The Tech Jawn

The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to ban non-compete agreements for most employees allowing workers to switch jobs or start their own businesses more easily. A Baltimore area gym teacher has been arrested for using AI to make a deep fake recording of his principal making racist and antisemitic comments. Gunshot detection system ShotSpotter keeps collecting data and notifying police after its contracts with cities have ended. And the bill that could impose a TikTok ban if it’s parent company Bytedance doesn’t divest its U.S. interest is about to be signed into law. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It appears that a lot of folks repeatedly sign up and cancel streaming services based on there being content on them we want to watch, and, they have a name for us. Serial Churners. The potential TikTok ban is picking up steam again as a revised bill mandating TikTok parent company ByteDance divest its US interest in the social media platform passes the House of Representatives. A court ruled that the police can compel some suspects to unlock their phones with a thumbprint in some cases. And schools would like to ban phones in class, but, parents ain’t really trying to hear that. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hybrid work appears to be here to stay. Millennials are making it clear that they have no intention of returning to the office 5 days per week. Artificial Intelligence will allow artists to perform digitally long after they’ve passed away. The bigger question is how will the content be licensed and distributed. X may start charging new users a small fee to be able to post, reply to, and like content on the platform to combat spam and bots. And fake footage of Iran’s attack on Israel started going viral within moments of actual events. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New York City’s city governance chatbot instructs citizens to break the law in some cases and government officials are a bit miffed journalists are telling the public about it. A University of North Georgia student says she was falsely accused of using AI to write a paper when she in fact only used Grammarly to spell-check it at the suggestion of her college professors. A Washington State Lottery interactive web app was pulled down after it used AI to place a woman’s headshot on an image of a topless woman in bed. And Meta’s AI-based Image generator appears to have a really hard time creating images of East Asian men and women with people of other ethnicities. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences illustrates how AI fails to detect depression signs in social media posts by Black Americans as compared to their white counterparts. Joel Bervell, a.k.a., the Medical Mythbuster, has been saving lives by tackling racial and gender disparities in healthcare via social media. X tests and confirms plans for new Not Safe for Work (NSFW) Communities that may have it competing with sites like Only Fans. And New York City is starting a gun scanning program in subways even though the CEO of the company whose technology is being used says it is a bad idea. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. Department of Justice and 15 states accuse Apple of monopolizing the smartphone market in a landmark antitrust lawsuit. Online recruiting site Glassdoor abruptly changed its terms of service and has started adding users’ personally identifiable information to their profiles without consent. Florida Governor Ron Desantis signs a bill preventing children under 14 from signing up for social media accounts And are screenless AI devices like the CES hit Rabbit a solution looking for a problem? Maybe, but, the $199 price tag makes it not matter so much. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Federal Government is really pushing hard for TikTok to be sold. There is overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, The President will sign a bill if it comes across his desk, and the full court press is on in the Senate. Apple is in talks with Google to let Gemini Power AI features on the upcoming iPhone. The Don Lemon Show having its distribution contract canceled by Elon Musk may have done more for the show than if everything had gone off without a hitch. And Pittsburgh-based Black Tech Nation Ventures just closed on a $50 million fund to make the city a haven for Black technologists. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Congress and the Whitehouse appear to be for real for real contemplating banning TikTok in the US if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell the social media platform to a company based outside of China. Trump supporters attempt to swoon Black voters with AI-generated images of President Trump surrounded by Black people. Will Black Twitter watch the Black Twitter documentary? That we don’t know. We do know that Black folks are going to keep calling it Black Twitter regardless if Twitter is now called X. And most teens aren’t worried at all about their social media use. Did we actually think they would be? Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Microsoft’s Copilot calls itself the Joker and suggests self-harm to a Meta data scientist. Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6000 Black workers for racial discrimination at its Fremont, CA, plant. Apple was hit with first-ever EU fine totaling nearly $2 billion five years after Spotify complained about its App Store practices. And humanoid robots named Digit debut in a Seattle Amazon warehouse. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Google hits the pause button on Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after a backlash to it creating historical depictions of white people as people of color. Tyler Perry halts plans of his $800 million studio expansion after seeing what could be done with Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generation engine. The FTC has cracked down on H&R Block for making it hard to downgrade tax products and deleting users' data when they do. And Gab’s racist Chatbots have been instructed to deny the Holocaust. