker 0: Fugaku computer. Pretty cool stuff. And, you know,
Speaker 0: a little bit more Japanese news. This is
Speaker 0: the last one I got for you guys
Speaker 0: tonight. Sorry. I just just wanted a little
Speaker 0: long. I didn't really expect to go this
Speaker 0: deep on all my articles, but Japan prepares
Speaker 0: to restart the world's biggest nuclear plant fifteen
Speaker 0: years after the Fukushima incident. So, yes, it
Speaker 0: looks like we're turning Fukushima back on. The
Speaker 0: Kashiwazaki the Kashiwazaki karionu nuclear power station located
Speaker 0: in Niigata Prefecture about three hundred kilometers north
Speaker 0: of Tokyo is the world's largest nuclear power
Speaker 0: plant by capacity with seven reactor units. Following
Speaker 0: the devastating two thousand eleven Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
Speaker 0: disaster triggered by the nine point o magnitude
Speaker 0: earthquake and tsunami, Japan shut down all fifty
Speaker 0: four of its nuclear power stations, including Kashiwazaki,
Speaker 0: Kariba. The plant has experienced troubles before Fukushima.
Speaker 0: In two thousand seven, it was shut down
Speaker 0: for twenty one months after a magnitude six
Speaker 0: point six earthquake caused small radiation leaks and
Speaker 0: fires. And then more recently in twenty twenty
Speaker 0: one, regulators effectively banned the plant from restarting
Speaker 0: due to security breaches and falsified safety inspections
Speaker 0: by its operators, Tokyo Electric Power Company. It's
Speaker 0: the same company that ran the Fukushima plant.
Speaker 0: So Japan's energy landscape has kinda gone undergone
Speaker 0: significant changes since this Fukushima disaster. Before two
Speaker 0: thousand eleven, the nuclear reactors provided around thirty
Speaker 0: percent of the country's electricity. And since then,
Speaker 0: Japan basically has had to rely on imported
Speaker 0: fossil fuels. So that that makes about sixty
Speaker 0: seven percent of their power generation coming from
Speaker 0: coal and gas imports and which will cost
Speaker 0: them about ten point seven trillion dollars, last
Speaker 0: year alone or ten point seven trillion yen.
Speaker 0: Excuse me. That's a magnitude of difference. Sixty
Speaker 0: eight billion dollars. In February twenty twenty five,
Speaker 0: Japan's government approved a new strategic energy plan
Speaker 0: that for the first time since Fukushima removed
Speaker 0: language about minimizing nuclear dependence and instead called
Speaker 0: for making maximum use of existing nuclear plants.
Speaker 0: This policy shift aims to double new double
Speaker 0: nuclear power share in Japan's electricity mix from
Speaker 0: ten percent to twenty percent by twenty forty,
Speaker 0: driven by rising energy demand from AI data
Speaker 0: centers and the need to reduce reliance on
Speaker 0: expensive fossil fuel imports while meeting climate commitments.
Speaker 0: Man. You know? And from my understanding, most
Speaker 0: most people are against the reactor coming back
Speaker 0: on, especially the locals. Oh, yeah. Here it
Speaker 0: is. A prefectural survey published in October showed
Speaker 0: that sixty one percent of local resident residents
Speaker 0: believe conditions for a restart have not been
Speaker 0: met. Nearly seventy percent expressed concerns about TEPCO's
Speaker 0: ability to operate the plant safely. And this
Speaker 0: is literally because of their, you know, falsified
Speaker 0: safety inspections, the the the failure of, two
Speaker 0: thousand eleven when the, when the tsunami hit
Speaker 0: back then. I'm not sure how many of
Speaker 0: you guys remember that, but I think they
Speaker 0: are getting to a point where they they
Speaker 0: don't have a choice. They need to turn
Speaker 0: them back on with all the AI stuff
Speaker 0: that's starting to come into play. One of
Speaker 0: the most popular ads I always see on
Speaker 0: Abima is, they have this app called CookieChat,
Speaker 0: and it's literally your personal AI boyfriend or
Speaker 0: girlfriend on your app. And, you know, I
Speaker 0: think we've all heard, historically about Japan's problems
Speaker 0: with, you know, the children or or, like,
Speaker 0: having children and the generation of otakus and
Speaker 0: whatnot that have further dropped the birth rates
Speaker 0: in Japan. And now we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 0: AI chatbots that are designed as dating tools.
Speaker 0: You know, I I find that really concerning,
Speaker 0: but it it would be it'll be interesting
Speaker 0: to kinda see how they they they relaunch
Speaker 0: this going into, the next fifteen years. So
Speaker 0: definitely keep an eye on this one and
Speaker 0: keep you guys posted, but that's all I
Speaker 0: got for you guys tonight. Really long show.
Speaker 0: I didn't really expect to go go this
Speaker 0: long tonight, but, hey, thanks for hanging out
Speaker 0: if you guys are here up until now.
Speaker 0: Happy happy New Year to those of you
Speaker 0: that are listening, still in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 0: And for those of you in twenty twenty
Speaker 0: six, I hope, your New Year went well.
Speaker 0: And I hope, if you guys do end
Speaker 0: up setting yourself a New Year resolution, which
Speaker 0: I'm not I haven't met many people this
Speaker 0: year that have that have told me that
Speaker 0: they're doing them. I asked a lot of
Speaker 0: my customers, not a lot of people doing
Speaker 0: them. So don't feel obligated, but it is
Speaker 0: a time of change, real real good time
Speaker 0: to to take a look at yourself, self
Speaker 0: reflect, and, you know, get your life in
Speaker 0: order if it's not. But have an amazing
Speaker 0: New Year, folks, and a great night. Hopefully,
Speaker 0: next year, we can be a little more
Speaker 0: consistent for you folks with delivering on the
Speaker 0: shows, but thanks for tuning in regardless. Have