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Tech Tales: Deepfakes, Drones, and DoorDashery
Description: In this episode of PNC Tech Beat, we cover lots of news about NASA and ESA, Wendy’s, Wing, and DoorDash, Fortnite’s gifts from Grumpygran1948, Kate Middleton, the end of ACP, and more.
- (00:00) - Intro
- (00:19) - RIP Affordable Connectivity Program 2024
- (00:48) - Kate family’s deepfake photo rumor
- (01:41) - Grumpygran1948
- (02:15) - Wendy’s DoorDash to Drones
- (02:46) - We’re Polluting MARS now?
- (03:44) - Outro
Links
RIP Affordable Connectivity Program 2024
[ https://www.getinternet.gov/apply?ln=RW5nbGlzaA%3D%3D ] [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/27/fact-sheet-vice-president-harris-announces-progress-in-lowering-internet-costs-for-families-funding-to-expand-high-speed-internet-access/ ]
Kate family’s deepfake photo rumor
[ TO LEARN MORE https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/resources/trainings/verification/ ]
Grumpygran1948
[ https://www.twitch.tv/grumpygran1948 ] [ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xd82?src_origin=BBCS_BBC ]
Wendy’s DoorDash to Drones
[ https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/doordash-and-wing-announce-drone-delivery-pilot-in-the-us ][ Announcements ]
We’re Polluting MARS now?
Creators & Guests
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 an Apple and a Meta occasionally, of course. Anything we find exciting, we're happy to share with our listeners.
Mekesia Brown:The Biden Harris Administration contended with many hard decisions directly impacting American lives. One example, handling internet cost benefits to low income residents with the stop of the Affordable Connectivity Program.
Mekesia Brown:It's not clear if it will be relaunched, but companies are not waiting and are pulling their end of the promise to give discounts for internet costs. 16,000,000 American homes were signed up for ACP, almost double the number from 2022.
Mekesia Brown:An official Buckingham Palace photo of the Princess of Wales with her children was believed to be fake. This led to many discussions about what to look for to determine whether a picture is a hyper realistic fake or if it's legit. This is a great opportunity to learn more to be fooled less.
Mekesia Brown:Now some obvious signs of AI-generated photos are any of its subjects' appendages, a model's skin texture (or an eerie lack of it), any breaking of obvious laws of physics or facts of time or history not matching up with what's happening in the picture. The Google News Initiative project trains people for free on using their image verification tools if you want software to do this detective work. Head to the link in the show notes to learn more. Promise, we get no perks in your clicking it. We just wanna share because even though deepfakes could be hilarious, they could also be frighteningly deceiving to enough of the masses to be misleading.
Mekesia Brown:BBC Scotland recently interviewed Cath, aka GrumpyGran1948, a lover of Fortnite known for her non-traditional identities according to video gaming stereotypes (like being age 75, for example). Cath made her grandson eat his words when they both learned of her notoriety. Over time, the gamer met others worth playing with instead of the rotting brainers ever present in gaming culture. Even famous streamer SypherPK acknowledged how cool she is. Catch GrumpyGran1948 on Twitch for some Fortnite fun.
Mekesia Brown:It'll be cloudy with a chance of meat, in my hungry dreams and also in the sky with the DoorDash and Wing-partnered drone delivery pilot program. Because DoorDash has a Robotics and Automation Initiative, we're going to see this in the near future. Will fast food be in your forecast? Well, if you're in Christiansburg, Virginia, yes. Just choose this option on the checkout page of your order to receive the Wing drone within 30 minutes.
Mekesia Brown:But if you're not in Virginia, you can keep an eye on DoorDash's announcements webpage.
Mekesia Brown:According to scientific guesstimates, there are over 100,000,000 pieces of space debris floating around the earth right now. Do you also hear a terrific business opportunity for environmental tech? Perhaps you will after learning about how scientists recently found a broken rotor blade lost by a Mars helicopter. It was spotted by the technology on top of the Mars Rover SuperCam.
Mekesia Brown:The SuperCam has a component known as the RMI or Remote Micro-Imager. NASA explained how the RMI is “Able to spot a softball from nearly a mile away. The RMI allows scientists to take images of details from a long distance. It also provides fine details of nearby targets zapped by SuperCam's laser." The masked unit, including the RMI used for these images, was developed and built by several laboratories of the CNRS, the French research center, and French universities under the contracting authority of CNES, the French space agency.
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.