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In this episode of PNC Tech Beat, we cover lots of news about wood chips, flood waters, and more. Are we an Avatar The Last Airbender podcast? No, that’s Anime Beat territory.
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In August 2023, MindGeek rebranded as Aylo so its hedge fund could carry its sexy burdens
Wood chips can be turned into graphite, says New Zealand company CarbonScrape
Berlin techno gets recognition by an educational and cultural sector of the United Nations.
TikTok’s future in the US isn’t looking so good, with hard feelings flaring between Congress and China.
Flood water can be a good thing for Liverpool City. That’s what Mersey Tidal Power hopes for.
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What is Pondering Nerdcast?
Feed your nerd with the Pondering Nerdcast. Where talk about everything nerd under the sun.
Hello, and welcome to PNC Tech Beat, where we bring you interesting technological news occurrences not usually covered in all the other outlets. We also cover an Apple and a Meta occasionally, of course. Anything we find exciting, we're happy to share with our listeners.
Mekesia Brown:First up, we have PornHub content being denied to Texas residents due to an age verification law being upheld last week. You may not know it, but in 2023, Louisiana residents couldn't enter PornHub's site without verifying their age through the Louisiana government identification and age verification app.
Mekesia Brown:Texas followed suit in August of 2023 when their age verification law went into effect and impacted PornHub's audience. Now how is this protecting user privacy and security? That's what we wanna know.
Mekesia Brown:Next up, we have some news about wood chips. New Zealand company CarbonScrape can turn wood chips into graphite without burning them.
Mekesia Brown:They use a method called thermocatalytic graphitization that makes the wood chips into charcoal and then the charcoal becomes a biographite. Very cool. Graphite is needed for batteries, including batteries for electric vehicles. This is a game changer.
Mekesia Brown:Not directly related to technology news, but it's what many technologists will love to hear.
Mekesia Brown:We learned about the well deserved recognition the Berlin techno scenes getting from its latest admirer, UNESCO. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has national cultural heritage lists, and Berlin techno is now on it. If Berlin music heads could travel across the world to a Jamaican NYC teen girl's sphere of influence, damn right, it's impactful.
Mekesia Brown:Pivoting to TikTok, the bipartisan effort of the House bill to sell the video sharing platform or ban it passed on Wednesday, March 15th. A number of potential buyers like Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple are already in some conversations.
Mekesia Brown:But if it goes like Oracle's 2020 attempt to buy TikTok, it will face CCP legal woes... If China doesn't pull the app from the US outright. The sale or divestiture of TikTok involves technology export, which must follow China's regulatory approval procedures. The Chinese government will make a decision in accordance with the law. This 2023 statement from China's Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting, before the TikTok hearing before Congress. Finally, we wanna talk about the great work between Liverpool City in the UK and the renewable energy company, Mersey Title Power.
Mekesia Brown:Liverpool's utility company claims it can power 1,000,000 homes with floodwaters from the Bay of Liverpool and help the city attain zero net carbon emission by 2040. I'm keeping an eye on this one because I love to see it.
Mekesia Brown:So can I say some more about PornHub? PornHub's owner, MindGeek, has a new persona as Aylo. In its heyday, the MindGeek website looked like any other web technology company site, offering SEO, search, and other services.
Mekesia Brown:But they owned porn. I mean, they OWNED it!: PornHub, RedTube, YouPorn, XTube, Digital Playground, men.com, Mofos, Nutaku, Reality Kings, Shawn Cody, Twisties, WhyNotBi.com, and more. I may or may not have listed these to give you new sites to check out, but, yeah, amazing portfolio. Right?
Mekesia Brown:And now it's owned by Aylo, a tax dodging hedge fund dealing with MindGeek's issues like Texas. The Kids Online Safety Act is obviously on Congress' minds since they subjected a number of social media CEOs to probing hearings on what the executives plan to do to protect young users.
Mekesia Brown:Did you find these stories as interesting as us? Come back for even more interesting news on PNC Tech Beat.
Lance John:This has been an exciting segment from the Pondering Nerdcast. Make sure to subscribe and follow us so you never miss an episode. We've got all sorts of fascinating topics to explore and share with you, and we can't wait to bring you along on the adventure. Thanks for tuning in.