- Julian Assange; Google Deepmind; Fusion
Plasma and facial recognition databases.
That's just a few of this week's tech
stories, and this is SnapMunk's Weekly Tech Feed.
 
- I'm Devin Greene 
- And I'm Eric Hargrove
- And this week's top story is
Julian Assange. His internet was cut by
the Ecuadorian government after pressure
from the US. 
- Right.
- This comes after
two or more very high-profile leaks and
directly involving Democratic leadership.
- Right, exactly. And so those two leaks
actually... We've got first the DNC leak
that leaked and showed information
around the suppression of Bernie Sanders
campaign, right. And now most recently
we've got John Podesta's emails. Now if you
don't know John, he is Clinton's campaign
chair, and his emails actually kind of
show how the Clinton party flip-flops on
important topics.
- Now whether or not
that's important information for the
public to know is up for debate, but
they're claiming that by releasing all
this information without any editing
whatsoever, you know that's what WikiLeaks
does, they're endangering American
people. Where's the line there?
- Well, I think that the line is really clear
where it's drawn, and
let's take a look at what
WikiLeaks is all about, right.
WikiLeaks two tenants: 1) Releasing
information that's non-redacted. Number
two is a safe haven for whistleblowers
to actually impart information for the
public.
- Versus Snowden who takes the
leaks, releases them to a journalist to make
that assessment themselves.
- Right, yeah.
And you see how that went for him.
- Right.
- So you're damned if you do and damned if
you don't.
But in either case the thing that's
overlooked is that more information is
going to the public and that's a good
thing.
- Unless that challenges people's privacy
or security.
- Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaking of digital information, Google
Deepmind...
- Now I tried to do my homework
on this one. I read the articles.
I, like maybe a lot of you, don't understand the
significance yet. Explain it to me.
- OK.
It's AI and it's using differentiable
neural computers.
- Differential? Differentiable?
- Differentiable neural computers.
-  Like the blimp.
- No.
- That sounds like a lot of words,
but how does it work?
- OK, you do improv, right?
- Yeah.
- OK, great.
So let's make it simple. Scripted
performance versus improve performance,
right? Scripted performances, let's say is Siri,
and Siri has a script. If it doesn't
find what is on the script, it gets
confused. It gets stumped. 
- I don't know the
answer to that, Eric.
- Exactly! Exactly right. Improve
performance ... Google Deepmind will
find you an answer regardless. There is no
script, just like a human.
- What's the use of an improvising robot?
- OK, well currently its sifting through
Google information like a statistician
would, but in the future it could be ... I
don't know something like better
directions.
- That sounds pretty good,
actually, but we're giving away some
control, right?
- Sure, in the name of
convenience?
- Absolutely.
- So, we have to trust Google to
somehow keep this AI contained so Elon's musk
thing doesn't happen.
- So, technically though...
technically, we have to trust Alphabet,
Google's parent company, and remember
Alphabet didn't take an oath to do no
evil. Just sayin'.
- Ah, loophole!
Yeah that's where we're flying, but I think I get it.
- Good!
- So nuclear fusion hit a
milestone this week. Scientists down at
MIT were able to record the highest
plasma pressure ever.
- Wow!
- What that means
atoms melted down into subatomic
particles, are sent around in this
donut-shaped capsule and have to be
contained with magnetic fields because
nothing can contain this reaction, it's
so hot. And the whole thing's going to melt it
down.
- Really? Well, clearly
they haven't got it perfected, but even
though ... right?
The fusion has been the holy grail of
clean energy for the past, what, 50 years and
right now just keeping it contained for a
short period of time without it leaking
is actually an achievement.
- Well, it's definitely challenging. I mean,
what you're essentially trying to do
with fusion is contain the power of the
Sun, Sunny D style. It's like trying to
use a paper bag to store your lava. Like...
infusion is what happens inside of a
star. It is safer than fission, though.
- OK.
- Fission's associated with Three Mile
Island, Hiroshima. That's the danger of
a snowball effect creating this
radioactive mess. With fusion, when a
fusion reactor shuts down, the
fusion reaction itself
shuts down too, so there's a
built-in failsafe there.
- Got it. So how
much would something like this cost?
- The French created a fusion reactor for
$30 billion. The MIT one I think was last
around there.
- Got it. So $30 billion for
something that doesn't even turn on a
light and leaks all over the place. Right?
How about we use $30 billion
on solar next time?
How about that? Because last time I
checked, solar panels don't leak, they
don't melt, and they don't cause cancer.
I'm just sayin'.
- We like what we can't have.
And we can't have time to talk
about every tech issue.
- Right.
- Which is
what brings us to honorable mentions.
- Honorable mentions!
- Honorable mentions!
- Honrable mention number one: a comprehensive report states
that you may actually be one of fifty
percent of Americans that are on the
government's facial-recognition database.
- Yep, yeah I'm one. I'm one.
I went down there, did my face, did my
fingers, spent the night. Yeah, it was nice.
- Oh, that's great. So you might be
interested in honorable mention number
two: a wine glass technology that allows
you to drink your sorrows straight from
the bottle.
- How classy!
- Yeah! Well that's it for Weekly Tech Feed.
- Yeah, make sure you like. Make sure you
subscribe. 
- And make sure you comment
and either one of us will get to
ya! Promise.
- Was that your pause?
- Yeah, that was.