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shomax, an African streaming service has dethroned Netflix for top spot in the motherland and all but made Amazon Prime Video quit with its vast library of local content. Many early adopters of the Apple Vision Pro have returned their devices citing reasons from discomfort to a lack of applications Social media platforms that collect vast amounts of information on us and are working out deals to sell it to AI companies to train their algorithms And are AI chatbots used in customer service liable for what they say? Air Canada says no. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meta won’t algorithmically share political content with you in Threads from accounts you don’t already follow. The question is do we trust Meta to determine what content is and is not political? Score is a new dating app conceived at last year's AfroTech and requires you to have a credit score of 675 or better in order to find a match. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seeks a measly $7 trillion for a new AI chip project. And HBCUs could benefit from the CHIPS Act if the federal government adheres to its Section 104 provisions. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Although things aren’t as bad as last year, layoffs at big tech companies are dominating the news. Tech hiring at companies generally not thought of as tech companies, however, can’t seem to happen fast enough. Big tech, particularly, social media companies was on trial last week. CEO’s from Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord testified before Congress, and let's just say that things were… performative… And we’re joined by the Larmarr Wilson, a.k.a. The CEO of Unboxings. Larmar picked up an Apple Vision Pro last Friday and stopped by to give us his first impressions and tell us what he thinks. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apple announced plans for alternative iPhone and iPad app stores in the EU, but, developers still feel some kind of way. Should linear television be concerned about live events moving to streaming platforms like Netflix and Peacock? Google Deepmind proposes a new AI to assist doctors with wellness checks. And Black Twitter is not bothered by all the things antithetical to Black culture on X. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fujitsu and the UK Postal Service knew about bugs in Fujitsu software that sent UK postal workers to jail from the time when the Postal Service started using it. Apple sold between 160,000 and 180,000 Vision Pro devices over the weekend and analysts believe Apple could sell as many as half a million units in 2024. The Police are using DNA to create 3-D sketches of what a suspect might look like and running the results through facial recognition software. And Apple has agreed to let developers use 3rd party payment processors outside of the App Store, but, still wants a 27% service charge for the privilege. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meta will stop treating teens like adults by curbing harmful material and reducing unwanted interactions from their Facebook and Instagram timelines. Peacock’s AFC Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins is the most viewed live-stream event in U.S. history. OpenAI removes military application limits, bans the use of its tools in creating political ads, and prohibits the creation of GPT “girlfriends. And we spotlight Chazz Sims, a member of Forbe’s 30 Under 30 in 2021, and CEO and founder of Wise Systems, a logistic firm that has raised over $73 million. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Consumer Electronics Show, the largest tech show in the world kicks off this week and we’re excited about all the announcements, especially the things that actually exist. Apple officially announced the pre-order and launch dates of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset and guest host TechSavvyDiva is contemplating getting one. The Black tech talent gap is widening and it could cost Black households $350 billion by 2030. And post Geroge Floyd murder DEI initiatives at big tech companies had about a three-year run. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey Folks, Robb Dunewood from The Tech Jawn here. Let me first wish everyone a Happy New Year and let you know that the crew from the Tech Jawn is off this week with our normal recording day falling on Monday. We didn’t want your feeds to be empty so we’re doing a feed drop of @BrothaTech’s and @TechSavvyDiva’s SnobOS Podcast. In this clip, Terrance and Nica give you the lowdown on the new Apple Hotness that came out in 2023. We’ll be back with a new live episode of the Tech Jawn next Monday, January 8th, so, until we meet again in a week’s time... Peace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In most of this episode of The Tech Jawn, we’ll be talking to our featured guest, but before we get to the interview we discuss another case of facial recognition misidentifying a person of color leading to their wrongful arrest. In our interview, we talk with Lamarr Wilson, the unofficial “CEO of Tech Unboxings” and Lifestyle Entertainer and Influencer with over 3 million followers. Lamarr tells us about his journey to becoming a prolific content creator, how he decided to forgo long-form content for short-form vertical video, and leaves us with tips on how to become a content creator and ultimately get sponsored by brands. Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A DEI lead at Facebook has admitted to embezzling 4 million dollars in a scheme that involved fake expense reports, payments via CashApp, and all kinds of easily “firgureoutable” types of fraud. Elon Musk has declared that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives need to die and has even equated DEI to being a different type of discrimination. A Cox Media Group subsidiary claims the company can listen to ambient sound via device microphones and can market to customers based on the data it hears. And, Black Employee Group presidents at Nvidea warn the CEO that work the company is doing in AI could harm underserved communities... Link to Show Notes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.